How to boot to ms-dos without a floppy drive

[Guest]

I want to format my hard drive but I can't make a boot disk becasue I don't
have a floppy drive. Is there a way to boot into ms-dos without a boot disk?

 

[Og]

Your Windows XP CD is bootable -- no need to boot from a floppy.

Ensure that your BIOS is set to boot from CD-ROM, insert your Win XP CD in
the drive, reboot, and follow the yellow brick road of prompts.

steve

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I want to format my hard drive but I can't make a boot disk becasue
I don't have a floppy drive. Is there a way to boot into ms-dos
without a boot disk?

Boot with your Windows XP CD.
Continue through the installation untill it asks you where to install.
DELETE the partition(s) and create new ones.
Congrats - you are formatted.

Another option - download a bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com/ and then
use some decent CD burning application to create a Bootable CD based off
that boot diskette image you downloaded.

 

[Ron Hardin]

My Dell laptop will give you a choice where to boot from if you hit
F12 repeatedly while it's going through its boot thing, from power up
onwards until it responds to you.

I've never been able to do it just hitting F12 once. I guess the
timing is too hard to get right with just one.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I want to format my hard drive but I can't make a boot disk becasue I don't
have a floppy drive. Is there a way to boot into ms-dos without a boot disk?

There is no way to reboot a WinXP PC into Real Mode DOS unless
you've set up a dual-boot system. The WinNT family of 32-bit
graphical operating systems, of which WinXP is the latest generation,
has never used, included, or "ridden upon" MS-DOS.

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

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