Need XP boot floppy that will "see" CD-Rom & HD

[Guest]

I have followed instructions to create a boot floppy within Win-XP. PC boots
OK but does not see the Hard drive or the CD-Rom.

HD is 160GB WD with 4 partitions. The "C" partition is 45GB

 

[GreenieLeBrun]

I have followed instructions to create a boot floppy within Win-XP. PC boots
OK but does not see the Hard drive or the CD-Rom.

HD is 160GB WD with 4 partitions. The "C" partition is 45GB

http://www.bootdisk.com/

 

[Guest]

Thanks. The various files look like they will solve my problem

 

[AJR]

If you created the "boot floppy" via XP floppy format capability all you
have is a "DOS startup disk" which only initially provides access to the A
drive - "cd C:" or "C" at the prompt usually accesses the C drive.
A ME Startup disk provides CD rom access - good thing to have handy.

 

[Bob Harris]

The floppy made by XP is really a version of ME, not XP.

As such, it can not see any partition formatted as NTFS, which is the
default format for XP.

If you have a real XP CD, it is bootable and can run the "recovery console".
That can see NTFS partitions. However, the recovery console is fairly
limited in what it can fix.

Links to recovery console:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm



http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm



http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm (near bottom)



http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm (ISO, about number 26 in list)


If you do not have an XP CD, you can download a set of floppy images form
Microsoft to run the recovery conssole. Microsoft calls these setup disks.

By, by far the easiest way to boot a PC running XP, when XP is not happy, is
to use either KNOPPIX CD or a Bart's CD.

KNOPPIX is a free LINUX that runs from a CD. It comes as a large ISO file
(700 Meg for CD version; larger for DVD version). You burn it to a CD (or
DVD) using software like Nero or Easy CD Creator, something with a
burn-from-image option. KNOPPIX is not just a repair environment, but a
full alternative operating system with its own (free) office suite, web
browser, etc. By default, KNOPPIX treats internal hard drives as read-only,
but you can over-ride that.

Bart's is not a image, but a program that makes an ISO file. It requires as
input a real XP CD, with at least SP-1. Bart's takes a bit of time to study
and get the steps correct, but is well worth making. Bart's is effectively
running some of the XP routines without all of XP.

Both Bart's and KNOPPIX can do a lot more than the recovery console.
Neither seems to care about little things, like XP passwords.

Link to Bart's:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Link to KNOPPIX:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

 

[David Candy]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the link Dave.

One has to wonder why MS bothers to create a boot floppy if you can't do
anything useful in XP once you boot from that floppy.

 

[David Candy]

It's there to flash BIOSs