Recovery of Compaq Mini 311c-1101SA

Morcar · ‎03-25-2018

I recently bought a secondhand Compaq Mini 331c-1101SA notebook and when I switched it on it had Linux on it. I wanted to use it with its original OS which is Windows XP. Sadly when I attached an external DVD drive and booted my original Windows XP disk it said it could not find the hard disk.

I am guessing it needs a driver at the start of the setup (you can install third party drivers by pressing F6 right at the start of Windows setting up). I am unable to find this driver or even a recovery disk/image.

Can you please help me in finding either of these so that I can restore the notebook to its original state?

Thanks

erico · ‎03-25-2018

You can get the USB drivers from the chipset softpaq. Extract them and put them on a USB flash drive. Use a Windows 10 PC to do that.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/swdetails/hp-mini-1101/3962961/swItemId/ob-67792-1

Actually, what you need is a slipstreamed USB Windows XP installation flash drive instead of DVD Windows XP installation media. Once you have created the ISO you can use a utility such as RUFUS to create a bootable USB flash drive. See the following video.

The drivers to slipstream to the USB flash drive are at the following link.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-mini-1101/3962961

You can create an ISO from your Windows installation disc.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=create+iso+from+dvd

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Paul_Tikkanen · ‎03-25-2018

Hi< @Morcar

I have zipped up and attached the XP 32 bit storage controller drivers you need to slipstream below.

Slipstream the entire unzipped folder.

Alternatively, since your notebook has two USB 2 ports, if you have a USB floppy disk drive, you can install the specific storage controller driver you need at the F6 prompt.

You can only do this with a USB floppy disk drive, not a CD and not a USB flash drive.

Copy the file contents of the folder I zipped up to the USB floppy drive.

I looked up the chipset specs for your model series, and if you are able to use the F6 method to install the SATA AHCI driver, after you press the F6 key, Windows will continue to load files. Then it will stop and you will be prompted to press the 's' key to load the driver.

The PC will 'see' the list of storage controller drivers on your floppy disk, and then you use the Up/Down arrow keys to scroll to and select the specific driver for your notebook which is the Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller.

I have also attached an alternative document you can review for how to slipstream the drivers by making a CD.

In step 1, I have attached the drivers, so no need to click on the Intel driver link in the document.