I have several Compaq TC1100's all with docking stations that I would like to be able to reimage when necessary. I do not have an external CD drive and I do not have a CD drive for any of the docking stations. Has anyone successfully reloaded Windows from a USB hard disk. I have copied all the files off of both Win XP disks that came with the tablet onto the USB hard drive. I can get the tablet to boot into Dos from a usb floppy. After that I am able to navigate to the external hd and run winnt.exe to start windows loading. It gets to a certain point of copying files and then it seems to sit there and hang. Is there something that I still missing? Should I just plan on getting a external cd drive of some sort? Thanks for any help you can offer

Hi, jeff,

Make sure you have Smartdrive installed. If you don't, it will take a very,
very long time to copy the files.

Smartdrv.exe can be found on 98 or Me in the \windows\command folder.
It allows read and write cacheing for your drives, which speeds up the
installation from a DOS boot.
--
Terri Stratton
Editor / Owner
http://thetabletpc.net
Microsoft Windows MVP / Tablet PC

"jeffro2543" <jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> wrote in
message news:jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au...
>
> I have several Compaq TC1100's all with docking stations that I would
> like to be able to reimage when necessary. I do not have an external
> CD drive and I do not have a CD drive for any of the docking stations.
> Has anyone successfully reloaded Windows from a USB hard disk. I have
> copied all the files off of both Win XP disks that came with the tablet
> onto the USB hard drive. I can get the tablet to boot into Dos from a
> usb floppy. After that I am able to navigate to the external hd and
> run winnt.exe to start windows loading. It gets to a certain point of
> copying files and then it seems to sit there and hang. Is there
> something that I still missing? Should I just plan on getting a
> external cd drive of some sort? Thanks for any help you can offer
>
>
> --
> jeffro2543
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> jeffro2543's Profile:
> http://www.tabletquestions.com/member.php?userid=1026
> View this thread: http://www.tabletquestions.com/showthread.php?t=2806
>

Are you networked? If so, you could transfer images between machines,
storing a current image created with Ghost, DriveImage or True Image. Saves
a LOT of time compared to reinstalling everything. The Acronis True Image
even features a boot-time menu you can use, so you could store a file on a
second partition on the same system and be back up with all your programs
installed in about 10-12 minutes.
--
Chris H.
Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
Associate Expert
Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone


"jeffro2543" <jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> wrote in
message news:jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au...
>
> I have several Compaq TC1100's all with docking stations that I would
> like to be able to reimage when necessary. I do not have an external
> CD drive and I do not have a CD drive for any of the docking stations.
> Has anyone successfully reloaded Windows from a USB hard disk. I have
> copied all the files off of both Win XP disks that came with the tablet
> onto the USB hard drive. I can get the tablet to boot into Dos from a
> usb floppy. After that I am able to navigate to the external hd and
> run winnt.exe to start windows loading. It gets to a certain point of
> copying files and then it seems to sit there and hang. Is there
> something that I still missing? Should I just plan on getting a
> external cd drive of some sort? Thanks for any help you can offer
>
>
> --
> jeffro2543
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> jeffro2543's Profile:
> http://www.tabletquestions.com/member.php?userid=1026
> View this thread: http://www.tabletquestions.com/showthread.php?t=2806
>

I've used USB DVD and CD drives both for booting/loading my Toshiba M200.
Like many systems you also have to ensure that your BIOS supports it.
Al
"jeffro2543" <jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> wrote in
message news:jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au...
>
> I have several Compaq TC1100's all with docking stations that I would
> like to be able to reimage when necessary. I do not have an external
> CD drive and I do not have a CD drive for any of the docking stations.
> Has anyone successfully reloaded Windows from a USB hard disk. I have
> copied all the files off of both Win XP disks that came with the tablet
> onto the USB hard drive. I can get the tablet to boot into Dos from a
> usb floppy. After that I am able to navigate to the external hd and
> run winnt.exe to start windows loading. It gets to a certain point of
> copying files and then it seems to sit there and hang. Is there
> something that I still missing? Should I just plan on getting a
> external cd drive of some sort? Thanks for any help you can offer
>
>
> --
> jeffro2543
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> jeffro2543's Profile:
> http://www.tabletquestions.com/member.php?userid=1026
> View this thread: http://www.tabletquestions.com/showthread.php?t=2806
>

I second that about Acronis TrueImage, so far the fastest and best backup
restore a full system even over network.
"Chris H." <winxpnews********.com> wrote in message
news:%23TT2hrJjEHA.3896@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Are you networked? If so, you could transfer images between machines,
> storing a current image created with Ghost, DriveImage or True Image.
> Saves a LOT of time compared to reinstalling everything. The Acronis True
> Image even features a boot-time menu you can use, so you could store a
> file on a second partition on the same system and be back up with all your
> programs installed in about 10-12 minutes.
> --
> Chris H.
> Microsoft Windows MVP/Tablet PC
> Tablet Creations - http://nicecreations.us/
> Associate Expert
> Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
>
>
> "jeffro2543" <jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au> wrote in
> message news:jeffro2543.1bofn5@no-mx.forums.yourdomain.com.au...
>>
>> I have several Compaq TC1100's all with docking stations that I would
>> like to be able to reimage when necessary. I do not have an external
>> CD drive and I do not have a CD drive for any of the docking stations.
>> Has anyone successfully reloaded Windows from a USB hard disk. I have
>> copied all the files off of both Win XP disks that came with the tablet
>> onto the USB hard drive. I can get the tablet to boot into Dos from a
>> usb floppy. After that I am able to navigate to the external hd and
>> run winnt.exe to start windows loading. It gets to a certain point of
>> copying files and then it seems to sit there and hang. Is there
>> something that I still missing? Should I just plan on getting a
>> external cd drive of some sort? Thanks for any help you can offer
>>
>>
>> --
>> jeffro2543
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> jeffro2543's Profile:
>> http://www.tabletquestions.com/member.php?userid=1026
>> View this thread: http://www.tabletquestions.com/showthread.php?t=2806
>>
>
>

Thanks for the tip. I was just ignoring the message that said that smartdrv was not installed. I thought that it would be slow but it would still end up finishing at some point. I found an old 98 CD and put that file on the boot disk and everything seems to be working great.

Once I get one clean tablet then I should be able to reimage all the others over the network with no problem.