Booting - why I asked so many questions about it

[Richard Fangnail]

Last week my XP computer wouldn't start (it wouldn't run any programs)
so I called support and they told me to restart with the OS CD. It did
and ran chkdsk, and fixed the problem. It's been okay ever since. I
was really concerned about this so I made a backup copy of my OS CD.

My friend has Windows Me and lives rather far away. I'm not sure if
she still has the CDs that came with the computer. I had a dreaded
fear the same thing might happen to her so I thought I would look for
something that might help her. Playing with bootdisk.com led to much
confusion.

From doing research I've gotten the impression that if I make boot

floppies or boot CDs for her, this wouldn't help her very much. But
the original OS CD for her computer would. But if she no longer has
it, I don't know what to do except look for a copy on ebay.

 

[John Bell]

She might be able to contact the manufacturer and get the OEM CD from them
such as Dell, Gateway and what not.

John

 

[Guest]

The Windows ME CD is not bootable.

She might be able to contact the manufacturer and get the OEM CD from them
such as Dell, Gateway and what not.

John

 

[Malke]

Last week my XP computer wouldn't start (it wouldn't run any programs)
so I called support and they told me to restart with the OS CD. It
did
and ran chkdsk, and fixed the problem. It's been okay ever since. I
was really concerned about this so I made a backup copy of my OS CD.

My friend has Windows Me and lives rather far away. I'm not sure if
she still has the CDs that came with the computer. I had a dreaded
fear the same thing might happen to her so I thought I would look for
something that might help her. Playing with bootdisk.com led to much
confusion.

floppies or boot CDs for her, this wouldn't help her very much. But
the original OS CD for her computer would. But if she no longer has
it, I don't know what to do except look for a copy on ebay.

Having a Win98 or ME boot disk will not help your friend at all. She
needs to have the operating system for her computer, which will come on
CD. The bootdisk is necessary because Win9x/ME CD's generally were not
bootable (some OEM ones were, but not all). You boot with a floppy that
has DOS on it and some DOS utilities, as well as various CD-ROM
drivers. This lets the DOS on the bootdisk "see" the CD drive. You then
use the DOS utilities FDISK and FORMAT to prepare the hard drive. Then
you can either copy the OS files to a directory you've made on the hard
drive and start SETUP from there (my preference) or cd to the CD drive
and start SETUP from there.

But you have to have the operating system in order to install it. eBay
is a good idea.

Malke

 

[Borg hater]

The equivalent to chkdsk is scandisk for ME/9X. Can be run from the ME
startup diskette made in the ME windows environment under add/remove
programs and selecting the tab for that, or downloadable from bootdisk.com
Of which, you've already looked into.

Except possibly a restoration CD, the ME CD may not be bootable. Its
possible though as some 98SE retail full install CDs were bootable. My ME
install CD is not bootable.

The original install/restoration CD may be available from the PC
manufacturer of your friend's PC. Model name and model version information
will be required.

Is your friend concerned? If so, what action is she taking? Long distance
troubleshooting is problem enough. Making someone care about consequences
such as you've noted can be even more difficult until its too late for the
easy fix with tools onhand.

 

[Darrell S]

Last week my XP computer wouldn't start (it wouldn't run any programs)
so I called support and they told me to restart with the OS CD. It
did and ran chkdsk, and fixed the problem. It's been okay ever
since. I was really concerned about this so I made a backup copy of
my OS CD.

My friend has Windows Me and lives rather far away. I'm not sure if
she still has the CDs that came with the computer. I had a dreaded
fear the same thing might happen to her so I thought I would look for
something that might help her. Playing with bootdisk.com led to much
confusion.

floppies or boot CDs for her, this wouldn't help her very much. But
the original OS CD for her computer would. But if she no longer has
it, I don't know what to do except look for a copy on ebay.

Why don't you ask her if she has the Windows ME CD? That sort of "research"
seems the wisest and quickest.