Vista, RAID, slipstreaming and a lost weekend.
-
My father-in-law gave me his "old" laptop[^] over the weekend, and I figured I'd throw Vista on it - except that it wasn't quite as easy as that... First of all, I couldn't actually back up his hard drive as Ghost kept quitting with no useful error message. I finally figured out that my external USB drive was bad, replaced it with a new one and got everything backed up. (Curiously, if I selected "Backup my hard disk", it would work just fine, but created a useless image file. If I selected "Copy my hard disk" it would fail every single time!) So, I finally got it backed up on Sunday morning after fiddling with it all day Saturday, and I moved to phase II - installing Vista. And that's when the real fun started... The laptop actually has 2 hard drives and a hardware RAID solution (Intel Matrix Storage Manager). The current OS was using a RAID 0 configuration, so that it appeared as though there was only one hard drive. So, I dropped the RAID, giving me two separate drives (and destroying the existing intallation) on which to install Vista. Of course, the RAID drivers aren't recognized by Vista, so off I go to Intel's website, only to find out that the version of the RAID controller in the laptop does not actually have any Vista drivers! I guess that I'll need to update the firmware before I can install Vista, but the only software to do the upgrade runs under Windows! :doh: So, I think to myself, "Ok, I'll just re-install XP, update the firmware and then install Vista. Easy!". Unfortunately, the XP install didn't recognize the RAID either, and kept telling me that there were no hard disks in the computer. I press F6, to install the 3rd party drivers and that doesn't work as the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Of course, Vista allows you to insert a USB drive from which to install the drivers during the installation process, but there weren't any drivers for the version of the firmware and I didn't have a floppy drive to install the correct drivers under XP. So, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm looking at a totally useless laptop. I don't even have the recovery disks for it, and I can see no way to actually install anything on it. (I tried a couple of Linux distros too, but they both locked up during the boot process). Then I have the great idea of slipstreaming the drivers into an XP installation, and after reading
-
My father-in-law gave me his "old" laptop[^] over the weekend, and I figured I'd throw Vista on it - except that it wasn't quite as easy as that... First of all, I couldn't actually back up his hard drive as Ghost kept quitting with no useful error message. I finally figured out that my external USB drive was bad, replaced it with a new one and got everything backed up. (Curiously, if I selected "Backup my hard disk", it would work just fine, but created a useless image file. If I selected "Copy my hard disk" it would fail every single time!) So, I finally got it backed up on Sunday morning after fiddling with it all day Saturday, and I moved to phase II - installing Vista. And that's when the real fun started... The laptop actually has 2 hard drives and a hardware RAID solution (Intel Matrix Storage Manager). The current OS was using a RAID 0 configuration, so that it appeared as though there was only one hard drive. So, I dropped the RAID, giving me two separate drives (and destroying the existing intallation) on which to install Vista. Of course, the RAID drivers aren't recognized by Vista, so off I go to Intel's website, only to find out that the version of the RAID controller in the laptop does not actually have any Vista drivers! I guess that I'll need to update the firmware before I can install Vista, but the only software to do the upgrade runs under Windows! :doh: So, I think to myself, "Ok, I'll just re-install XP, update the firmware and then install Vista. Easy!". Unfortunately, the XP install didn't recognize the RAID either, and kept telling me that there were no hard disks in the computer. I press F6, to install the 3rd party drivers and that doesn't work as the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Of course, Vista allows you to insert a USB drive from which to install the drivers during the installation process, but there weren't any drivers for the version of the firmware and I didn't have a floppy drive to install the correct drivers under XP. So, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm looking at a totally useless laptop. I don't even have the recovery disks for it, and I can see no way to actually install anything on it. (I tried a couple of Linux distros too, but they both locked up during the boot process). Then I have the great idea of slipstreaming the drivers into an XP installation, and after reading
Miszou wrote:
and I figured I'd throw Vista on it
That's where I would have stopped, slapped myself, and been happy with a laptop running XP! ;) Marc
-
Miszou wrote:
and I figured I'd throw Vista on it
That's where I would have stopped, slapped myself, and been happy with a laptop running XP! ;) Marc
Marc Clifton wrote:
That's where I would have stopped, slapped myself, and been happy with a laptop running XP!
I'm happy with mine running Vista.
My head asplode!
Calling all South African developers! Your participation in this local dev community will be mutually beneficial, to you and us.
