How to boot Hitachi laptop without an OS

[Dan]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I have a an old Hitachi laptop that my brother formatted only to discover
that one can not (apparently, although it seems hard to believe) boot it
from a cd. We have the CD in it but no floppy. What can we do? I have CD
copies of WIN 98 and XP but obviously this is of no use. Anyone know what I
can do? The machine a Visionbook Pro 7000. I think its an old Pentium 166 or
200 maybe.

TIA
Dan

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> writes:
> I have a an old Hitachi laptop that my brother formatted only to discover
> that one can not (apparently, although it seems hard to believe) boot it
> from a cd. We have the CD in it but no floppy. What can we do? I have CD
> copies of WIN 98 and XP but obviously this is of no use. Anyone know what I
> can do? The machine a Visionbook Pro 7000. I think its an old Pentium 166 or
> 200 maybe.

Remove the hard drive and install it in another machine. Run format/s
to make it bootable to DOS. Copy the window cab files to it. Put the
drive back in the Hitachi and install Windows from the cabs. I've
forgotten precisely how to do that.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Dan wrote:
> I have a an old Hitachi laptop that my brother formatted only to
> discover that one can not (apparently, although it seems hard to
> believe) boot it from a cd. We have the CD in it but no floppy. What
> can we do? I have CD copies of WIN 98 and XP but obviously this is of
> no use. Anyone know what I can do? The machine a Visionbook Pro 7000.
> I think its an old Pentium 166 or 200 maybe.
>
> TIA
> Dan

The Win9x boot disk has the option to set up generic CD support. This
is the typical method for OS installation with a floppy boot. Check the
install CD for a folder ERD (emergency recovery disk), or similar.

Q

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Quaoar wrote:

> Dan wrote:
>> I have a an old Hitachi laptop that my brother formatted only to
>> discover that one can not (apparently, although it seems hard to
>> believe) boot it from a cd. We have the CD in it but no floppy. What
>> can we do? I have CD copies of WIN 98 and XP but obviously this is of
>> no use. Anyone know what I can do? The machine a Visionbook Pro 7000.
>> I think its an old Pentium 166 or 200 maybe.
>>
>> TIA
>> Dan
>
> The Win9x boot disk has the option to set up generic CD support. This
> is the typical method for OS installation with a floppy boot. Check the
> install CD for a folder ERD (emergency recovery disk), or similar.

A boot disk only helps if you have a drive for it.

As for not booting from a CD, the 98 CD is not bootable. The XP is--if the
OP hasn't tried the XP CD he should--that will tell for sure if the machine
can boot from CD. From there, if he has access to a CD burner then he
should be able to make a bootable CD from which he can install 98.

> Q

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Dan]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I have tried to boot from XP and 98. Neither works. The only thing I can
come up wit is swapping the hard drive into a more modern machine but I have
no idea how to get it out. Like many older machines, they did not want the
user swapping the hard drives.

Anyone got any ideas? It has a USB port and a PC card slot. Could these
help?

Dan


"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:csbi7805t1@news3.newsguy.com...
> Quaoar wrote:
>
> > Dan wrote:
> >> I have a an old Hitachi laptop that my brother formatted only to
> >> discover that one can not (apparently, although it seems hard to
> >> believe) boot it from a cd. We have the CD in it but no floppy. What
> >> can we do? I have CD copies of WIN 98 and XP but obviously this is of
> >> no use. Anyone know what I can do? The machine a Visionbook Pro 7000.
> >> I think its an old Pentium 166 or 200 maybe.
> >>
> >> TIA
> >> Dan
> >
> > The Win9x boot disk has the option to set up generic CD support. This
> > is the typical method for OS installation with a floppy boot. Check the
> > install CD for a folder ERD (emergency recovery disk), or similar.
>
> A boot disk only helps if you have a drive for it.
>
> As for not booting from a CD, the 98 CD is not bootable. The XP is--if
the
> OP hasn't tried the XP CD he should--that will tell for sure if the
machine
> can boot from CD. From there, if he has access to a CD burner then he
> should be able to make a bootable CD from which he can install 98.
>
> > Q
>
> --
> --John
> Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
> (was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Anyone got any ideas? It has a USB port and a PC card slot. Could these
>help?

If you don't have BIOS support for booting from CD, you almost
certainly don't have BIOS support for USB, and booting from PCMCIA
_can_ be a nightmare.

Some of the more recent Ghost versions support USB, but you need to
boot them, and now we've come full circle. I suspect you're going to
have to pull the hard drive and do an initial load on some other
machine.

Have you asked Hitachi?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> writes:
> I have tried to boot from XP and 98. Neither works. The only thing I can
> come up wit is swapping the hard drive into a more modern machine but I have
> no idea how to get it out. Like many older machines, they did not want the
> user swapping the hard drives.
>
> Anyone got any ideas? It has a USB port and a PC card slot. Could these
> help?

Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.

 

[Dan]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

How about the network jack? Could I boot off a network or from another
computer?

Dan


<William P.N. Smith> wrote in message
news:e36lu05317po4d8pm5m25jggjl00te9np3@4ax.com...
> "Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Anyone got any ideas? It has a USB port and a PC card slot. Could these
> >help?
>
> If you don't have BIOS support for booting from CD, you almost
> certainly don't have BIOS support for USB, and booting from PCMCIA
> _can_ be a nightmare.
>
> Some of the more recent Ghost versions support USB, but you need to
> boot them, and now we've come full circle. I suspect you're going to
> have to pull the hard drive and do an initial load on some other
> machine.
>
> Have you asked Hitachi?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Dan wrote:

> How about the network jack? Could I boot off a network or from another
> computer?

To boot off the network you have to have a BIOS that supports that. Does
yours? If so, it's a viable option, but if you've never configured a boot
image and a boot server it's going to be an "educational" experience.

> Dan
>
>
> <William P.N. Smith> wrote in message
> news:e36lu05317po4d8pm5m25jggjl00te9np3@4ax.com...
>> "Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >Anyone got any ideas? It has a USB port and a PC card slot. Could these
>> >help?
>>
>> If you don't have BIOS support for booting from CD, you almost
>> certainly don't have BIOS support for USB, and booting from PCMCIA
>> _can_ be a nightmare.
>>
>> Some of the more recent Ghost versions support USB, but you need to
>> boot them, and now we've come full circle. I suspect you're going to
>> have to pull the hard drive and do an initial load on some other
>> machine.
>>
>> Have you asked Hitachi?
>>

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Paul Rubin wrote:

> "Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> writes:
>> I have tried to boot from XP and 98. Neither works. The only thing I can
>> come up wit is swapping the hard drive into a more modern machine but I
>> have no idea how to get it out. Like many older machines, they did not
>> want the user swapping the hard drives.
>>
>> Anyone got any ideas? It has a USB port and a PC card slot. Could these
>> help?
>
> Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.

Floppy doesn't help unless the BIOS allows boot off a USB device. And if it
allowed that it would probably support boot off a CD.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>Paul Rubin wrote:
>> Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.

>Floppy doesn't help unless the BIOS allows boot off a USB device.

Unless there's an option to remove the CD-ROM device and install a
floppy in it's place. Of course, loading the whole OS via floppy is
going to be another exercise in futility...

Maybe there's a floppy drive the connects via a proprietary connector
(or the parallel port?) or something?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

William P.N. Smith wrote:

> "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>Paul Rubin wrote:
>>> Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.
>
>>Floppy doesn't help unless the BIOS allows boot off a USB device.
>
> Unless there's an option to remove the CD-ROM device and install a
> floppy in it's place. Of course, loading the whole OS via floppy is
> going to be another exercise in futility...
>
> Maybe there's a floppy drive the connects via a proprietary connector
> (or the parallel port?) or something?

It looks like there is an interchangeable diskette drive that replaces the
CD drive. Good luck on finding one though.

Learned one thing--I'm never gonna buy a Hitachi computer. Compare the
information you can find about an old Hitachi with the information you can
find about an old IBM and it's clear why IBM makes the big bucks.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Dan wrote:
> I have a an old Hitachi laptop that my brother formatted only to
> discover that one can not (apparently, although it seems hard to
> believe) boot it from a cd. We have the CD in it but no floppy. What
> can we do? I have CD copies of WIN 98 and XP but obviously this is of
> no use. Anyone know what I can do? The machine a Visionbook Pro 7000.
> I think its an old Pentium 166 or 200 maybe.

You're going to _have_ to get a floppy drive for the unit, a USB one should
work as USB/Floppy support is supposed to be universal. Or look for an
internal one on eBay (good luck!).

You're going to want to BOOT the unit from a W98 bootdisk, format /s the HD
with CD support so that when it boots from the HD it will find the internal
CD drive (there are any number of websites that will explain how to do this,
Google is your friend!).

Once you can BOOT the unit from the HD and the drivers for the CD are loaded
you can just run setup/install from the CD.

BTW, that unit _should_ be a PII, probably a 233 or 266MHz, although they
were available up to a PII 300MHz.

http/www.hitachipc.com/notebooks/vbp7000.html

Regards,

James

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"JHEM" <James@ESAD.SPAMMERS.thinkpads.com> wrote:
>You're going to _have_ to get a floppy drive for the unit, a USB one should
>work as USB/Floppy support is supposed to be universal. Or look for an
>internal one on eBay (good luck!).

I'd really doubt that a USB floppy drive would be bootable, givenwhat
we know about it...

