How to reinstall windows on a netbook without a cd drive or usb ports?

hi max

this is the problem with netbooks.. the lack of any optical drive means installing/reinstalling windows is a problem.. however theres a utility called "win2flash" ( http://wintoflash.com/home/en/ ) which allows you to create a usb bootable drive with windows .... it can be windows xp,vista or 7 and the latest versions are also including windows 8

basically you need to have your usb flash drive ( 8gb minimum ) and your windows disk inserted in a usb2.0 port .( you will have to do this on a pc with a optical drive ) .... then using the wizard in the program you need to select "copy windows 7 to usb memory stick " ... then click run

win2flash will then copy the data from the windows disk to the memory stick with all relevant boot information ... then once complete you remove the memory stick and insert it into a usb port on your netbook

before you begin make sure you enter the bios and change the boot order to "usb key" first ( it may also appear as the name of your memory stick .. for example "verbatim 4gb stick " )

as soon as your netbook recognizes the usb memory stick it will boot from this in the same way as a windows disk would .... just be aware though you need to keep a eye on the netbook after each restart .... sometimes the windows installer may run again ... if a option list appears choose option 2 .....

you can boot from ethernet (lan/local area network ) however this is quite technical and this method is generally used by system administrators who have several machines on a network ( such as in a large office ) .... its not recommended for home users

i hope this helps .. any questions let me know

good luck mate !

I doubt there's particularly much you can do. I would suggest Ethernet cable, but the drivers for this would not be available from the motherboard, so you wouldn't be able to use it to reinstall Windows. The only other real way of doing this would be to hope the machine can have an additional hard drive added, which you would put a Windows ISO on, and then boot from that drive, however I somehow doubt a netbook would be made in a way that this is possible or practical.

It might be a better approach to try and get the USB ports fixed if possible, as even if it does cost money, it would be a lot less than adding a hard drive.

You would have to create a small bootable partition on the hard drive with the windows installation files on it. You can get usb adapters for the hard drive on the internet for a few dollars.

Make sure you have the network drivers on the partition before you reinstall it in the netbook. That way you can download the rest of the drivers you'll need.

It might be worth trying to solder new usb ports on your motherboard, since it's likely that they're broken, not burnt out. They're pretty big joints, and there's only 4 of them, so you might be successful if you tin the leads, flux, then heat them until they stick to the board.

If your USB ports do not work there is no way. You need either an internal DVD/CD drive or and external one connected by USB. You can NOT install it from another machine.

So my friend gave me a laptop recently and i started it up and i thought it was a good windows xp laptop and i did a little research on the computer and i found out it was originally a windows 8 and i tried upgrading it and nothing has worked and then i tried to find out how to factory reset it but i cant find anything so i was wondering if anyone could help me.

certain you could eliminate it ,yet when i replaced into you i save it in basic terms in case your computing gadget needs to have residing house windows put in on it again and because that your flash force is 32gb it truly is enormous snough to save residing house windows and use it for different such issues as track or different application

replace your CD drive. Shouldn't be hard. replacement costs as little as £10