How to install from USB without BIOS support.

[tendemo]

Hi, I want to install a new windows installation on a laptop that doesnt support USB booting. My CD ROM has gone bad, so I really want to do a USB installation.
All the installation files are on the USB. What should I do next to launch the installation from there.
Thanks

[Siddharth Rout]

Why don't you write the files to a CD and then boot from it.

Use nlite, if you want to...

Here is the link...

http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

[JuggaloBrotha]

Hi, I want to install a new windows installation on a laptop that doesnt support USB booting. My CD ROM has gone bad, so I really want to do a USB installation.
All the installation files are on the USB. What should I do next to launch the installation from there.
Thanks

If the laptop doesn't support booting from a usb device then a flash drive certainly wont work.

If the cd burner in your computer has gone bad, wouldn't you want to replace it anyways?

In the mean time, take the laptop HDD out, plug it into either (a) an external sata dock (b) an external HDD enclosure (c) a laptop sata to usb adapter

then connect it to your computer, you can use the Disk Manager to format/re partition the drive as needed. Put dos on the root of the drive and copy the install files to a folder somewhere. If all's done correctly, the laptop should boot into the DOS then you can run the OS install from there. Remove DOS when the OS is installed.

[tendemo]

Hey guys thanks, I actually thought I could get around that way however I did just as JuggaloBrotha advised. Where I am from.............. it took me 3 days to get the right dock !
Cheers

[Lord Orwell]

as a side note: How old is this laptop? You also had the option of booting from lan, if supported. You have to install a server to connect to on another computer, but some OSes (such as win2k server, osx, some linux distros, etc) come with the functionality.

Finally, your easiest solution here would have been to create a folder on your hard drive to copy all the install files onto from the usb stick while running in the old os. Then running the install program from inside the old os and telling it to do a clean install and not an upgrade.