How can I make a bootable floppy with CDrom support in XP?

[Kevin J. Nielsen]

I need to reinstall Windows XP on my laptop and I need a boot disk that will
enable my CDrom. I have searched but I cant find out how to do it in
windows xp, it was easy in all the previous versions but in xp all I can do
is make a bootable floppy without cdrom support.


Any Help would be greatly appreciated

Thank You

Kevin Nielsen

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

The XP CD is bootable assuming you have a retail XP CD as opposed to a
proprietary recovery disk. See the information below for formatting
instructions using the XP CD as a boot disk:

Assuming your system is set to boot from the CD-ROM drive, boot with the XP
CD in the drive. If it isn't or you are not sure, you need to enter the
system's BIOS. When you boot the system, the first screen usually has
instructions that if you wish to enter setup press a specific key, when you
see that, do so. Then you will have to navigate to the boot sequence, if
the CD-ROM drive is not first line, set it first in the boot sequence. Save
your settings and exit with the XP CD in the drive. The system will reboot.

A few screens into the boot process, if you see the message on the boot
screen to "Press any key in order to boot from the CD," do so.

After loading drivers and files, you should be taken to a screen with
the following:

To Setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
To Repair a Windows XP Installation using Recovery Console press R.
To Quit setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.

In your case, press ENTER.

Agree to the License agreement by pressing F8.

You will then be taken to a screen with two options.

To repair the selected Windows XP installation press R.
To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing,
press ESC.

This will bring you to a partition map where you
can delete, create and format partitions.
Select the drive you wish to format, delete the partition, then create a new
partition, format as desired and continue with XP installation.

 

[Kevin J. Nielsen]

Thank you for you prompt response. I was able to boot from the CD and
reinstall.

What I was trying to do is boot with CDrom support and copy the CD to my
second partition and install from there because the install goes about 10
times faster when installing from the Hard drive. Also, the files are
always there so I dont ever get the message "please insert CD"


Kevin

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

XP installation copies the I386 folder to your hard drive so you don't need
to copy the CD. XP doesn't make the type of floppy that you are trying to
make. Check, www.bootdisk.com, they may have a template for such a floppy
disk for XP.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Boot diskettes are a thing of the past, as all legitimate WinXP
installation CDs are already bootable. (And 3.5" disk drives are also
becoming something of a rarity.)

Simply boot from the WinXP installation CD. You'll be offered
the opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as part of
the installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the order of
boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Guest]

This is simply bad advice in my book. What your post says Bruce is that floppy is ancient history. All well and good as long as your CD Drive is not taken out by some strange quirk of the computer Gods. I not only have CD Bootable but also have a six disk set of bootable floppies. In my opinion it is best to use all available resources to cover every eventuality that one could imagine. Should your CD Drive become unusable you could use the floppy drive to recover. Although this is a rare case and more and more of todays PC's are being produced without floppy drives if you have one then I recommend using the option of having a six disk set of bootable floppies for added security. I feel it's best not to put your eggs all in one basket to coin a phrase.
Good luck.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

If you lose the CD-ROM, the bootable floppies won't be much use as they were
specifically designed for booting the system on a PC that is not able to
boot from the CD-ROM drive. Once booted, the CD would still be required.
If your drive has gone bad, if you could get to the I386 folder on your hard
drive, you might still be able to begin setup but this pre-supposes your
using FAT32 and not NTFS.

I agree with your point but in reality, it won't resolve the problem of a
CD-ROM drive being unavailable.