OT -- I need Computer Help

Jeff Strickland proclaimed:

The only legal one I have is the original Mickeysoft bootable CD for XP Home. Probably a bigger pita to ISO it than it would be to go to Plan B if you have a floppy.

If you have a bootable floppy in the obstreporous computer and a floppy drive in another computer with internet access, you can create the set of bootable floppies with the download from the Microsoft website, there is one for XP Home and one for XP Pro. Start with MSKB article Q310994 or just search for "Windows XP Setup boot disks"

You got the cable that also attempts to set the master/slave setting, which can interfere with a drive jumper?

Jeff Strickland proclaimed:

All the Windows boot disks are also available at

Chris

All the drive manufacturers are different as far as jumpers (or no jumpers) are concerned.

I try to stay away from cable select.

The problem I have been running into is the printing keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller...

Another little tidbit here, Win 95 and Win 98 (98 for certain) doesn't know about NTFS, and Drive C doesn't even appear. I have a 98 Boot Diskette, and it creates a virtual C that is 2Mb when the real C is 20Gb.

I'm waiting for the broadband download to finish. I think I'll just leave it over night ...

Yeah, only 2000 and XP "know" about NTFS. The drive your 98 boot disk made is called a ramdrive and I believe it is used to store some data that is extracted from the floppy drive which allows you some extra DOS commands. My oversight on the 98 boot disk method. I knew about the NTFS issue, but didn't even think about it. There is also a program called NTFS DOS which is a third party application, but it is not freeware. As a last resort, you can install XP on a FAT32 partition and get it all running, and then convert to NTFS, this is an option in XP, but let's hope you can get it all going once you get the bootable CD.

Chris

Thanks for the tips and inspiration. I found the XP Boot program on the MSoft site. It takes six diskettes to run, but it worked.

Mine has a jumper setting that lets the cable drive the decisions, but I am not using that jumper setting.

The beauty of being nearsighted is that I can read small print up close ...

Jeff, glad you got it sorted out. The only reason you should need the floppy disks is if the PC is not capable of booting from CD, which yours should be. Strange, but sometimes it works out that way.

Chris

I have a CD drive, but the boot disk isn't available in that format unless one has the New Installation version. I have the Upgrade version, and the assumption is that the previous OS has a suitable boot disk. We found out this evening that this isn't a safe assumption ...

It seems that Gates & Co would provide a download that can go onto a CD, but I didn't see one.

The upgrade disk I gave you the link to is bootable. Did you use that one or not?

Chris

The Win98 boot disk is invaluable. I haven't run the OS in years but still find use to being able to boot to a floppy with or without CD-ROM support, and have format and FDisk and Extract and all the basics available. I actually had to use one this weekend to get my SATA RAID hard drives ready for a fresh install of WinXPMCE. For some reason the old FDisk could see em and format but XP couldn't do anything until that. Then just used XP to redo the partitions and format again to NTFS.

Brandonb

Jeff Strickland wrote:

No, the connection dropped and I found a bootable disk file that was much smaller, but it fits on a set of diskettes.

Too bad you had this problem when I was in A Coruña enjoying some free days. I could have thrown in my two cents worth.

Earle

Sounds like he still needs a bootable CD though

I sent him a link to one he could download from me, but he said his connection dropped the download. It is still there for him if he wants/needs it.

Chris

I don't know much about XP. I tried it once and didn't like it. Then I gave the computer to my daughter, who was thrilled to get XP, at first. We all like Windows 2000 now. I think that the basic install mechanism is the same.

Anyway, there should be stuff on the installation CD to make a set of floppy boot disks. On the Windows 2000 CD, you find it in the BOOTDISK directory. Also, you can boot from DOS and run WINNT.EXE from the CD, I386 directory. This will do some stuff for you. I don't think it will be able to install to an NTFS partition, unless you give it some FAT or FAT32 space for temporary files.

Earle