Boot CDs

[Richard Fangnail]

I was confused about the idea of a boot CD for Windows ME as opposed to
the entire OS CD that comes with the computer.

If you make the boot CD at bootdisk.com, is that just for booting or is
it the entire OS on the CD?

You see, my friend has Windows ME and I'm afraid she may not have the
original OS CD. That would mean that she wouldn't be able to startup
if something is wrong with the harddisk. And I wanted to make/buy a CD
that would help her to boot in that situation.

The other confusion was, if she has a FLOPPY boot disk, would that be
just as good in that situation?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

You would need to have a Windows ME CD to perform a repair.
Since your friend apparently does not have one, it's time to consider
upgrading to Windows XP Home Edition at this time.

You can purchase Windows XP Home Edition (upgrade version)
for about $99 at your local Wal-Mart store.

Ref: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3327608

Windows XP Home Edition Upgrade Center
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/upgrading/default.mspx

How Do I Use the Windows XP Upgrade Advisor?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/advisor.mspx

Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Home Edition
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/sysreqs.mspx

How to prepare to upgrade Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition to Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316639

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I was confused about the idea of a boot CD for Windows ME as opposed to
| the entire OS CD that comes with the computer.
|
| If you make the boot CD at bootdisk.com, is that just for booting or is
| it the entire OS on the CD?
|
| You see, my friend has Windows ME and I'm afraid she may not have the
| original OS CD. That would mean that she wouldn't be able to startup
| if something is wrong with the harddisk. And I wanted to make/buy a CD
| that would help her to boot in that situation.
|
| The other confusion was, if she has a FLOPPY boot disk, would that be
| just as good in that situation?

 

[Bob I]

Only for booting up. She would need the original CD with the "operating
system" on it.

 

[Mike T.]

I was confused about the idea of a boot CD for Windows ME as opposed to
the entire OS CD that comes with the computer.

If you make the boot CD at bootdisk.com, is that just for booting or is
it the entire OS on the CD?

You see, my friend has Windows ME and I'm afraid she may not have the
original OS CD. That would mean that she wouldn't be able to startup
if something is wrong with the harddisk. And I wanted to make/buy a CD
that would help her to boot in that situation.

The other confusion was, if she has a FLOPPY boot disk, would that be
just as good in that situation?

If you make a boot disk on floppy or cdr media, that will get you to a
command prompt. That won't do you much good unless you are familiar with
DOS, and can still (at least) access the hard drive to copy data files off
of it. If the hard drive is too far gone, even booting to a DOS prompt
won't help you. The real answer you are looking for is Acronis True Image,
plus a DVD burner:
1) Use the DVD burner and any burning software to back up data files, not
necessarily to DVD media (CD media should work OK also)
2) Install Acronis True image, then run the program. Create a "secure
zone" of about 10GB in size, if you have enough free disk space
3) Use Acronis True image to create a FULL image of drive C:, storing that
image in the secure zone. When it asks you to specify the splitting size of
the image (will create smaller parts, instead of one huge file), click fixed
size and choose 650MB.
4) After the image is created, explore the secure zone (use Acronis to
mount it as a hard drive) to copy the 650MB image files to your hard drive
(out of the secure zone)
5) Burn those image files (all of them) to multiple CDR media, or 1 or 2
DVDs
6) Don't forget to create a bootable Acronis Rescue CD and store it in a
safe place.

The above will help out if the OS files get corrupted. System restore
should work also, but an acronis true image file(s) is like system restore
on steroids, and acronis true image will work even if you can't boot windows
into safe mode, as the rescue CD runs linux. -Dave

 

[Mike T.]

You would need to have a Windows ME CD to perform a repair.
Since your friend apparently does not have one, it's time to consider
upgrading to Windows XP Home Edition at this time.

You can purchase Windows XP Home Edition (upgrade version)
for about $99 at your local Wal-Mart store.

And it will do you no good at all if you don't have the original Windows ME
installation CD-Rom. A better plan would be to purchase some miscellaneous
hardware online from www.newegg.com or something similar to qualify for the
OEM discount on the full version of Windows XP Home edition (not the
upgrade). Actually, it looks like you might even be able to buy it without
hardware, possibly. But then again, if the system is running ME, it might
not run XP at all. For just one example, if it's less than 512MB of RAM
currently, forget about trying to install XP. -Dave

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837102151

 

[Bob Ward]

And it will do you no good at all if you don't have the original Windows ME
installation CD-Rom. A better plan would be to purchase some miscellaneous
hardware online from www.newegg.com or something similar to qualify for the
OEM discount on the full version of Windows XP Home edition (not the
upgrade). Actually, it looks like you might even be able to buy it without
hardware, possibly. But then again, if the system is running ME, it might
not run XP at all. For just one example, if it's less than 512MB of RAM
currently, forget about trying to install XP. -Dave

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837102151

That's not necessarily true. I have XP running on a 500 MHZ system
with 256 meg of RAM.

 

[Mike T.]

That's not necessarily true. I have XP running on a 500 MHZ system

with 256 meg of RAM.

