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Compaq Mini 110c Netbook Restore

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by darryl~

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I've been fighting with a little netbook for a few days - it's a Compaq Mini 110c.

Here's the story...

It was virused right to death & after a couple days I still couldn't get everything removed to the point where I could at least get on the Windows Update site.
It didn't have a restore partition, just a restore point from the factory installation (it was using Roxio BackOnTrack, not Windows, for restore points) - well, the restore points were virused also.
I finally decided to download the recovery software from HP & do a clean install - one problem - the image was Linux, not XP. So, I go about making a bootable USB thumb drive with the XP installation files on it because, as we all know, netbooks don't have CD/DVD drives (that drove me crazy for a day until I discovered a nice little utility to do it proper). Okay, here I am, all set to install XP from the USB thumb drive....it boots to the drive....the whole setup process begins....it gets to the point where it's going to copy the setup files to the hard drive and ZAP!

It doesn't detect the HDD (WD1600BEVT SATA)

I looked all through the BIOS & I can't find anywhere to set the HDD type - it just detects it I guess.

I have booted to a Windows 98 USB drive & ran FDISK, it sees the drive & let me repartition it...I made it active....still no joy.

Anybody have any ideas?

20 replies

by robo_dev

Not all SATA drivers are on the Windows CD, and yours is clearly not there, if Windows cannot see the drive, then you need to install the SATA drivers from that screen.

by darryl~

And you know how that works....it askes you to put the driver in the floppy drive.

The darn thing won't even allow me to press F6....it detects that there's no floppy drive :D

I do have access to a USB floppy drive, but I don't think I want to go that route...I tried this "bootable" USB drive on a couple other computers...I seem to be getting the same problem on all them...so it must be the way the thumb drive is configured.

Thanks for the reply....I tried a couple more things....it's getting personal now! I've been dealing with computer "issues" since the late 70's....I don't want this little netbook to get the best of me ;)

So....

I made a bit of progress tonight...I took the HDD out & installed it in a laptop....I tried a number of different OS disks I have & many of them won't detect the drive & I get a BSOD just as it looks for the drive.

I was able to get Windows 7 (64 bit) to see the drive & actually installed Win 7 on it.....but the little Atom processor doesn't support 64 bit.....and I don't have a 32 bit Win 7 DVD.

Anyway....fun & games....

Give me your thoughts....gotta go deal with another puter problem next door right now.

by darryl~

Yup, it was a Linux distro & it is very fast on it....but the person (young girl) that owns it hasn't even heard about Linux before...I thought I better not take her down that path :D

The link you posted is for the US site, I was on the Canadian one but I checked both & they had the same software. When I put the product ID in, the only available recovery software is via shipping @ $45...I looked at an earlier model & it had an Image available for download & it sort of led me to believe it was XP because I selected XP as the OS installed on the Mini in the initial search.

Anyway, I'll figure out something....I see Col has a post below yours.....he probably has a couple good ideas.

by oh smeg

Not a Bare XP image to run the Setup Procedure from.

You could use a Manual Slipstreaming thing like that described here on TR

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6150784.html?tag=rbxccnbtr1

But the reality of things is that it's easier to use nLite to make this. it's available here

http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

Don't forget to read the destructions here though

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/

Include the SATA Driver which is the problem here. ;)

Col

by darryl~

I figured SP3 should have had the SATA drivers....but I suspect you are right about the driver....I didn't want to mess around by borrowing a USB floppy & trying to get it working the F6 way....I never put drivers in a Windows image before so I'll have to do a little research on that.....soon as I saw the Windows 7 OS picking up the HDD I figured that was the problem.

I used WinToFlash to make the USB thumb drive bootable & put the install files on it...the only problem was the inability to see the HDD (probably the same driver issue)....have you had any experience with WinToFlash? It seems like a decent little utility.

I'll look through the nLite destructions....it should tell me how to put the SATA drivers in....thanks. :)

by robo_dev

You can buy a USB CD-ROM for around $15 USD, and a USB floppy drive for around the same price.

I got a USB CD-ROM drive from Amazon.com for less than $15, delivered. In fact I used it to reload XP on a netbook just yesterday.

by oh smeg

nLite works well for that type of thing and I use it all of the time when it comes to building XP Install Disc's.