>http/www.hitachipc.com/notebooks/vbp7000.html

That sez:
/*
Removable 3.5 in. floppy disk drive and 24X Max. CD-ROM††† drive,
both interchangeable with battery packs for maximum versatility and
concurrent use
*/

So it looks like you can have an internal floppy _and_ an internal
CD-ROM _IF_ you have no batteries, which ought to be enough to get you
up and running.

eBay is definitely your friend!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

William P.N. Smith wrote:

> I'd really doubt that a USB floppy drive would be bootable, givenwhat
> we know about it...

Yeah, but you can get a USB floppy drive for as little as $10, so it's
certainly worth trying.

> So it looks like you can have an internal floppy _and_ an internal
> CD-ROM _IF_ you have no batteries, which ought to be enough to get you
> up and running.
>
> eBay is definitely your friend!

Yes, but as I said, good luck finding one!

Regards,

James

 

[Dan]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

It was free and despite looking to be in excellent shape, it is very slow. I
can not see spending any money on it. I guess it will have to go into the
trash. If I can find how to get the hard drive out I might have a go at
that, but undoing all the screws I could see yesterday got me nowhere so I
suspect I am out of luck.

Dan




"JHEM" <James@ESAD.SPAMMERS.thinkpads.com> wrote in message
news:Ta_Gd.1863$CI6.58@trnddc06...
> William P.N. Smith wrote:
>
> > I'd really doubt that a USB floppy drive would be bootable, givenwhat
> > we know about it...
>
> Yeah, but you can get a USB floppy drive for as little as $10, so it's
> certainly worth trying.
>
> > So it looks like you can have an internal floppy _and_ an internal
> > CD-ROM _IF_ you have no batteries, which ought to be enough to get you
> > up and running.
> >
> > eBay is definitely your friend!
>
> Yes, but as I said, good luck finding one!
>
> Regards,
>
> James
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"Dan" <lose thisslamtry@yahoo.com> wrote:
>It was free and despite looking to be in excellent shape, it is very slow. I
>can not see spending any money on it. I guess it will have to go into the
>trash.

I bet you could get $100 for it on eBay (with full disclosure)...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

It is very hard for me to believe that the CD is not bootable. In most
cases, to boot from a CD, you have to go into the BIOS and select the CD
as the 1st boot device. But the idea that this isn't supported is an
unlikely stretch, although I can't say it's absolutely not the case.


William P.N. Smith wrote:
> "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>>Paul Rubin wrote:
>>
>>>Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.
>
>
>>Floppy doesn't help unless the BIOS allows boot off a USB device.
>
>
> Unless there's an option to remove the CD-ROM device and install a
> floppy in it's place. Of course, loading the whole OS via floppy is
> going to be another exercise in futility...
>
> Maybe there's a floppy drive the connects via a proprietary connector
> (or the parallel port?) or something?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Barry Watzman wrote:

> It is very hard for me to believe that the CD is not bootable. In most
> cases, to boot from a CD, you have to go into the BIOS and select the CD
> as the 1st boot device. But the idea that this isn't supported is an
> unlikely stretch, although I can't say it's absolutely not the case.

Really depends on the age of the machine, OTOH my 233 MHz P1 (and before
some pedant says that "there's no such thing as a P1", that's shorthand for
"first generation Pentium") Thinkpad can boot off the CD, and I doubt this
machine is older than that.

> William P.N. Smith wrote:
>> "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>Paul Rubin wrote:
>>>
>>>>Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.
>>
>>
>>>Floppy doesn't help unless the BIOS allows boot off a USB device.
>>
>>
>> Unless there's an option to remove the CD-ROM device and install a
>> floppy in it's place. Of course, loading the whole OS via floppy is
>> going to be another exercise in futility...
>>
>> Maybe there's a floppy drive the connects via a proprietary connector
>> (or the parallel port?) or something?
>>

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

A Toshiba Portege M200 tablet pc has the same types of issues. Boot
from CD is an option, but the device won't support anything but a
Toshiba external CD-ROM. We've tried a different type of USB CD-Rom
and even a USB Floppy with no luck.

We get a "failed to contact device" on startup, then the system reverts
back to its standard windows hard drive boot.


Barry Watzman wrote:
> It is very hard for me to believe that the CD is not bootable. In
most
> cases, to boot from a CD, you have to go into the BIOS and select the
CD
> as the 1st boot device. But the idea that this isn't supported is an

> unlikely stretch, although I can't say it's absolutely not the case.
>
>
> William P.N. Smith wrote:
> > "J. Clarke" <jclarke@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> >
> >>Paul Rubin wrote:
> >>
> >>>Why don't you look for a floppy on ebay.
> >
> >
> >>Floppy doesn't help unless the BIOS allows boot off a USB device.
> >
> >
> > Unless there's an option to remove the CD-ROM device and install a
> > floppy in it's place. Of course, loading the whole OS via floppy
is
> > going to be another exercise in futility...
> >
> > Maybe there's a floppy drive the connects via a proprietary
connector
> > (or the parallel port?) or something?
> >