Latinlawyer Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 My nephew found a laptop abandoned in a baggage cart in the airport a few days ago(he works security and the bag had been there for two days). Upon opening the bag he found a IBM thinkpad (1400 mHZ) that had windows XP loaded on it but it appeared to be simple chinese. The machine has no disk drive nor a cd-rom drive. I want to reload Windows XP on it but in English. How do i this? There was no XP disk with the computer It has no built in cd-rom drive nor floppy drive. Can someone help me convert this chinese xp machine to a functional english one? Thanks for any help! LL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoAT Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 just go to the control panel and edit the Regional & Language Settings. no need to reinstall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxman Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Goat...good call. LL if you have any problems after changing the regional settings let us know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob D Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 just go to the control panel and edit the Regional & Language Settings. no need to reinstall I'm not sure if that will work. This machine may not have the Latin alphabet languages available, as I know that my version of XP doesn't have the oriental languages. I have also read of a similar story in a PC magazine. I think the reply was that the person had to get hold of an English language version of XP. If you do need to install an English version of XP, you will probably have to either buy or borrow a USB external cd drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxman Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Good info Rob. When you change Regional Settings the stuff that happens is so weird. Recently had to certify some software for a Regional Setting of French. The keys that are different on the keyboard are really strange. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob D Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 The keys that are different on the keyboard are really strange. I was really thrown the first time I saw an AZERTY keyboard in France. The people with me knew I was experienced with computers, so they wondered why I couldn't type very quickly. It made me realise how much I take the QWERTY layout for granted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latinlawyer Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 I'm not sure if that will work. This machine may not have the Latin alphabet languages available, as I know that my version of XP doesn't have the oriental languages. I have also read of a similar story in a PC magazine. I think the reply was that the person had to get hold of an English language version of XP. If you do need to install an English version of XP, you will probably have to either buy or borrow a USB external cd drive. The problem is two fold. One I can't read chinese so i tried to compare the chinese list of languages to the english one. I think I picked out the correct one. HOWEVER, it doesnt have the latin alphabet i don't think PLUS on the flipside of the laptop it said something like "Microsoft Windows XP Simp. CH" Which I take to mean MS WIndows XP Simple Chinese version. I have a copy of the Windows XP Professional (corporate version) that i can load on it and I have a USB cd-rom drive BUT how do i load the cd on there when the prompts are all in CHINESE! I was hoping there was a way to re-install windows XP in english that i can do via a usb cdrom drive... Does someone have any idea? Its a 1400 mhz windows IBM thinkpad, vety thin...good machine...man some guys have all the luck, my nephew will have an outstanding machine once we firgure out how to convert it.. LL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob D Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Is is just Windows that is in Chinese, or is the bios in Chinese too? I have never seen a Chinese machine so I don't know how different they are. If the bios is in English then it should be fairly easy to change the settings to boot from the cd drive (assuming the bios has a driver that can access the USB ports). From there you need to make Windows Setup format the hard disk and then install XP pro. If the bios is in Chinese then I'm not sure how to help. You may have to find someone who is fluent in Chinese who knows about computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maxman Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 My recommendation: Get some kind of external drive that you can boot from. Then reinstall Windows 2000 Professional on it. (Of course I am suggesting that you buy W2K and not bootleg it. I would never suggest such a thing because it violates copyright law). If you go XP you will have to purchase a new copy because of the activation on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latinlawyer Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 My recommendation: Get some kind of external drive that you can boot from. Then reinstall Windows 2000 Professional on it. (Of course I am suggesting that you buy W2K and not bootleg it. I would never suggest such a thing because it violates copyright law). If you go XP you will have to purchase a new copy because of the activation on it. I have an windows xp corp edition (home business) and so i can load that BUT i will have to check to see if i can get the USB cd rom drive to act as a boot up drive! LL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latinlawyer Posted May 6, 2005 Author Share Posted May 6, 2005 Ok, here is the solution for all of you out there. I have a external HDD (wasn't using at all) so I copied the contents of my WINXP cd on the hdd. Then I hook up my usb extrnal hdd to the chinese comp. I locate the external HDD and run the copy of xp...and WALLA! We are installing an ENGLISH version of XP on this driveless laptop. Man, my nephew owes me bigtime! LL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaumerJet Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 The problem is two fold. One I can't read chinese so i tried to compare the chinese list of languages to the english one. I think I picked out the correct one. HOWEVER, it doesnt have the latin alphabet i don't think PLUS on the flipside of the laptop it said something like "Microsoft Windows XP Simp. CH" Which I take to mean MS WIndows XP Simple Chinese version. I have a copy of the Windows XP Professional (corporate version) that i can load on it and I have a USB cd-rom drive BUT how do i load the cd on there when the prompts are all in CHINESE! I was hoping there was a way to re-install windows XP in english that i can do via a usb cdrom drive... Does someone have any idea? Its a 1400 mhz windows IBM thinkpad, vety thin...good machine...man some guys have all the luck, my nephew will have an outstanding machine once we firgure out how to convert it.. LL All you would have to do is attache the CD rom to the USB port. Put the XP disc in & reboot the computer. Upon Reboot, the system will prompt you in pre-DOS mode to ask you if you want to install XP. By saying yes, the system automatically wipes the disk in favor of the new RESTORE disk. I just did that with my old eMACHINE. The one I had to go out & get a new one to replace... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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