And you cook a 7-course meal while you are waiting for your computer to
boot. Nothing wrong with that, btw. -Dave

 

[Bob Ward]

And you cook a 7-course meal while you are waiting for your computer to
boot. Nothing wrong with that, btw. -Dave

Again you make unsupportable statements. I've come to expect no less
from you.

 

[Marcio]

hardware, possibly. But then again, if the system is running ME, it might
not run XP at all. For just one example, if it's less than 512MB of RAM
currently, forget about trying to install XP. -Dave

What a bunch of BS. I have XP running with as little as 192MB of RAM,
and dozens with 256MB. Looking at the memory usage of many office
computers running just basic applications (Office, email, IE), the
maximum memory usage for the entire work day is less than 300MB, for
some not even 256MB.

 

[Borg hater]

In order not to dissuade your intentions, won't mention the ME OS install CD
here.

You can use the ME startup diskette that is available at bootdisk.com in
your friend's floppy diskette drive. Likely, it will be able to access the
onboard CD drive as well under a drive letter. You will be capable of
partitioning and formatting. Placing system boot files on the hard drive.
And much more. You must have a decent knowledge of dos commands, and what,
of those, are available on the startup disktette.

ME, like 95 and 98, ride on msdos. Its always there. Some of its msdos
files are on the startup diskette, but not all. The remaining ME files are
windows files, none are on the startup diskette.

Would suggest you take your friend's problem(s) to
microsoft.public.windowsme.general newsgroup.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That's not necessarily true. I have XP running on a 500 MHZ system
with 256 meg of RAM.

You're absolutely right. How much RAM you need depends on what apps you run.
It's not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Although many people may need as
much as 512MB (or more), others can get by with as little as 256MB (probably
not much less than that though).

 

[R. McCarty]

No magic number fits everyone. I've just recently bumped my system
up to 2.0 Gigabytes - but 95% of the time it uses just 225 Megabytes.
When I'm mastering Audio or running a couple of VPCs the usage can
go as high as 1.3 Gigabytes. So when it's minimally loaded, I just use
all that RAM for System Caching. One thing that does help is to check
the Startups and Watchdogs that run. They'll take up a fair amount of
memory that is better used for on-demand processes/applications.
My wife has an older notebook that runs XP with 256 Megabytes and
unless you multi-task it too heavily it runs just fine.

 

[root]

You would need to have a Windows ME CD to perform a repair.
Since your friend apparently does not have one, it's time to consider
upgrading to Windows XP Home Edition at this time.

Think about giving linux a try, it is free.

 

[Larry Bud]

What a bunch of BS. I have XP running with as little as 192MB of RAM,
and dozens with 256MB. Looking at the memory usage of many office
computers running just basic applications (Office, email, IE), the
maximum memory usage for the entire work day is less than 300MB, for
some not even 256MB.

There's more to memory usage than just what apps you have open. And of
course XP will RUN, because it will swap RAM incessantly.

 

[Mike T.]

There's more to memory usage than just what apps you have open. And of
course XP will RUN, because it will swap RAM incessantly.

Let's not forget . . . xp uses 256MB all by itself, before you launch any
apps. -Dave

 

[Marcio]

No, it won't. What else is there? The peak commit charge is the
maximum amount of memory used by the OS and all applications. There's
nothing else.

Let's not forget . . . xp uses 256MB all by itself, before you launch any
apps. -Dave

You can't seem to say one thing right. If XP uses 256MB all by
itself, why does the Commit Charge on Task Manager says 197,680K on
the computer I'm using right now, and I have 4 applications
opened--Mozilla, Excel 2003, Task Manager, Email (Agent)?

 

[Mike T.]

You can't seem to say one thing right. If XP uses 256MB all by

itself, why does the Commit Charge on Task Manager says 197,680K on
the computer I'm using right now, and I have 4 applications
opened--Mozilla, Excel 2003, Task Manager, Email (Agent)?

Disable the page file and see what happens. (evil grin) -Dave

 

[Larry Bud]

No, it won't. What else is there?

Go to Task manager and click on "Processes". THAT is what is running
on your computer.

Now click on the View menu and click on Columns. Select "Virtual
Memory Size".

I'll bet you there are processes that are using Virtual Memory (i.e.
ram that has been swapped with the HD).

 

[Bob Ward]

Let's not forget . . . xp uses 256MB all by itself, before you launch any
apps. -Dave

Again - BULLSHIT!!!!!

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/sysreqs.mspx
Here's What You Need to Use Windows XP Home Edition
• PC with 300 megahertz (MHz) or higher processor clock speed
recommended; 233-MHz minimum required;* Intel Pentium/Celeron family,
AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

• 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum
supported; may limit performance and some features)

• 1.5 gigabyte (GB) of available hard disk space.*

• Super VGA (800 × 600) or higher resolution video adapter and monitor

• CD-ROM or DVD drive

• Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

 

[Frank]

Disable the page file and see what happens. (evil grin) -Dave

_nothing_ mine just keeps on going.