Make a Boot Disc in 2k/XP

Contributor Icon Contributed by davak Date Icon August 5, 2003  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows

Description of building and using a boot disc in microsoft windows 2k and XP.


Hopefully you will never need a boot disc.

If you are having problems booting, your first option is to hit F8 before windows starts loading up. This will often give the user enough options to bypass the offending problem.

If not or if you system won’t load at all, a boot disc will help your system start by skipping the typical boot system files.

1. Format at standard floppy. Do not select the create a MS-DOS start-up disc
2. Copy the following files to the disc. They are hidden in your root directory on your main drive (typically “c:”).
– boot.ini
– ntdetect.com
– ntldr
3. Reboot your system with the floppy in your A drive.
4. Make sure your bios is set to have your A drive boot before your C drive.
5. This should boot up into Windows and bypass your typical start-up boot files.

The greatest majority of the time this works. If it does not, then look for the following files in your system and copy them to your boot disc as well.

– Bootsect.dos
– Ntbootdd.sys

Previous recipe | Next recipe |
 
  • AlexTheBeast
    If you are trying to create floppies for new installation purposes, you might want to try my previously submitted recipe:

    http://www.tech-recipes.com/modules.php?name=Recipes&rx_id=284
  • nharrold@frontiernet.net
    "The greatest majority of the time this works. If it does not, then look for the following files in your system and copy them to your boot disc as well. "

    Am I missing something here? If I can't get XP to boot, how am I going to find and copy those two additional files to the boot disc?
  • davak
    Creating a boot (or any other kind of disc) from a nonbootable system is difficult.

    You can try downloading a XP boot disc from the internet. Sites that offer boot discs are hit very heavy and often do not exist for free for very long. Alternatively you can find somebody else with XP system to create the boot disc for you.
  • GaSrAm
    I cant find Bootsect.dos or Ntbootdd.sys ...
  • anon
    if oyu want free lindows, order lindows and add a cupon with the name LINDOWS and you get it free.
  • Anonymous
    So this gets the machine to boot. And then what? How does one fix it? How does one get the machine to boot from the harddrive?
  • AlexTheBeast
    A nonbooting system could be one of a million problems. Post what type of system you have and what error messages you get... and maybe one of us can help you figure it out.
  • Anonymous
    They are available as a file to make them from microsoft, always have been...
    home edition is here:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx...
    pro is here:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx...
  • davak
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>They are available as a file to make them from microsoft, always have been...
    home edition is here:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx...
    pro is here:
    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx...>

    Of note, those are the install disks... not pure boot disks.

    Reference this recipe:
    http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_installatio...
  • Anonymous
    sorry, davak... you're right, you can then use your xp disk, and do an "r " for repair, then you boot to the current system (usually "1")
    do a chkdsk /p will 80% of the time fix the boot problems, if not, go through the rest of the install and there should be another opportunity to "repair" further along in the install dialoguethat works 95% of the time, but you have to redo all the updates.

    good luck!
  • davak
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>sorry, davak... you're right, you can then use your xp disk, and do an "r " for repair, then you boot to the current system (usually "1")
    do a chkdsk /p will 80% of the time fix the boot problems, if not, go through the rest of the install and there should be another opportunity to "repair" further along in the install dialoguethat works 95% of the time, but you have to redo all the updates.

    good luck!</ul>

    Yeah, I agree. I've had great luck with chkdsk.

    I usually will just boot to cd-rom as described here:
    http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_installatio...

    stpt... welcome to tech-recipes! You've obviously got a lot of knowledge to share. I've just got to figure out how to boot to my usb thumbdrive next. :)

    Davak
  • Anonymous
    thank you...

    I assume you've seen....
    http://www.aaltonen.us/archives/000172.html

    I haven't tried to, because I don't own one... maybe could do it from my camera mem though... it's a USB Verrrrry interesting..........
  • davak
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>thank you...

    I assume you've seen....
    http://www.aaltonen.us/archives/000172.html

    I haven't tried to, because I don't own one... maybe could do it from my camera mem though... it's a USB Verrrrry interesting..........</ul>

    Very interesting! I'm going to take a look at that page and your submitted recipe this weekend. I want to try this stuff out.

    Wooohhooo!
  • Anonymous
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>thank you...

    I assume you've seen....
    http://www.aaltonen.us/archives/000172.html

    I haven't tried to, because I don't own one... maybe could do it from my camera mem though... it's a USB Verrrrry interesting..........</ul>
  • Anonymous
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>thank you...

    I assume you've seen....
    http://www.aaltonen.us/archives/000172.html

    I haven't tried to, because I don't own one... maybe could do it from my camera mem though... it's a USB Verrrrry interesting..........</ul>
  • Anonymous
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>thank you...

    I assume you've seen....
    http://www.aaltonen.us/archives/000172.html

    I haven't tried to, because I don't own one... maybe could do it from my camera mem though... it's a USB Verrrrry interesting..........</ul>
  • Anonymous
    <ul id="quote"><h6>stpt wrote:</h6>thank you...

    I assume you've seen....
    http://www.aaltonen.us/archives/000172.html

    I haven't tried to, because I don't own one... maybe could do it from my camera mem though... it's a USB Verrrrry interesting..........</ul>
blog comments powered by Disqus