Help Me Please [with XP Boot CD]

IM NOT DOING ANYTHING ILLEGAL!!!! ITS NOT A DIFFERENT COMPUTER ITS THE SAME COMPUTER THAT THE XP CAME ON AND THE XP DISC CAME WITH!!!IM NOT DOING ANYTHING ILLEGAL!!!! ITS NOT A DIFFERENT COMPUTER ITS THE SAME COMPUTER THAT THE XP CAME ON AND THE XP DISC CAME WITH!!!IM NOT DOING ANYTHING ILLEGAL!!!! ITS NOT A DIFFERENT COMPUTER ITS THE SAME COMPUTER THAT THE XP CAME ON AND THE XP DISC CAME WITH!!!

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ok im trying to install xp to a computer that doesnt have it so i went in nero and make a bottable data disc but when i make the laptops temp boot location D: it doesnt load the cd. if im in dos and type setup when in d:\ it says it cannotbe run in dos mode. what do i do? its not dual boot there is no OS on the system right now. i set the cdrom as the first list in the boot order (in bios) and its not loading up. my xp cd was really scratched so i burnt a copy (had the files on my computer) and i made it a bootable cd with nero. i can get into caldera dr-dos but the setup wont run in there. thanks.

 

If your original XP disk is damaged to the extent that it won't boot, then any copy you make won't likely be bootable either.

You must get in touch with MicroSoft and explain your situation to them. They'll be happy to supply a replacement CD for a small fee. Before calling, get your product ID tag information since they will need that.

Of course you could also use someone elses CD for the install and furnish your product ID information when asked. You may still have to call MicroSoft to activate the installation and explain your situation. Otherwise the install might go dead when the grace period expires.

 

umm i didnt say anything like that because no one asked. . . and i had saved the files from the damaged xp b4 hand because i have no luck with cds. . . thats how i have a burnt copy of my XP. yes MY XP that i paid for

 

If you have the MS CD, and cannot make a bootup CD for it, it is because you need to use the Microsoft Corporation.IMG file from the XP CD as the boot image. While this link is about creating a slipstreamed XP SP2, it has excellent instructions on making a bootable XP CD with your copy of MS XP using Nero.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

 

1. Have you tried to boot to bios setup and change the boot order to cdrom prior to hard drive?

2. Even in this setup order, many computers will require you to press the any key when you see the cdrom drive light flash during boot. You may momentarily see "press any key to boot to cdrom" flash by as it is searching for a disk on the cdrom drive.

3. XP does not use a single floppy to boot to the installer, you need six floppies
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994
When you use a boot floppy (or set) it will most likely load as a RAMDRIVE D: directly after the first hard drive partition C: . Thus a CDROM which is normally D: will be bumped up one drive letter to E:
So D:setup will not work; the command would be E:setup
In reality the setup.exe will be in a folder i386 so the command is E:/i386/setup.exe

 

is no setup.exe in 1386. iwas told to copy that folder only n try to install it didnt work theres ntsetup and usetup and a few somethin .msi and a couple more i tired but none would open up

 

The dos command to install XP is not "setup" it is "winnt" .

 

ok when i try to boot up with a cd it brings me to caldera dr-dos but i cant run xp setup in dos. so what do i do?

 

OR

You mentioned you had copied the i386 folder to your harddrive previously but were unable to figure out how to run or start the xp setup from dos....

Make sure you have copied the \i386 folder to your harddrive?

If so the command to install from dos would be:
c:\i386\winnt.exe

The command line path to the i386 folder would have to be adjusted to reflect the directory folder you may have used to copy the i386 folder to, if you did not use the path in my instructions.

NOTE: You could also do this from the CD and CDROM drive prompt but I have found that it installs much faster and is less problematic to copy the i386 folder to harddrive and install XP from the harddrive.