-
My father-in-law gave me his "old" laptop[^] over the weekend, and I figured I'd throw Vista on it - except that it wasn't quite as easy as that... First of all, I couldn't actually back up his hard drive as Ghost kept quitting with no useful error message. I finally figured out that my external USB drive was bad, replaced it with a new one and got everything backed up. (Curiously, if I selected "Backup my hard disk", it would work just fine, but created a useless image file. If I selected "Copy my hard disk" it would fail every single time!) So, I finally got it backed up on Sunday morning after fiddling with it all day Saturday, and I moved to phase II - installing Vista. And that's when the real fun started... The laptop actually has 2 hard drives and a hardware RAID solution (Intel Matrix Storage Manager). The current OS was using a RAID 0 configuration, so that it appeared as though there was only one hard drive. So, I dropped the RAID, giving me two separate drives (and destroying the existing intallation) on which to install Vista. Of course, the RAID drivers aren't recognized by Vista, so off I go to Intel's website, only to find out that the version of the RAID controller in the laptop does not actually have any Vista drivers! I guess that I'll need to update the firmware before I can install Vista, but the only software to do the upgrade runs under Windows! :doh: So, I think to myself, "Ok, I'll just re-install XP, update the firmware and then install Vista. Easy!". Unfortunately, the XP install didn't recognize the RAID either, and kept telling me that there were no hard disks in the computer. I press F6, to install the 3rd party drivers and that doesn't work as the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive. Of course, Vista allows you to insert a USB drive from which to install the drivers during the installation process, but there weren't any drivers for the version of the firmware and I didn't have a floppy drive to install the correct drivers under XP. So, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm looking at a totally useless laptop. I don't even have the recovery disks for it, and I can see no way to actually install anything on it. (I tried a couple of Linux distros too, but they both locked up during the boot process). Then I have the great idea of slipstreaming the drivers into an XP installation, and after reading
Sounds like an easy upgrade to me. I was trying to convert an old IBM ThinkPad 240 that's spare into a Linux test box. Problem is, it has no built in CDROM. It has only one USB 1.x port. The bios is so old it won't boot from USB devices. I have a USB floppy drive - but guess what it won't boot off that either. Eventually I removed the HDD, put it into another laptop that can boot from CDROM etc. and was able to format the HDD with a small DOS partition. However I wasn't able to get the USB drivers in DOS to load up - so I wasn't able install anything anyway. Time to eBay it I think..
'Howard
-
Sounds like an easy upgrade to me. I was trying to convert an old IBM ThinkPad 240 that's spare into a Linux test box. Problem is, it has no built in CDROM. It has only one USB 1.x port. The bios is so old it won't boot from USB devices. I have a USB floppy drive - but guess what it won't boot off that either. Eventually I removed the HDD, put it into another laptop that can boot from CDROM etc. and was able to format the HDD with a small DOS partition. However I wasn't able to get the USB drivers in DOS to load up - so I wasn't able install anything anyway. Time to eBay it I think..
'Howard
IIRC you can copy the XP cd onto the HD and install from the commandline if you can make it bootable in dos. I recently did the same with a 2k laptop.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
-
IIRC you can copy the XP cd onto the HD and install from the commandline if you can make it bootable in dos. I recently did the same with a 2k laptop.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
I suppose I could - problem is I don't want XP, I wanted a linux variant.. suppose I could copy that over... nahh too much effort to try it all again - thanks for the idea though
'Howard
-
I suppose I could - problem is I don't want XP, I wanted a linux variant.. suppose I could copy that over... nahh too much effort to try it all again - thanks for the idea though
'Howard
-
Have you tried doing a network install with Linux? That laptop HAS to have a nic in it right?
Guess what, no it doesn't - this is pre-Wifi. I could plug in my USB wireless lan adapter.. but of course then I'd have to install drivers.. back to square one!!
'Howard
-
I suppose I could - problem is I don't want XP, I wanted a linux variant.. suppose I could copy that over... nahh too much effort to try it all again - thanks for the idea though
'Howard
stick its drive in your bootable cd laptop and copy files/start the install there? At this point you'd probably be much better off asking on a *nix board instead of here.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
-
Guess what, no it doesn't - this is pre-Wifi. I could plug in my USB wireless lan adapter.. but of course then I'd have to install drivers.. back to square one!!
'Howard
I figured you didn't have WiFi. I was talking about a WIRED Ethernet port. I would assume if it has USB that it would have a RJ45 Ethernet jack on it. (Yeah I know! Never assume!) Does it have a PCM/CIA (expansion) slot? If so, try and find an old PCM/CIA network card like a D-Link or one of the old Xircom cards or any thing that isn't to off brand, throw that in and most current liunx distros will have a network install option and drivers to almost all WIRED PCM/CIA cards. If it doesn't have either and RJ45 jack OR a PCM/CIA expansion slot, and it has USB, thats one strange laptop you have there! Good luck! :-D
-
I figured you didn't have WiFi. I was talking about a WIRED Ethernet port. I would assume if it has USB that it would have a RJ45 Ethernet jack on it. (Yeah I know! Never assume!) Does it have a PCM/CIA (expansion) slot? If so, try and find an old PCM/CIA network card like a D-Link or one of the old Xircom cards or any thing that isn't to off brand, throw that in and most current liunx distros will have a network install option and drivers to almost all WIRED PCM/CIA cards. If it doesn't have either and RJ45 jack OR a PCM/CIA expansion slot, and it has USB, thats one strange laptop you have there! Good luck! :-D
Nope, no fixed RJ45 ethernet either! It does have a PC-card aka PCMCIA slot, and I have an old 3com network pc-card for this. However I don't think I can boot off the card as the BIOS won't support this.
'Howard
-
stick its drive in your bootable cd laptop and copy files/start the install there? At this point you'd probably be much better off asking on a *nix board instead of here.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.
I guess.. but as I said it means dismantling the laptop, reinstalling in another laptop, etc. - just can't be bothered now!
'Howard