Boot disks, versions of Windows

[Richard Fangnail]

I was under the impression that a Windows boot (floppy) disk can be
used on any version of Windows. If that is true, then why are there
different parts of bootdisk.com for making bootdisks for the different
versions of Windows?

When I make a bootdisk from XP, it says it is making a MSDOS bootdisk
and not a Windows XP bootdisk.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

The boot disks available from bootdisk.com actually consist of 6 floppy
disks. These disks are used to begin the installation of Windows XP by
people whose machines are unable to boot from a CD-ROM (obviously these are
older PC models) - hence the need for the relevant version of boot disks.
This is not the same as the MSDOS disk you create from within windows. The
MSDOS disk simply boots the machine to the 'A' prompt. The disks you refer
to from bootdisk.com do not. They simply start the first part of the windows
xp installation. After the 6th floppy has been accessed the CD-ROM kicks in
to complete installation.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this post. The Author shall not be liable for any
direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use
of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this post..

 

[Malke]

I was under the impression that a Windows boot (floppy) disk can be
used on any version of Windows. If that is true, then why are there
different parts of bootdisk.com for making bootdisks for the different
versions of Windows?

When I make a bootdisk from XP, it says it is making a MSDOS bootdisk
and not a Windows XP bootdisk.

Your impression isn't quite correct. You need different boot disks for
different versions of Windows because the boot files and utilities
(like fdisk) are different for the different operating systems. You
would not want to use a Win95 boot disk for a Win98/ME computer, and
you would not want to use the old fdisk on an XP machine.

You are able to make a DOS boot disk in XP in case you need one to do a
BIOS flash or something like that. You don't ever use it to boot XP.
The XP installation CD is bootable and you would use that instead.

Malke

 

[Richard Fangnail]

The boot disks available from bootdisk.com actually consist of 6 floppy
disks. These disks are used to begin the installation of Windows XP by
people whose machines are unable to boot from a CD-ROM (obviously these are
older PC models) - hence the need for the relevant version of boot disks.
This is not the same as the MSDOS disk you create from within windows. The
MSDOS disk simply boots the machine to the 'A' prompt. The disks you refer
to from bootdisk.com do not. They simply start the first part of the windows
xp installation. After the 6th floppy has been accessed the CD-ROM kicks in
to complete installation.
John Barnett MVP

John, I'm very confused. That bootdisk.com page does not say you use
six disks as a set. In fact at the link
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
it says at the bottom:

4.The OEM disks are Images of the Microsoft bootdisks that came with
your OS. They put the utilities you need in a ramdrive, or virtual disk
which is usually the next drive letter up from your hard drive
partitions.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Boot disk are differnet because of the two different versions (Home/Pro) and
the three levels (RTM, SP1 and SP2). The boot disks for SP1 and SP2 allows
your to create the large hard drive partitions (> 137GB) and SP2 include
several security fixes.

 

[Richard Fangnail]

Your impression isn't quite correct. You need different boot disks for
different versions of Windows because the boot files and utilities
(like fdisk) are different for the different operating systems. You
would not want to use a Win95 boot disk for a Win98/ME computer, and
you would not want to use the old fdisk on an XP machine.

You are able to make a DOS boot disk in XP in case you need one to do a
BIOS flash or something like that. You don't ever use it to boot XP.
The XP installation CD is bootable and you would use that instead.

Why do you say you would never use an MSDOS disk to boot XP? I thought
that was the point. I don't even know what a BIOS flash is.

Are you saying that a bootdisk you would use on a Windows ME machine
can only be a bootdisk you made on a Windows ME machine?

But the bootdisk I made from XP is called an MSDOS disk or that's what
it said when I made it.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Richard

Re-read the page.. OEM is in reference to Win 9x operating systems (quite
clearly marked).. the six diskette XP set is not OEM..

 

[Primal Ooze]

I have XP Pro on my computer. I can boot my computer with a win98 dos start up disk.
It boots the computer. It doesn't start xp.
As long as I use a fat 32 file system I can access c: drive and cd rom.
For an NTFS (file system)partition there are other start disks.
What are you trying to do once you get the computer booted?

 

[Primal Ooze]

When I make a bootdisk from XP, it says it is making a MSDOS bootdisk
and not a Windows XP bootdisk.

MSDOS = Micro Soft Disk Operating System

When booting with an MSDOS disk, the computer starts using a fundamental MSDOS operating system.
It can allow access to files on the hard drive and cd rom, and for running MSDOS programs but can't be used to run programs designed
to run in any of the windows operating systems.

