XP Boot disk/drive problems! Help!

[ninty_04]

I seem to be having problems with re-installing XP on my system. When I
restart my system with my XP boot disk, instead of being taken to the
usual screens for installation of XP I get this:

Calderas [DR DOS]

This is the program that loads instead of my boot disk. I get my pc to
know that there is a boot disk in the system but [DR DOS] boots up
instead. I eventally get some thing on screen like:

[DR DOS]A:\

I have no idea what this is or what it means. Any help would be much
appreciated.

I'll just add that this only happened after I had a big problem with my
system files on the hard disk drive. I've been told to re-intall XP but
I cant because my XP boot disk doesn't boot up properly. I know my XP
boot disk works as I have only just re-installed XP 2 days ago (which
ran fine until I uninstalled Office XP) then my system crashed.

I'm trying to boot up my XP boot disk so that I can format the damaged
partition. I don't even have an A:\ drive installed. All I have are
these:

(Primary Slave) 3GB Hard Drive
(Secondary Slave) 80GB Hard Drive (which is set to be 32GB)
(Primary Slave) CD-R/RW Drive
(Primary Master) DVD-R/RW Drive

I know my configuration is odd, but this is the only way to detect all
the drives. I never knew why.

Is there any way I can get my system to stop loading up [DR DOS] and
just boot up via my XP boot disk. Cheers for any help!

 

[Ted Zieglar]

Are you using a retail Windows XP CD?

 

[Anna]

I seem to be having problems with re-installing XP on my system. When I
restart my system with my XP boot disk, instead of being taken to the
usual screens for installation of XP I get this:

Calderas [DR DOS]

This is the program that loads instead of my boot disk. I get my pc to
know that there is a boot disk in the system but [DR DOS] boots up
instead. I eventally get some thing on screen like:

[DR DOS]A:\

I have no idea what this is or what it means. Any help would be much
appreciated.

I'll just add that this only happened after I had a big problem with my
system files on the hard disk drive. I've been told to re-intall XP but
I cant because my XP boot disk doesn't boot up properly. I know my XP
boot disk works as I have only just re-installed XP 2 days ago (which
ran fine until I uninstalled Office XP) then my system crashed.

I'm trying to boot up my XP boot disk so that I can format the damaged
partition. I don't even have an A:\ drive installed. All I have are
these:

(Primary Slave) 3GB Hard Drive
(Secondary Slave) 80GB Hard Drive (which is set to be 32GB)
(Primary Slave) CD-R/RW Drive
(Primary Master) DVD-R/RW Drive

I know my configuration is odd, but this is the only way to detect all
the drives. I never knew why.

Is there any way I can get my system to stop loading up [DR DOS] and
just boot up via my XP boot disk. Cheers for any help!

Are you using a retail Windows XP CD?

ninty_04:
As Ted infers, you should be booting up with the Windows XP installation
disk in order to reinstall the XP operating system. Do you have one?

But before we get to the reinstallation of the OS, let's discuss your
hardware system...

To say your configuration is "odd" is, to put it mildly, really odd...

1. You were booting to a 3 GB drive while you have a 80 GB drive installed?
Or were you booting to the 80 GB drive?
2. Is there some reason why your 80 GB drive is not configured as a Primary
Master so that you can boot to it?
3. Is there really any reason you need a 3 GB drive? It would seem a drive
of such small capacity in today's XP environment is virtually useless, no?
If there's important data on that drive that you need, couldn't you move it
to the 80 GB one? Or if you do need a second HD for storage/backup purposes,
would it be possible for you to purchase one, say 40 GB or so?
4. Why has that 80 GB drive been installed with the 32 GB limitation? Are
you working with a motherboard so old that it can support drives only up to
32 GB? If so, you *really* need a more up-to-date motherboard to work in an
XP environment. I would hope you could afford to purchase one if that is the
case. If you know or can find out the make & model of your present
motherboard, please pass that info on.

BTW, you mention that you "don't even have an A:\ drive installed." I assume
you're referring to a floppy drive, yes? If so, how were you able to try to
bootup with that "XP boot disk"? Anyway, forget about that floppy disk, at
least for the moment.

So respond to the above and we'll go on from there.
Anna

 

[Al Romanosky]

Post is confusing concerning references to a XP boot disk - you can have XP
boot disk (floppy) - are you really referring to the XP CD? You may be
omitting important facts. Regarding "Caldera(Dr.Dos)" - primary user of
this version DOS is Partition Magic and is provided to run Partition Magic
from DOS when Windows will not boot. There are usually two floppies - one
with Caldera DOS and another with the DOS version of Partition Magic. Also
you state you have no floppy drive but Caldera DOS is booting to the "A"
drive - indicating it found an "A" drive??
Do you have a Partition Magic CD and using it rather than your XP CD? When
you were having problems "a.go system file"
did you or someone else used a HD utility?