I Need Help Please!!

[Nubius]

You shouldn't need any boot disks with winXP. If you've never changed your boot sequence before then it should probably be:

1. Floppy
2. CD-Rom
3. HDD-0

Put in your WinXP CD is all you have to do. No boot disks. Pop that CD in and you'll see text that says 'Press any key to boot from cd' and it gives you about 5 seconds to do so otherwise it's going to windows...so press a key and it'll load up the winXP installation....it should be pretty easy from there..

I don't know why you have all these boot disks or why your friend told you you need them as WinXP is just pop in the CD, format, and install.

You'll have to delete the partition on the C: Drive (it might not make sense now, but when you see it you'll know) It'll show you your hard drive with however big it is. You need to delete the partition it'll be showing there and then create another one. To delete it you select the partition and then hit D, then it'll ask you if you're sure and you hit L, then hit C to create a new partition and simply hit ENTER when it brings you to the next screen. Then it'll have the CREATE A PARTITION, DELETE A PARTITION, or SETUP WINDOWS ON PARTITION, so then you select your partition and hit ENTER and that'll choose that one to Format (format it in NTFS) and it'll start clearing files and copying what you need. Then when the computer restarts let it go past the cd-rom. Don't take the CD out, simply doesn't press a key to boot from the CD

 

[BRUCEG]

when i put in the cd and turned on my comp it says NTLDR is missing....

 

[Nubius]

Aright, and you gotta be honest here...do you have a pirated version of WinXP because it sounds like you do. WinXP should be pop in the CD and go...

 

[jolancer]

when your comp first starts up, hold down F1, or maybe F2, to enter BIOS. u have to change the boot order in there... change it so that the CD-rom is first, then just do what was posted above..

if u dont know witch button u have to hold to enter your bios(i think it might change between different bands,ex- Dell VS HP) just hold down them all. F1 threw F8.

 

[Nubius]

It's usually F8 is safe mode, Some computers are F2 or F1 to enter the BIOS but I think for the most part it's the DEL key to get in there...but first we gotta see if he even has a legal version of WinXP because if he doesn't then we can't help him

 

[ShoobieRat]

I agree with Nubius...Something strange is going on.

First, the floppies are the boot-disks for XP (98 only had one, but XP is more complex so it has 6). You only need those in rare occations.

Second, XP doesn't run with a DOS shell anymore (like 98 used to). So there's no command prompt.

Turn on the computer. When all the text shows up, you should see somewhere on the screen a message about pressing a key to enter setup/bios/preferences/configuration or something along those lines. It's usually F1, or Delete. When you see the text, press the key and you'll enter BIOS.

Looking through the BIOS menus, you'll find one called "Boot Order" or something similar. Set that up to boot from the CD-ROM first, then floppy, then HDD.

Now put in the XP CD into your CD-ROM. Save-and-Exit from BIOS. The computer should reboot (or at least reload). It'll go through the text again (called POST) and then try to boot up. It'll call your CD-ROM, find the XP CD, and the CD will take over.

Somewhere along the setup for XP it'll talk about formatting your drives and dealing with partitions.

---------------------------

If you're getting errors on the CD, either (A): you have a damaged disk, (B): you have Apple hardware, or (C): You have an illegal copy of Windows.

Fill in the circle with a number-2 pencil.

 

[madmonk888]

windows xp has floppy boot disks ? i bought mine retail home version for 99.99 bucks and all it had was the cd .. popped it in, had no problem and on 3 computers.... so .. really does sound like harddrive problem.. i dont see why the boot sequence matters.. since all comps start with floppy.. and usually then HD.. but since you get the cdrom boot going, it should install just fine .. you got me

 

[killians45]

Actually, this happens often during either upgrades to XP or reinstallation. Here's a few things to try, if non of this works you'll have to reset the active partition and reformat. Anyhow, try the following. Try, from Dos prompt, fixmbr and fixboot and see if that works. If it doesn't, do a flat file install. Basically, make a new directory on the HDD and copy the files to it and run the setup there. Here is the command line for this (do this at the C:\> prompt)... you'll probably need a boot disk.


md tempinstall <enter>
d: <enter> (this assumes that the d is your cdrom drive)
cd i386 <enter>
copy *.* c:\tempinstall <enter>
c: <enter>
cd tempinstall <enter>
winnt <enter>

that should start the installation via from the cab files copied to the HDD. If that fails, try installing again but when it asks for a location install to a different directory.

 

[Nubius]

i dont see why the boot sequence matters.. since all comps start with floppy.. and usually then HD..

Not all computers. Mainly high name manufacturers like Dell and Compaq, I don't even have a floppy and to save that much extra loading time I just make my Hard drive the first loading device unless I need to boot from the CD, then I simply restart, change it in the BIOS, save and exit

 

[ShoobieRat]

madmonk888 - The boot order is determined by the BIOS setup, not the computer.

Also, EVERY Windows OS has boot disks. You don't get them when you buy the OS because most of the time you don't need them. They're a relic that most people will never need to use. You can make yourself a set of boot floppies by going to the Microsoft website and downloading the files to disks (believe it's 6 now).

To be honest, the only times I've ever had to use the floppies was when the HDD got corrupted and wouldn't boot on its own. If you are in a large office situation (like me) there might be one Windows disk for 50 PCs. When I get this kind of problem, throwing in the boot disks sorts things out and isn't such a big deal.

Still, 99% of the people using XP will never even think about the boot floppies.