<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <title></title> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Patrick Green wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:bea279eb0712101724l2b57e9b2s7283032a89c7053@mail.gmail.com" type="cite">Brian,<br> <br> I hate Windows with a passion, but I went to the nliteos site.  That is a slick little app.  For those who have not used it, you basically get to customize your windows xp image on your hard drive and re burn the thing.  All I have to do is get the right sata drivers, use the nlite tool, burn a new windows install disk..pop it in the vaio and allegedly it will work.  I am beat and really not in the mood to stare at a blue screen right now so I will do this on tuesday morning and let you know how it all works out.  <br> <br> <div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 10, 2007 6:39 PM, Patrick Green <<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:patlgreen@gmail.com">patlgreen@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">None of those fancy floppy drives the laptop.  Okay...so...let's assume we do not have this funky driver issue you are speaking of (I have not actively used windows since 1997 so I know less about windows than any other OS out there-hell, I know SAP better than I know Windows), would the best route be <br> 1. Burning a DOS boot cd<br> 2.  Supporting free software and downloading a copy of Freedos and doing the format c: mbr<br> 3.  Find a windows 98 bootable image for a cd (is there such a critter)<br> <br> Should the above fail, then how do I execute this nliteos plan to circumvent this whole mess? <br> <br> Stupid Sony Hardware.  Had he not has so many issues with the hardware he would have been happy and I would not have to install crap on this piece of crap.<br> <br> <div class="gmail_quote"> <div> <div class="Wj3C7c">On Dec 10, 2007 4:49 PM, Brian Green < <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:greenbrian@gmail.com" target="_blank">greenbrian@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> </div> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div> <div class="Wj3C7c"><br> <div class="gmail_quote"> <div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> <div> <div><br> |<br> | On Dec 10, 2007 4:06 PM, Patrick Green < <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:patlgreen@gmail.com" target="_blank">patlgreen@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br> | > Okay...I know.  Here is the story.  One student at CLC tool the Linux<br> | > challenge since he does not like Vista.  So I removed Vista and Installed <br> | > Gutsy.  Well, he is not a big fan of that either.  So he goes to Wal Mart<br> | > and buys a copy of XP Pro.  Every time he tries to install it on his Sony<br> | > Laptop it tells him the hard drive cannot be found.  So I take it home <br> | > with me and I run gparted to delete the partitions.  I get the same<br> | > error. Okay...fine...run gparted again and partition as a FAT32....still<br> | > no joy. So I go into the R option of XP for repair and enter fixmbr.  And <br> | > still....nothing.   Now, I know BIOS recoignizes the hard drive and I can<br> | > get into it all day long with gparted or..welll...any live CD.  What am I<br> | > missing here?<br> | ><br> | > End of the day I wish he liked the Ubuntu, but this is what he wants and <br> | > I am trying to help facilitate it...ideas?  BTW, Sony VAIO with Duo<br> | > Centrino 4GB RAM...PCG-384L is the Sony model number.<br> <br> </div> </div> If he has one of those things that take that 2.5" disk, I think it is called a <br> floppy drive :p  You can boot a win98 boot disk, and then format the mbr.<br> Another thing could be that his drive is part of a funky sata/ide card that<br> isn't recognized by XP w/o pressing F6 and installing the device drivers for <br> it before you try to install XP.<br> </blockquote> </div> <div><br> I had this thought too.  Just as an aside, I've used the free app nlite  ( <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.nliteos.com" target="_blank"> http://www.nliteos.com </a> ) to slipstream such drivers when I encountered that situation and the machine didn't have a floppy drive.  Nifty app, can do much more as well.<br> <br> Brian Green<br> </div> </div> <br> <br> </div> </div> <div class="Ih2E3d">--<br> Ubuntu-us-chicago mailing list<br> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com" target="_blank">Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com</a><br> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago</a><br> <br> </div> </blockquote> </div> <br> </blockquote> </div> <br> </blockquote> I have had a big problem with this several times. Computers many times have SATA or EIDE controllers that aren't recognized. Is the version of XP he got come with SP2? If not find an XP disk or download it that includes SP2 and make sure it is the same as the license Pro or Home. Then just use the license key he purchased when installing. <br> <br> If it is a problem with it simply mounting the drive use this:<br> <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://ultimatebootcd.com/">http://ultimatebootcd.com/</a><br> <br> It has a lot of partition and file management tools. </body> </html>