PC boot question

[alva]

That's after using a start-up diskette, no?

[Spiffor]

Or maybe try to copy a 98 boot disk on her harddrive. with any luck, it could become a bootable drive.

[Spiffor]

Alva:
I'm not sure of something: Can you copy things on your friend's HD? I mean, is your friend's HD currently a sitting duck in your comp?

[reds4ever]

Does she have an executeable XP OS? (ie copied)

If so, format the new HD (from the existing one) extract and install the OS to the new drive, then set BIOS/the drive jumpers to boot from that HD

[alva]

The hd is not even in my pc.

man, this is a pain to do through msn...

/me crosses of working for a help-desk

[Spiffor]

For the sake of clarity, I'd like to tell what I understand of the situation

1. You are trying to explain something to her through MSN, and you don't have any relevant hardware at hand.
2. She wants to install WinXP on a HD that is currently secondary on her computer, but which will become primary on another comp.
3. The HD in question is empty and non bootable
4. The next PC won't have any disk drive, and your CD is non-bootable.

Is this all true?

[reds4ever]

My take on it is that Alva's gone on the pull on MSN masked as a computer programmer and been found out by a chick with a problem

[alva]

Originally posted by Spiffor
For the sake of clarity, I'd like to tell what I understand of the situation

1. You are trying to explain something to her through MSN, and you don't have any relevant hardware at hand.

True

2. She wants to install WinXP on a HD that is currently secondary on her computer, but which will become primary on another comp.

true

3. The HD in question is empty and non bootable

It's just formatted, nothing on it

4. The next PC won't have any disk drive, and your CD is non-bootable.

neither have a floppy drive and nothing to do with my CD, it's the OS cd's themselves that are not bootable ( non originals )

Is this all true?

My take on it is that Alva's gone on the pull on MSN masked as a computer programmer and been found out by a chick with a problem

Well, I'm a programmer to be, not a technician

[reds4ever]

Theres away to make a CD bootable using Nero if you just have the XP files (as in a copy of XP not just XP on a drive) on a HD, would this bean use to you? If it isn't then I've totally missed the point anyway...;O)

[alva]

I'm gonna leave it 'til tomorrow, she went to bed anyway.

Thanks for trying though

Making an CD bootable never worked for me btw, I burned and wasted countless of cd's trying.

[reds4ever]

I've tried it twice and it worked the second time, and I know sod all about CD burning so it is doable.

[Mercator]

Are you sure the CD's aren't bootable? Maybe the drive simply isn't in the boot-up sequence.

[DrSpike]

If you don't have a bootable cd then beg/borrow/steal/buy (in that order ) a floppy drive, and make a boot disk. There's no other way I can see.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by alva
She has no floppy drive and was unsuccesfully trying to install an OS onto the second drive (doesn't let specify a folder, she using win2000 and trying to install XP but apparantly it only wants to upgrade).

You should be able to boot from the XP CD, then just exit the setup process. Then just delete the files in \windows.

[alva]

Never mind, we got it all working (execpt that her boot now ask her to choice between OS's while there is nothing to choose between, doesn't matter)

Thanks all