1.44mb floppy is not 1.44mb

[Guest]

when I try to down load the xp boot discs from microsoft it says the capacity
of the disc being used is to small. Standard high density floppy. What floppy
do I need to download the boot discs to? Ive tried this numerous times and
also when you check properties of a floppy it says 1.38mb. Why? this is even
after formatting. I need the disks because my computer needs them to
reinstall xp. Please help

 

[Mario Schmidt]

when I try to down load the xp boot discs from microsoft it says the capacity
of the disc being used is to small. Standard high density floppy. What floppy
do I need to download the boot discs to? Ive tried this numerous times and
also when you check properties of a floppy it says 1.38mb. Why? this is even
after formatting. I need the disks because my computer needs them to
reinstall xp. Please help

These are disc-images. You can't just copy the files over. You need a
tool to write the disc-images to the discs. The procedure should be
documented where you downloaded the files.

 

[DL]

From memory when you download, and run the file it then instructs you to
insert floppy, and press a key when ready etc

PS Why do you need the floppys, the win cd is bootable

 

[Guest]

Im getting them right from the microsoft web site and it doesnt say anything
about needing any tool to write them to disc

 

[Guest]

No one has told me yet why I cant get the files onto floppy. Why are they
only 1.38mb and not 1.44 as listed?

 

[Wesley Vogel]

"The Setup boot disks are available so that you can run the Setup program on
computers that cannot use a bootable CD-ROM."
How to obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

1.44 MB is a nominal term.

If you look at the properties of a blank 3 1/2" disk you will see next to
Free space: 1,457,664 bytes 1.38 MB.

As a measure of computer processor storage and real and virtual memory, a
megabyte (abbreviated MB) is 2 to the 20th power bytes, or 1,048,576 bytes
in decimal notation.

Where a byte is 1024 not 1000.

1024 * 1024 = 1,048,576
1000 * 1000 = 1,000,000

1,457,664/1,000,000 = 1.457664 or 1.44 MB
1,457,664/1,048,576 = 1.39013671875 or 1.38 MB

Binary vs. Decimal Measurements
http://www.pcguide.com/intro/fun/bindec.htm

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In