Boot disks

[Lucern]

This is just a standard tech thread.

The issue: My computer needs to be reformatted, on account of a nasty trojan downloader I picked up somewhere. I've reformatted many times in the past, so that's not really an issue. This host of viruses have disabled some things I've never seen before, like the ability to "Save as" in any document or even in a window, or to click on a hyperlink outside of a browser. It is also preventing me from accessing my Add/Remove programs. Now, if I've read accurately online, I need to access Add/Remove programs to make a boot disk that will let me reformat. See my problem?

I wasted the better part of an hour scouring the area for a PC with XP on it that I might accomplish this on, but to no avail. Campus computers are all 2000 for some reason. People I randomly approached were fearful (understandably) of the disk i was brandishing being laden with viruses. Someone actually did let me use their XP computer, and I just plain didn't see where or how to make such a boot disk there.

Unlike slightly newer machines, I cannot seem to just boot from the CD-ROM, even by setting the BIOS to start with the CD-ROM before the hard disk. It doesn't seem to give me the chance to boot from it or do so automatically. It just goes straight to a very unstable windows environment. This may be because of my cd-rom setup, where I've got one living and one dead drive, and I don't recall the setup I did there, frankly. A boot disk would bypass this, ideally.

If it's at all relevant, I'm running a Dell, P4 1.6 Ghz, Windows XP Home, 1 G SD RAM, and I can't afford a new one in the near future [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Oh, and I found program that wanted to make "Setup Boot Disks" - from 6 floppy disks? Well I only have 5 lol. Maybe my answer is in a measly floppy disk - but I'm not sure this program is creating what I want, because I recall doing it from just one disk...

Any help is appreciated.

[Zebodog]

Under my computer, right click on the floppy icon and choose format. Frome the available options choose create an MS-DOS startup disk (or something similiar, I haven't had a floppy installed for the better part of two years)

Your BIOS must be set to boot from floppy before a boot from the HD, and you need to empty your CD drives.

For a complete re-format in this instance, I would suggest using FDISK to delete and re-create the partition on your HD and a complete drive format, not the quick version.

[shamrock_uk]

http://www.bootdisk.com

[Felix The Assassin]

You have a what type of drive? Gasp! Do you still have all of your original stuff from Dell? In there, you should find your system specific restore CD. That will allow you to completly re-format your HDD.

Another free alternative, and it's been moving up the charts like a M$ induced spam letter recently. http://www.ubuntu.com/


[ 09-10-2005, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: Felix The Assassin ]

[andrewas]

A winXP boot floppy does take up 6 floppies. It gets better. A win9x boot floppy does not allow you to run a winXP installation. That installer requires a windows kernel to be running, which means booting from an NT boot floppy.

The normal way to do this is to boot from the CDROM, but if that isnt working your going to need to find a 6th floppy. It might be worth putting a new CDROM drive in, it might be that the existing one isnt capable of booting from CD. I havent seen a drive that can't do that for ages, but it is possible.

[Lucern]

What, Felix, do you mean my floppy drive, that endangered species?

As for the CD ROM drive, that one's relatively new, a Sony 52x/32x/52x CD/RW, to replace the husk of the original. So to avoid the apparent inability to boot from a cd ROM (Something involving recognition of the old one, Masters, Slaves, uhh...I just don't wanna go there again)...here's where I'm at. I do have EVERYTHING from Dell though, as it all seemed useful for only this occasion.

I successfully did what Zebodog suggested, but then realized I couldn't fight my way out of a wet DOS paper bag. I got to DOS alright, but then couldn't figure out how to do...well anything.

So I went to the site in Sham's link, downloaded from MS a program that claims "This program creates the Setup boot disks for MS Windows XP SP1", out of six disks. I also ran out and bought another disk lol. So I'm about to see if this gets me where I need to go. Here goes nothing.

Thanks all so far, and good to know this wasn't a waste of 99 cents on the disk Andrewas

[Lucern]

Thwarted...

The Setup boot disks didn't work in two different ways:
1) I had the option to repair or run the XP startup disks. When I went for the startup disks, it couldn't detect it, because it lacked the ability to look in my secondary (functional) cd rom). The solution: "insert mass storage driver disk in A:" Right..those exist anymore...

2) Went for the repair. This took me to a dos-esque scenario, where I went to reformat. I successfully typed in the magic code format c: /fs:ntfs, only to be greeted with a line about "unable to locate autoformat.exe" (or something), and a request for me to type in its location.

The quest continues.

Edit:Oh man..I gotta do this soon. Some kind of 9/11 news report just came on in the middle of this. I don't have any media programs open. Creeeepy.

[ 09-10-2005, 09:50 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

[Bungleau]

Okay... two things come to mind.

First, for some hardware providers the copy of Windows you have is eternally linked to that machine. You can't put in just *any* Windows CD and expect to be able to do anything. However, I've been able to get it to boot before I get that message...

Second, there must be something tripping the computer so it's not trying to boot from the correct CD drive. If it's a desktop, revisit the BIOS settings to ensure that it's booting from CD first. You can also try swapping the two CD drives and see if that works.

Finally, if you did get down to DOS, and you were able to get there with CD-ROM support, you can go over to that CD, type "setup", and let it run. That should let you do a repair install, or possibly even completely wipe and reload.

BTW, easiest way to format I can think of... get to DOS and run fdisk. Delete the partition and recreate it. Note that this isn't for sissies... it really will blow it away. But it can be fun....

[Felix The Assassin]

You are really going to have to slide open the case, and do the physical switch out on thsoe CD rom drives. From what you have reported, the good drive is the slave to the bad drive, and therefore is not being checked. It is going to have to be brought up to master, and little cross plug on the back refitted. I intentionally rebuild my rig at a minimum of thrice annually, so it's really not that big a deal. Speaking of which, there are more OSs on here than music at the moment, but Fall is just around the bend. As 'Bungleau' above points out, you will have to use that Dell CD, (me tinks). The only store bought PC in the house is the spousal unit's, and I have never touched it since setting it up. No experience with rebuilding a proprietary rig, but have the inkling that CD is going to be your only salvation. Once you get it going, you will be asked if you want to format, chose yes, and go from there.

If you are just wanting to play with DOS, boot under that floppy thingie, and type fdisk then enter. You should be presented with an fdisk menu, bust down all of your partitions on that HDD. Once you reboot, leaving that disk in, type format C: it will ask you, answer Yes then again, and it will begin. Size dependent of your HDD, this might be a few hours. Then change BIOS over to CD, Then HDD. and boot from the Dell CD. It should be painless from there. Keep in mind Dell likes to have 3 partitions, 1 for Dell, 1 for ???, and 1 for you the user.

[Lucern]

You guys hit the nail on the head.

I report with a fresh install: no games, no music, no papers, but no viruses

The underlying problem was that old dead CD ROM drive that Dell likes (or liked..) to use. This one died after 2 years of service, and my brother's Dell CD ROM of the same age had about the same lifespan. I had forgotten that when I installed my newer CDRW, the previous drive actually sorta worked for a few weeks. Thus, I was thinking that I had properly disabled it ages ago, when in fact I hadn't. That recognition of the (mostly) dead drive was killing me in my attempts to boot from both CD ROM and disk drive. I took the old one out entirely, and am deciding whether its fate should soon meet with my hammer.

So, plugging everything back in, it booted from the CDRW just fine. Everything's as clean as this rolling hill image they give you as a default. Now to fortify that hill with AVG, AdAware, and I seem to recall another free and effective anti-virus program from an earlier IW thread.

Thanks all. [img]smile.gif[/img]