# DELL LATITUDE D400 O.S. reinstall



## DAVED100 (Mar 29, 2008)

hi, i've just replaced the hard disk of my laptop which failed and I am now trying to reinstall windows xp. the dell does not have a cd drive. I thought I could just copy XP onto a flash drive and install it from there but this doesn't seem to work since the laptop just keeps saying that there is no bootable sector on the hdd and doesn,t try and install xp. I would be most grateful if someone could suggest how I can proceed to get XP onto my laptop. Many thanks in advance. Dave


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

Hi and welcome to TSF.
As CD drives are needed for so many things I think your best bet would be to get an external drive.


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## DAVED100 (Mar 29, 2008)

hi, thanks for the response. If i get a usb external cd drive and connect that to the laptop with the xp cd in this drive then should it just run the windows setup straight from there ? 
regards


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

You should be able to provided you can set your BIOS to recognise the drive. What model is your laptop?


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## DAVED100 (Mar 29, 2008)

hi its a dell latitude D400. I think i will try and get an external cd drive. I was wondering if i should get a usb drive or a pcmcia connection drive ? 
thanks


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

You'll need to check in your BIOS to see if you can boot from the USB device. If not then a pcmcia drive might be better. I'll check with some of my colleagues who know more about laptops than I do.

Are you sure it hasn't got a CD drive? According to the specifications I've got for this model it should have one.


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## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

If it doesn't have one you should be able to install one. It should take the standard laptop optical drives.


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## danielgent (Jun 25, 2009)

Just to follow up on this, I've got hold of the same laptop here.
No its not got a CD drive and its not got the space for one either. its very narrow for an old laptop and they've done this by saving space missing out the CD drive.

I've been trying for hours to create a winXP install USB pendrive but with no luck. I can get it to boot a Ubuntu live pendrive but no luck with this BartPE stuff. Plugged an external CD drive in but can't get it to boot from it (known working CD drive). The BIOS isn't very extensive so it doesnt give a load of options to boot from but the Ubuntu pendrive worked.

Any ideas for what to do? can I connect the harddrive to a PC and start the install off on that? Maybe reconnect the HDDto the laptop once it restarts after copying the files from the CD?

much thanks,
Dan gent


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## phxrocks (Apr 9, 2011)

I have a d400 running xp pro. I got a virus and the virus removal tool removed 30 of 32 corrupted files. I went in and successfully removed 1 more file. The last 1, well, I screwed up and deleted an operating system file.(Or something really important)I did not have a backup disc, but I do have a couple of authentic xp pro discs.
I purchased another d400 with xp pro installed and this one came with the external cdrw/dvd drive.
I am trying to use this working laptop to revive the other one.
I thought I could connect the cd drive and insert xp & Install,, But this is not working.
Help, Anyone??
Thanks in advance, Mike


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## JohnthePilot (Mar 30, 2006)

Hi and welcome to TSF. :wave:
You have posted in an old thread. Threads are user-specific and not topic-specific. Please start a new thread in Laptop Support.


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