Notebooks Installing XP onto Latitude LS

Hi guys, I'm really stuck and need some help.

I'm trying to install XP onto a Dell Latitude LS. I have an external CD and Floppy Drive, the media cable fro the parallel port to the drive, XP Floppy Boot Disks, and the XP CD.

I have tried booting from the CD but no luck, hence the boot disks. I have ran the boot disks until the usual 'press enter to install XP', at which point i disconnect the floppy, connect the CD and then press enter. At this point it says that the CD-Rom drive cannot be found. I have tried different XP CD's, External CD-Roms but still no luck.

Can anyone help me because im just about to explode!!

Thanks

BFISH

 

Please don't make duplicate threads. If you start another, all of them will be removed.

Thanks.

 

Apologies, Didnt know which to put it in.

 

The Laptop won't recognise the CD because it thinks you have the floppydrive plugged in. You can't hot swap them sadly.

The Dell install/recovery CDs have the 'bootdisk' functionality built into them. A normal install cd doesnt work.

 

I have a re-installation cd so will try that again, although have tried it once.

Any ideas as to the parallel settings in the BIOS, it states Bi-directional, output only, ECP and EPP. Also i can set IRQ's in some modes.

Thanks for your help Atomic

 

Leave everything as the defaults.

If it works dont play with it

 

have tried it but it doesn't boot from cd. CD is set in BIOS as first boot device. WOndering if there is a way using FDISK and creating a bootable MSDOS partition on the HDD?

 

It's a parallel CD Drive?

All the Dell ones I've seen have plugged in via 'USB' (with an extra bit on the plug so it looks like a square plug) or via a long thin connector.

 

connects via a cable that the floppy connects to, long thin and the other end is for serial.

Any ideas?

 

I know this is old but...

Yeah Im having the exact same problem. I love this computer but the bios sucks. It doesnt support any usb devices. So, booting from an external usb drive doesnt work. I have an external dvd drive connected by dell's cable which appears to be a form of a external ide cable. On the boot list in the bios it lists, removable media, atapi cd-rom, hdd, network boot.

After putting hdd at the bottom of the list the network boot is the only thing that ever shows up before windows boots. The other options might as well not be there

I dont really care what I boot from Im just trying to get the ability to reinstall the OS.

 

Holy Thread Revival Batman.