 

[Richard Fangnail]

I have XP Pro on my computer. I can boot my computer with a win98 dos start up disk.
It boots the computer. It doesn't start xp.

Does anyone know the exact boundaries of what you can and can't boot
with a bootdisk??

 

[Tim Slattery]

Your impression isn't quite correct. You need different boot disks for
different versions of Windows because the boot files and utilities
(like fdisk) are different for the different operating systems. You
would not want to use a Win95 boot disk for a Win98/ME computer, and
you would not want to use the old fdisk on an XP machine.

You wouldn't want to use a Win95 boot disk on a Win98 machine, only
because the boot disks that Win98 makes have a *lot* more useful
utilities crammed onto it. For that reason, I think that you would
very much want to use a Win98 boot disk if you had a Win95 system.

You are able to make a DOS boot disk in XP in case you need one to do a
BIOS flash or something like that. You don't ever use it to boot XP.
The XP installation CD is bootable and you would use that instead.

Boot disks generally contain a copy of DOS that you are booted into
(Windows - or Unix or just about anything else, for that matter -
won't fit on a floppy). DOS cannot see NTFS partitions, and a system
that's been running XP is very likely to have NTFS partitions. That
makes a normal boot disk pretty worthless.

But any XP CD is bootable. So, if your computer can boot from the CD
drive, any nearly all nowadays can, there's no need at all for a
bootable floppy disk.

 

[Malke]

Does anyone know the exact boundaries of what you can and can't boot
with a bootdisk??

A bootdisk is just that - a floppy with boot files on it to allow you to
boot into some simple operating system such as MS-DOS, PC-DOS, Caldera
DR-DOS. You can have various utilities on a bootdisk to use after you
boot into that particular operating system. Maybe if you would tell us
what problems you are having we could give you more focused answers.

Malke

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I was under the impression that a Windows boot (floppy) disk can be
used on any version of Windows.

You were under the wrong impression.


If that is true, ....


Ah, but it's not true. Never has been.

then why are there
different parts of bootdisk.com for making bootdisks for the different
versions of Windows?

Because different versions of the operating system have different
requirements.

When I make a bootdisk from XP, it says it is making a MSDOS bootdisk
and not a Windows XP bootdisk.

That's because there's really no such thing as a "WinXP boot diskette."
The WinXP CD is bootable, and there's no need for a boot diskette.


--

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

 

[Borg hater]

MSDos 6.x and prior can't access FAT32. MSDos cannot by itself access NTFS.
All non-NT windows 95/98/ME ride on msdos and all require FAT/FAT32
filesystems. 95 and 95a only run on FAT.

When running the sys command from msdos, the active primary partition
receiving the system files has to be the same version of windows. There are
other irregularities as well.

 

[Borg hater]

In prior posts you've mentioned XP, ME, and other OS version boot disks.
You've mentioned fixing your XP PC with chkdsk with the XP install CD.
You've mentioned a ME PC that may or may not have its installation CD.

A boot disk boots exactly that, the boot disk. After booting from the boot
disk, what partition filesystem it can access on the hard drive depends on
the operating system on the boot disk.

If that boot/startup disk can fix whatever is wrong depends on which version
OS system files and additional files are on that disk and the boot
configuration of the boot disk, and the partition filesystem scheme and OS
that is on that hard drive partition that you're attempting to fix..

Ask something specific, which OS and filesystem that will be addressed, and
which boot diskette you're speaking of. If a startup diskette in the case of
98/ME indicate so. In the case of XP, repair diskettes (6) if applicable.
A boot diskette by definition is only required to have system boot files on
it. Additional files are usually needed, such as in a a startup diskette or
XP's repair diskettes to effect any repairs or changes on a hard disk. Some
people create their own startup diskettes. Such as Win95 owners without
factory boot diskettes, or disgruntled 98/ME owners dissatisfied with the
default MS startup diskette.

Many replies addressed XP. Your concern seems to be, in prior posts, a far
away ME PC. I need to know exactly what it is that you're looking for in
order to give proper reply to address that question.

If you want to know alot about prior 9X/ME, and its basis msdos, google for
msdos first. Then more specific questions google those for ME. There's a
ME newsgroup at the MS newserver. "windowsme.general" that can help out.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

Richard there is nothing confusing about my reply. The boot disk.com link
you provided states quite clearly that the Windows XP setup is a 6 disk set.
if you click on the link for xp home/pro it willt ake you directly to the
Microsoft site to download the bootdisks.


--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this post. The Author shall not be liable for any
direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use
of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this post..