Emergancy Diskette?

Emergancy Diskette??

I am a bad boy. I've been using XP Pro for over a year and a half and just realized I never made an emergancy startup disc.

BUT, I can't find how to do so. Was this feature dropped in XP with the addition of Restore (which I also have never looked at)?

It was only when a friend "lost it all" that I realized I was sitting on a land mine.

 

There really isn't a boot disk as such, in the same sense as 98 had one.

With XP, you can boot from the CD and get into the Recovery Console, which is a DOS-like environment that resembles the old boot disk.

A sort of boot disk can be prepared by copying these files to a blank floppy:

ntdetect.com
ntldr
boot.ini

This can be used to boot if you ever get an error that one of these files is missing, for example.

 

Just goes to show how stable XP really is...
Three suggestions:
1. Partition your hard drive and keep all your data files separate from the OS.
2. Go into BIOS and change your boot order to boot from cd first. The XP repair option works 75% of the time, so don't lose your cd.
3. Back up, back up, back up. Make it a part of your routine, and if something BAD happens, you won't curse yourself or the machine.

Johanna

 

Also a good idea to create an Emergency Repair Disk and you'll find good directions for doing that in your Help & Support.

 

Another way to do this is to install the Recovery Console.
Instructions are in Help. This gives another option during boot.
Very similar to the old MSDOS mode.

Best

 

And, be sure to be online when you install the RC so that the Dynamic Update can kick in.

My RC couldn't recognize or run chkdsk on a FAT32 partition I had until I reinstalled RC while online and it was updated.

 

This kind of pertains to the topic being discussed, as I too am a little concerned about a disaster, after I had one partition corrupt on me, and had to re-format and re-install XP. I had done some reading about Norton Ghost, and ordered it recently, with the idea I could backup my whole harddrive as is, and make it easier to reload items in the event another "corruption" or "crash" happens. What is everyones opinion on Norton Ghost, and will I be able to do what I have mentioned with it?
thanks,
coadman

 

Christer is our resident expert on Norton Ghost. Yoo-hoo, Christer, are ya home??

Johanna

(do a search on the board)

 

What is everyones opinion on Norton Ghost
Excellent, rock solid app.

and will I be able to do what I have mentioned with it?
Yes.