OK, so check this out...

I have a HP nx7300. I want to reload the OS. So I go to HP's website and 
download all the drivers.

I ran the installer for the SATA driver, and it unpacks some files onto 
a floppy disk. (It's one of these dealies that makes you actually put a 
disk into the drive, and then writes it track by track.)

Guess what? An nx7300 doesn't *have* a disk drive! :-D

FAIL.

(Seriously... why the hell would HP issue a driver that you can't use? 
That's just silly.)

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Invisible wrote:

> Guess what? An nx7300 doesn't *have* a disk drive! :-D
> 
> FAIL.

Ah yes... but the Windows installer insists that all drivers must be 
supplied on a disk inserted into drive A:

Even on a PC that doesn't possess one.

Fail^2.



Reading the documentation for the driver, it appears you have to build a 
custom Windows CD with unattended setup instructions to insert the SATA 
driver... *sigh* I have better things to do with my time.

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Invisible wrote:
> Ah yes... but the Windows installer insists that all drivers must be 
> supplied on a disk inserted into drive A:

No, an epic failure would be scrubbing the old OS and *then* finding out you 
needed a floppy drive to reinstall.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Insanity is a small city on the western
   border of the State of Mind.

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4a40fa45@news.povray.org...
> Invisible wrote:
>> Ah yes... but the Windows installer insists that all drivers must be 
>> supplied on a disk inserted into drive A:
>
> No, an epic failure would be scrubbing the old OS and *then* finding out 
> you needed a floppy drive to reinstall.
>
> -- 
>   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
>   Insanity is a small city on the western
>   border of the State of Mind.

POTW!!!

Cheers Dre

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Invisible wrote:
> OK, so check this out...
> 
> I have a HP nx7300. I want to reload the OS. So I go to HP's website and 
> download all the drivers.
> 
> I ran the installer for the SATA driver, and it unpacks some files onto 
> a floppy disk. (It's one of these dealies that makes you actually put a 
> disk into the drive, and then writes it track by track.)
> 
> Guess what? An nx7300 doesn't *have* a disk drive! :-D
> 
> FAIL.
> 
> (Seriously... why the hell would HP issue a driver that you can't use? 
> That's just silly.)


I recently ran into that one and ran across
http://www.nliteos.com/

You can pre-install the driver into windows - then no floppy needed.


Tom

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>> Guess what? An nx7300 doesn't *have* a disk drive! :-D
>>
>> FAIL.
> 
> 
> I recently ran into that one and ran across
> http://www.nliteos.com/
> 
> You can pre-install the driver into windows - then no floppy needed.

It seems they're just talking about building a customised Windows boot 
disk that already contains the necessary driver files. (The driver 
README tells you how to do this manually; copy some files, edit the 
UNATTEND.TXT file, etc.) This still means I have to faf around with 
burning a special CD just for this one laptop. (Assuming I can find a CD 
burner somewhere...)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible wrote:
>>> Guess what? An nx7300 doesn't *have* a disk drive! :-D
>>>
>>> FAIL.
>>
>>
>> I recently ran into that one and ran across
>> http://www.nliteos.com/
>>
>> You can pre-install the driver into windows - then no floppy needed.
> 
> It seems they're just talking about building a customised Windows boot 
> disk that already contains the necessary driver files. (The driver 
> README tells you how to do this manually; copy some files, edit the 
> UNATTEND.TXT file, etc.) This still means I have to faf around with 
> burning a special CD just for this one laptop. (Assuming I can find a CD 
> burner somewhere...)

Yes, you have to burn a special CD.
If you so choose you cal also preinstall SP3, IE, and a whole lot of 
other things.

It is a pain, but after all, you are working with 'legacy' software that 
MS can't bother to update when you install XP.

I suggested nlite because it can actually be simple - given that you can 
find a burner.


Tom

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Invisible wrote:

> FAIL.
> 
> (Seriously... why the hell would HP issue a driver that you can't use? 
> That's just silly.)

Well, Acer went one better.

When you go to their website and select the model of laptop you have, 
they give you THE WRONG DRIVERS. o_O

Select "Notebook". Select "TravelMate". Select "250"... oh, it isn't 
there. Enable "Show all models". Now it's there. Select it, and there 
are all the drivers.

Wait. The TravelMate 250 doesn't have an ATI graphics card. It's Intel. WTF?

Turns out you have to do something silly like select the TravelMate 270 
to get the right graphics driver. And then select the TravelMate 240 to 
get the correct LAN driver. And then select some other model to get the 
correct audio driver.

In other words, the catalogue of which driver belongs to which laptop is 
basically screwed. Thanks Acer, that's really helpful.

Now I'm nerdy enough to know what I'm doing, but I wonder how many poor 
clueless n00bs are completely baffled by the fact that the driver 
they're given BLATENTLY DOESN'T WORK...

Also, I was stupid enough to try to make the wireless card work. BIG 
MISTAKE! You see, while Windows Update was able to install the correct 
wireless driver, it can't detect any networks. "Make sure your wireless 
card is turned on" it says. So I press the wireless button on the laptop.

And nothing happens.

In particular, the button doesn't light up. So it looks worryingly like 
this is controlled in software rather than hardware as it should be. 
Which means I need to somehow figure out which friggin' driver controls 
it, and which model its misclassified under on the Acer website...

Or I could just plug in an Ethernet cable. :-P

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