What a fool I am. A windows 98 laptop giving problems in a Wnidows XP peer to peer network and I volunteer to install Windows 2000. I opted to do an upgrade install.
First though, I made a backup of the outlook pst file and placed this onto the E drive (laptop was partitioned into two drives). This would be easy so no need to remove the Outlook file from the laptop.
However, mid way through installaiton, screen went a few funny colours and then just remained blank.
OK lets start a fresh installation onto the D drive. Also note that I opted to convert partition into a NTFS file system.
Bad news, it got to the part where Windows 2000 is telling me that it is evaluating the system and the screen my flicker for sometimes. It gets to a point where the screen flickers and then remains blank and nothing else continues.
Panicking I tried installing Windows XP Pro instead. This gets to a stage in the installation where exactly the same things happens. It is going throguh telling me about 40 mis to go, and then I look again and the screen has blanked.
Status at this point is that I have two partiations:
D: 5 gb - where I Want to install the O/s (have tired NTFS and FAT32
E: 4gb contains an outlook backup that I want (FAT32) (So cannot erase yet)
What I need to acheieve:
* I deally I would just get Windows 2000 installed onto D so I can get the system going again.
* Alternatively I would be able to go into DOS mode using a Windows 98 start up disk, and be able to some how transfer the 16mb Outlook backup file from the E drive.
To big to do on floppy, don't know how to get the network working in DOS, not sure how to make a USB pen drie work in DOS.
I know I can look these things up (And trust me I am) but I said I would get this back to them by 2pm today so need all the help I Can get.
Any suggestions on how I should approach this?
NOw I've looked up the model ( a Fujitsu Siemans notebook - C6555) and it does look like there is a BIOS update available. But I'm worried this is not addressing the right area and I would be opening another can of worms. The first thing I Would like to do is get the Outlook file from the laptop before I go chaning anythign more
Thanks you for any help you can give. I would be very grateful.
Another option: Create a BartPE bootdisk (supports USB if connected during boot), and copy the files you need to the USB drive. This solution will probably take longer, and is not guaranteed to work as the laptop seems to have some trouble with XP (so it might require a BIOS update before you can boot with BartPE).