How to start XP setup?

[William Stokes]

Hello,
Friend of mine tried to install win98 over winXP (don't know why???) in his
laptop and the setup ended with some sort of an error. Result is that he has
non booting OS in C: partition and his personal files in D: partition in the
same physical drive. He needs to save somehow these files in the D:
partition.

Problem is that he can't re-install the XP because his setup CD won't boot.
He says the CD is first in the bios boot order and that the CD is really
bootable (works in other computers). The CD-ROM drive is visible in the bios
setup but with !-mark after the drive name.

Is there any other means to access that d: partion that re-installation of
XP/W2K to C: partition? Is it possible to make XP boot disk with CD-ROM
support? He's got an IBM laptop. I don't know the model.

Thanks
-Will

 

[Mikhail Zhilin]

William,

If that computer can boot from the diskette, and CD-ROM is in working
condition -- you can use Bootable CD Loader from
http://bootcd.narod.ru/index_e.htm (works fine for me):

<quote>
Bootable CD Loader v1.50Z: bcdl150z.zip
(~26 Kb, 21.03.2004)
The bootfloppy.
Enables PCs that do not support boot from CD (Bootable CD) to start
bootable CDs..
</quote>

To install this drive -- unpack bcdl150z.ima to the root of C: (you can
use the other folder -- then change its name in the command line at the
end of this my reply), download also Rawrite2 utility (17 KB),

ftp://ftp.dina.kvl.dk/debian/dists/woody/main/disks-i386/3.0.23-2002-05-21/dosutils/rawrite2.exe

to the folder where bcdl150z.ima is, and write the diskette (Start --
Run...):

c:\rawrite2 -f:c:\bcdl150z.ima -d:A

--
Mikhail Zhilin
http://www.aha.ru/~mwz
Sorry, no technical support by e-mail.
Please reply to the newsgroups only.
======

 

[Admiral Q]

The exclamation point ! means the CD-ROM has been disabled as a boot device,
my laptop an IBM ThinkPad uses the same notations, but also has a function
key that when depressed on the device while highlighted in the BIOS setup,
will toggle the device on/off or bootable/unbootable - in other words each
time you hit the f-key, its status changes from bootable to unbootable back
to bootable. This is added as a security feature for laptops, where when
enabled with a BIOS password, makes it more difficult to change the boot
sequence and be able to boot from CD to break into a laptop. But physical
access being 99% of computer security, there's really not much to completely
stop intrusion with physical access.

--
Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your service!
"Google is your Friend!"
www.google.com

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