Formatting HD

[Scott]

How do i go about formatting my hard drive. I have
windows xp but i dont have a bootable cd just 2 (image)
recover disks. I dont have access to my floppy drive as
i need to get a new one installed. I have tried
borrowing a friends xp cd but it didnt boot. I have set
my bios to cd boot first and still no luck. What can i
do to format my hard drive. I dont want to buy a program
because i wont use it but just to do the formatting and
thats just a waste of money. I cant format my HD from
the Restore cds, it doesnt have that option. Could i
possile burn the boot files for a floppy to a cd and use
that to format my drive (i have 2 cd drives).

 

[Harry Ohrn]

You need to have a working floppy drive in order to create a bootable CD.
And you can't just copy the contents of a floppy to a CD. The info here will
show you how to create a bootable CD-Rom http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

You are likely better off paying a few bucks for a new floppy or even find a
used floppy for cheap.

 

[Ron Sommer]

Have you tried to create a bootcd using the directions on the
http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/ site?

This is one of the steps for single diskemu.
Create a boot image file from the "CD-Rom boot disk" bootdisk using dd.exe,
you should call this boot image "cdrom.img" and put it into the
"cds\single_diskemu\disk1" directory.

This is the only img file burned to the CD.

The diskemu.cmd file calls for elboot.img.

When I hit the Spacebar to boot to the CD, "File not found" message appears.

I renamed cdrom.img to elboot.img, then when I hit the Spacebar, the
computer booted to an A: prompt.
--
Ron Sommer

You need to have a working floppy drive in order to create a bootable CD.
And you can't just copy the contents of a floppy to a CD. The info here will
show you how to create a bootable CD-Rom http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

You are likely better off paying a few bucks for a new floppy or even find a
used floppy for cheap.

--

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

How do i go about formatting my hard drive. I have
windows xp but i dont have a bootable cd just 2 (image)
recover disks. I dont have access to my floppy drive as
i need to get a new one installed. I have tried
borrowing a friends xp cd but it didnt boot. I have set
my bios to cd boot first and still no luck. What can i
do to format my hard drive. I dont want to buy a program
because i wont use it but just to do the formatting and
thats just a waste of money. I cant format my HD from
the Restore cds, it doesnt have that option. Could i
possile burn the boot files for a floppy to a cd and use
that to format my drive (i have 2 cd drives).