Windows HELP - laptop OS installation troubles.

I have a bit of a problem in that the laptop i have just bought second hand has no OS on.

And it doesnt seem to like any of the ones i have tried.
The laptop is a Sony Vaio PCG-C1VE , the small picturrebook model with crusoe processor. I

have the USB floppy drive and the PCMCIA CD Drive.

Windows 2000 (os of choice) hangs when loading files in the blue dos type screen -

ntkrnlmp.exe error code 4.

windows xp hangs also but with a fastfat.sys is corrupt.

windows 95 also gave an error.

windows 98 copied files etc then rebooted, but gave me shed loads of errors regarding

missing files.

Windows ME is what the pc ships with however as luck would have it thats the only version i

dont have!

linux ( red hat / mandrake / lycoris) dont like the pcmcia cd drive.

I dont have the sony restore cds either, which would make my job much easier.

Anyway, i want to get windows 2000 installed on this machine (sony has all drivers etc, it

is supported) but for now i would be happy with ANY OS.

I think i have the following options

1. Get windows ME and try that (mebbe upgrade to 2k from there)
2. Remove HD, put it in another machine and do the win2k dos blue screen copying files, then transfer back to the vaio. This shouls work because it does no hardware detection in this stage?
3. Remove HD and ghost a win2k install from my other machine, and hope it boots whereby i can change all drivers. Most probably will fall over on boot.
4. Try and find the restore cd's from somewhere. Would be easiest solution but i have nowhere to get them from.

Removing the hd is my last option really, its not an easy job. - http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/20010215/sony_C1VE-07.html

I would really like somehelp here guys, i spent all of yesterday trying to get it working.
I can boot of the CD or floppy, and i have made a DOS boot disk with pcmcia drivers, so i cn copy files from cd to hd if neeeded.

HELP

 

At the moment I can only think of 2 things that you could try :

(1). Are you sure there are no bad sectors on the hard drive?

(2). Make sure that you have the latest BIOS/Firmware installed, I have had majour problems on PC's whilst trying to install Windows 2000 and it was all down to the BIOS being out of date.

Oh and have you checked out Sony's website? Don't know if they have any technical support forums etc, it's worth a shot.

Good luck and let us know when and how you solve it.

 

Also try to run memtest if you can.

On a compaq laptop I kept getting errors with all my OS installation processes because one of the ram sticks were messed up totally.

 

copying the install files *might* work. option 3 WILL NOT work. windows will not have the IDE controller driver installed and will not be able to use the hard drive. I tried that option with windows XP.

 

With windows XP, if you install the whole OS and then move it into the new PC, it works.

 

When my soyo mobo died and the aopen one arrived, I though maybe windows will jsut ask for the drivers. It didnt. It wouldnt boot after about 5 trys. I finally found my install CD (otherwise I wouldnt ahve tried all that) and did a repair on my installation. It needed lots drivers.

wouldnt an all new system be even more for windows to handle than just the mobo? maybe windows just hates me

 

sorry .. mispost.

 

id check the ram, ive had issues where an os refuses to install (i tried 95 98 & xp and they all failed). It was down to the ram, soon as i replaced it, everything installed fine!