Help - How to make a Bootable CD disk

  • Thread starter Thread starter O Noah
  • Start date Start date
O

O Noah

Our new PC has no floppy drive. It has a DVD/CD-R/W as drive D: and
a harddisk as the C: drive. In WinXP 'Help and Support' all I can find is
how "To create an MS-DOS startup disk" using a floppy drive.

Is there any easy way to create a bootable CD from the WinXP operating
system or from the Microsoft WinXP Pro CD itself ?

In Win98, I was able to make a bootable floppy disk, in case I had trouble
to boot from the C: drive, I could boot from A: drive. Is there a way to
convert a bootable floppy into a bootable CD ?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

P.S. I have looked at the following Microsoft page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994
Describing "How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks".
But these are how to create 6 floppy disks, and out of them one is
a bootable floppy, not a CD.
 
O Noah said:
Our new PC has no floppy drive. It has a DVD/CD-R/W as drive D: and
a harddisk as the C: drive. In WinXP 'Help and Support' all I can find is
how "To create an MS-DOS startup disk" using a floppy drive.

Is there any easy way to create a bootable CD from the WinXP operating
system or from the Microsoft WinXP Pro CD itself ?

In Win98, I was able to make a bootable floppy disk, in case I had trouble
to boot from the C: drive, I could boot from A: drive. Is there a way to
convert a bootable floppy into a bootable CD ?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

P.S. I have looked at the following Microsoft page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994
Describing "How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks".
But these are how to create 6 floppy disks, and out of them one is
a bootable floppy, not a CD.
Click to expand...

Windows XP does not have the built-in capability to create a bootable
CD, and there is no download from Microsoft that will create a
bootable CD that is equivalent to the 6 diskette boot set.

Now for some good news.

1. Many downloadable utility programs, such as hard drive and memory
diagnostic tests, now include the ability to create a bootable CD or
bootable diskette. However these bootable CD will generally not be
able to access a hard drive that uses the NTFS file system so they do
not function as general purpose boot disks.

2. You can use Bart's PE Builder to create a bootable CD that can
access the NTFS hard drive.

If you have a specific task in mind that you would like to perform by
using a bootable disk then please post a description of that back here
and you should receive some suggestions as to how to achieve this
result.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm
 
I need to follow through some basic tasks -

Simple things, such as change the autoexec.bat or config.sys file,
(although these are not used much in XP) or run FDISK to divide the
hard drive into two sections i.e. C: and D: drive etc. I am used to
using FAT32. Our gateway PC hard drive is built on FAT32 and it
has a Floppy drive to boot from besides CD drives. But the new
Sony PC is quite different. I will try your suggestion to create a
CD using Bart's PE Builder.

Thank you for your prompt reply.
 
O Noah said:
I need to follow through some basic tasks -

Simple things, such as change the autoexec.bat or config.sys file,
(although these are not used much in XP)
Click to expand...

Actually they are not used at all in XP. There are equivalent files
named autoexec.nt and config.nt but these are only run when a 16 bit
application is launched or a DOS Command window is opened. They are
not processed at all during the XP startup.
or run FDISK to divide the
hard drive into two sections i.e. C: and D: drive etc. I am used to
using FAT32. Our gateway PC hard drive is built on FAT32 and it
has a Floppy drive to boot from besides CD drives. But the new
Sony PC is quite different. I will try your suggestion to create a
CD using Bart's PE Builder.
Click to expand...

FDISK can only make destructive changes to hard drives, and then only
on FAT32 partitions. If you need to do these things with any
frequency then you need a partition management utility such as
Partition Magic (Symantec) or BootItNG (www.bootitng.com) which can
make non-destructive changes.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm
 
O Noah after much thought,came up with this jewel:
Our new PC has no floppy drive. It has a DVD/CD-R/W as drive D: and
a harddisk as the C: drive. In WinXP 'Help and Support' all I can
find is how "To create an MS-DOS startup disk" using a floppy drive.

Is there any easy way to create a bootable CD from the WinXP operating
system or from the Microsoft WinXP Pro CD itself ?

In Win98, I was able to make a bootable floppy disk, in case I had
trouble to boot from the C: drive, I could boot from A: drive. Is
there a way to convert a bootable floppy into a bootable CD ?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

P.S. I have looked at the following Microsoft page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994
Describing "How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks".
But these are how to create 6 floppy disks, and out of them one is
a bootable floppy, not a CD.
Click to expand...

just a side note-your winXP pro CD is bootable-
Format tools are available after booting with the disk.
There is a "recovery console" that you can install from the disk that
will give you some options to make repairs.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;314058
-max
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Change nomail.afraid.org to yahoo.com to reply.
Registered Linux User #393236
 
You need software that can create a bootable CD. A freeware program like
CDBurner XP Pro http://www.cdburnerxp.se/ works nicely if you don't have
such.

You will also need and image of a bootable floppy. If you want a Standard
Windows 98 Startup Floppy then download this file and unzip
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/tools/bootdiscs/Windows98.zip

Launch the burning software and use the option to create bootable CD. Point
to the Windows98.IMA file when prompted for a floppy and you can create a CD
that will emulate a Windows 98 floppy.
 
I am getting ready to download all of your suggestions and make
life easier. I am familier with Partition Magic. Glad you mentioned
about Terabyte Unlimited. I have something to chew on for few days.

Thanks you so much.
 
Thank you for your comments. This is what is happening:

1. As I try to normal boot the Sony PC, I get a blank screen.
2. As I try to boot with the XP Pro CD inserted, it also gives
me a blank screen, and it does not go any further.

I am guessing that I have a bad hard drive or a motherboard problem.

Next - when all else failed, I tried to boot using my old Win98 CD.
Of course, it booted but with no entry path to the hard drive at all.
As I run FDISK, it shows that I do have an NTFS disk allocated
with full 60 Gig.. FDISK did not go any further.

Hope you know now, why I was asking about an XP boot CD,
similar to the Win98 boot floppy, because I was totally unable
to boot from my WinXP Pro CD.
 
I have just downloaded the files from both addresses below.
Thank you so much.


Harry Ohrn said:
You need software that can create a bootable CD. A freeware program like
CDBurner XP Pro http://www.cdburnerxp.se/ works nicely if you don't have
such.

You will also need and image of a bootable floppy. If you want a Standard
Windows 98 Startup Floppy then download this file and unzip
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/tools/bootdiscs/Windows98.zip

Launch the burning software and use the option to create bootable CD.
Point to the Windows98.IMA file when prompted for a floppy and you can
create a CD that will emulate a Windows 98 floppy.

--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp


O Noah said:
Our new PC has no floppy drive. It has a DVD/CD-R/W as drive D: and
a harddisk as the C: drive. In WinXP 'Help and Support' all I can find
is
how "To create an MS-DOS startup disk" using a floppy drive.

Is there any easy way to create a bootable CD from the WinXP operating
system or from the Microsoft WinXP Pro CD itself ?

In Win98, I was able to make a bootable floppy disk, in case I had
trouble
to boot from the C: drive, I could boot from A: drive. Is there a way to
convert a bootable floppy into a bootable CD ?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

P.S. I have looked at the following Microsoft page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994
Describing "How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks".
But these are how to create 6 floppy disks, and out of them one is
a bootable floppy, not a CD.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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