I also include Video, Audio and so on without any real problems. ;)

Col

by darryl~

to support the newer systems that don't have floppy drives, etc.
I don't really use the stuff on a daily basis so it'd be more like buying toys to feed my hobby :D

You said a USB CD-ROM....have you looked into a DVD-ROM? The newer netbooks have Windows 7 on them & I think it only comes on DVD.

by robo_dev

But my USB CD-ROM only cost $7.52 USD and XP comes on CD.

I bought it only to reload XP on my netbook, period. Less than $10 flies below the spousal-spending-radar threshold.

A similar cheap DVD drive costs $32.14, so I'll bank the $24 savings until I switch to Windows 7 :)

by darryl~

I think it's something I might like to have around.

In the meantime.....the stupid Mini 110c...

I give....

The darn thing just doesn't want to install XP with a thumb drive....I can put Windows 7 one it but the owner doesn't have a license for it....so right now I have the HDD formatting & installing XP on another laptop which I could set the BIOS to campatibality mode.

I figure I can catch it on the first boot into XP & switch it to the netbook...bootinto safe mode & install the chipset for the MB.

I don't know what else to try??????????

by darryl~

Yup.....that's a neat little cable....then I could use some of my old hardware ;)

I think I should order me one of them for my birthday :D

by darryl~

As far as I know I put the right driver in....it's supposed to be an Intel SATA Matrix Controller.

So I tried putting it in another laptop & installing Windows on it....works fine in compatability mode but I can't get it to work in AHCI (which I need for the netbook)....I know the proper driver for the laptop controller but it doesn't seem to work in it either. I missing something here....I just don't know what.

As for including drivers with nLite....that's pretty slick...I like it!....thanks :)

by oh smeg

Every time I click on one of their Links it comes up with a Page unable to be found but it appears that there are quite a few different models of the Mini 110c.

With 7 Installed what's it tell you about the Installed Drivers? Apparently there appears to be at least 20 different models of the 110c and you need to look at the suffix of the Model Number [i]Compaq Mini 110c-1010EB PC[/i] the 1010EB seems to be a bit important so I'm supposing that there is more than one Chip Set Involved here and you probably don't have either a [i]Intel Matrix SATA Controller[/i] or you have the wrong Drivers for the one in that unit.

It's very hard to suggest anything when I don't have any idea what's in this thing. But it's defiant that you have the wrong Driver for the SATA Controller.

And nLite is a joy to use isn't it? :^0

Col

by darryl~

I typed the product number off the tag to make sure I got the right one.

It's a Mini 110c-1100CA Model (which isn't listed on the US or Canadian site). I don't have a real copy of Windows 7 32 bit (just the beta versions which appear to be corrupt) all three of my computers have Win 7 64 bit & I also have 2 copies of Vista 64 bit (no 32 bit). I didn't bother doing anything with it yesterday but I might look into it some more today & see if I can figure out what it has for a controller or if I can get one of the beta Win 7 32 bit DVD to work proper so I can have a look at what it says the controller is.

I'll probably end up just getting HP to send the recovery software kit....it says it's $45 with shipping & 1-3 days shipping....that would be the easy thing :D

by darryl~

But the thing is, it came with XP Home installed on it (but no recovery software with it) it has the sticker on the bottom, etc....so there has to be a driver.

So....I'm actually using it right now (Windows 7 beta) so I know the thing works (and it works very nice with Linux)....so I went this route (Win 7) to see what it's using for a driver....it just says - Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller - so I would think the ones I was trying earlier should have been working.

I can leave this beta version on it I suppose, they just won't be able to get updates, I don't think that's in violation of the license....I think the best option might be to see if they want to spend the $45 for the software recovery kit....that's cheaper than buying a new one.....she's just a teenager so she doesn't have much money.

by damius

So this is what you need to do to get this to work. You need another computer with an optical drive, working USB ports, and a thumb drive greater than 2gb's. Download Nlite, USB Multiboot 10, and your SATA drivers. You wanna copy the Xp install disk to a folder not on the C drive. Use Nlite, to add your SATA drivers to the Xp install, then use USB Multiboot 10 to add make the install bootable on your thumb drive. Then just change the boot order to the thumb drive when you boot your pc, and BAM! Works fine for me :)

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