Creating a WinXP Start Up Disk

How do I go about making a start up disk in WindowsXP.
I want to delete the operating system and start over.

 

Hi ezell` and welcome to the board,

You don't really nead such a disk for installing XP. The XP install cd is bootable so just set your CMOS to check the cd-rom drive first and you'll be on your way.

If for some reason your CMOS can't be set for that, you can always use a Win98 disk to boot up and recognize the cd-rom. Then stick the XP install cd in the drive and type X:\setup (X being your cd-rom drive designation)

Good luck.

 

Coincidence!
I was going to point to this thread with your answers in it Zephyr!

Daizy

 

Actually, Zephyr, there is no setup.exe on the XP CD (though there is now one on the slipstreamed XP SP1 CD).

A single-floppy XP installation disk can be made with this program:
http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/xpfiles/xpboot.exe
This contains and automatically starts smartdrv.exe which will speed the DOS part of the installation by beginning disk caching.
After getting a DOS prompt with this disk (it will tell you what letter was assigned to your CD-ROM), type:
X:\i386\winnt.exe
(where "X" is your CD-ROM letter) to begin the installation.

It is easier, as Zephyr said, to boot from CD and format and install from there.

 

hanks Daizy

But I read between the lines of ezell` 's post and decided he really wanted a boot disk as opposed to a start up disk (statt up even, sic) but perhaps someday he'll want both. At any rate we have the bases covered thanks to your keen recall. (Or was it that stacking clipboard again? )

 

After XP is installed, a "quick-boot" disk can be made which will boot XP if certain startup files are damaged.
To a formatted disk, copy:
ntldr
boot.ini
ntdetect.com

 

Abraxas
Thanks for that. I'll take your word for it since I didn't even get an XP install cd. Now everyone knows I'm just making this stuff up.


*******Copy following script to notepad********

cho off
@echo This script will create a boot disk for Windows XP.
@echo Press any key to proceed or press CTRL+C to cancel.
pause > nul
FORMAT A:
XCOPY C:\NTLDR A:\ /H
XCOPY C:\NTDETECT.COM A:\ /H
XCOPY C:\BOOT.INI A:\ /h
pause

********Save as XPboot.bat********


This will create an XP "Start Up" or "Quick Start" disk which can be used to boot an ailing XP installation. This is not a disk to boot the machine with for a new install however.

 

I only know because I tried it. Old habits die hard. When I'm trying to help someone install XP on the phone, they often get ahead of me and start DOS, expecting to use setup.
But the boot disk method works---starting just requires winnt.exe instead of setup.exe.

 

Abraxas I suspect you have visited the XXCOPY site...

 

Not in a while, but I did when you mentioned it.
Anything in particular?

 

Not really, I just remember how they beat the XP boot disk issue to death some time back. I haven't checked lately either but just noticed that your link to the xpboot.exe and subsequent download created a rather nice boot disk that happened to contain xxcopy.

 

I guess I thought I had added xxcopy to mine! I packed everything I could on my disk; aefdisk, delpart, etc. so I wouldn't have to go looking

 

Zephyr-----
To get to the bottom of this, since I was wrong about there being a setup.exe on the XP CD, I just rebooted on an ME startup disk and tried to run setup from the XP CD.
I got the error: "This program cannot be run from DOS mode ".

So, we were both somewhat mistaken. There is a setup.exe on the CD, but the installation needs to be started from the winnt.exe program in the i386 folder unless setup is started from Windows.

 

True, there is a setup.exe on there but us mere mortals can't use it directly. You must run winnt.exe first and then it will use setup.exe later on down the road, as MS explains here to somewhat of a degree similar to how I explain things.

You might say, when preparing to run XP setup from a dos prompt, don't run setup.exe., run winnt.exe. Very clear now.

BTW, You might want to update your XXCOPY since they're up to ver. 2.82.4.0 now and it is somewhat better, especially for some functionality issues after sp1 is installed.