start up disk?

[Winston]

Ok, this could take a while... After picking up a number of viruses which caused me no end of problems I was advised to save my files onto CD and then "clear" my hard drive.

I did that by using a floppy and the command:- format c: (enter) after the warning I selected Y and it took about 10 minutes doing something, I named it harddisk and was then expecting to just reload windows and that would be that..

I wa told to then put the windows disk in the driver and type setup (enter) but when I do that it states "bad command" I've tried everything but now I can't even start up without the floppy in HELP!!!!

I did have Microsoft ME but I'm trying to load XP.

Any ideas what to do next would be appreciated (apart from taking it to PC World or throwing it out the window)

[Memetic]

Have you changed to the CD drive before trying to run setup?

If you have only one hard drive (or one partition) the 1st CD-ROM or DVD drive will (probably!) be called d:

so try this:

type d:
press enter

then just to check

type dir
press enter

you should get a listing of all the files on the CD-ROM

then try typing setup
enter

Best of luck

Memetic

P.s. are you sure it is setup and not install that you need to run - I can't remember.

[ORAC]

Having formated the drive, you don't have an operating system (OS). So commands such as SETUP won't work.

With older OS you would have had to copy the basic operating system to the HDD and then install a CD driver. You could then have inserted the CD, changed to the CD drive and run SETUP.

Thankfully, XP will install straight from the CD drive without having to go through all that - assuming that your PC supports booting from the CD.

Reboot your PC and go into the BIOS (normally done by hitting the DEL key as it starts booting.)

One of the menu selections will be Boot Order and will give a variety of options such as Floppy, HDD, CD - HDD, Floppy, CD etc. Select one with CD as the first choice. Save and exit.

Insert the XP CD in the drive and reboot. Follow the XP prompts from the screen.

If that doesn't work, you'll need to download a set of 6 XP boot floppies from Microsoft on another machine. They can be found here (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994) for XP Home and Pro, both for the original XP CDs and the later Service Pack 1 (SP1) editions.

[Winston]

Hi Memetic thanks for your reply and help.
Firstly, no i'm not sure about set up I was given these instructions from the virgin net help line but I followed them and now I'm stuck!! My computer knowledge stretches to ctrl alt delete!!!

I did what you suggested and got the following list. ATTRIB,CHKDSK,COMMAND,DEBUG,EDIT,EXT,EXTRACT,FORMAT,HELP,MSC DEX,README,SCANDISK,SYS.

I tried setup and install but both replied bad command. I also tried format because thats what I think I'm trying to do? but that didn't help.

Any ideas? Maybe I should get down to PC world!

Thanks again for your help

[ORAC]

ps. A high level format will not remove many viruses, which hide in the master boot sector. Use FDISK first to remove the existing partitions, then create a new primary active partition. Then you will need to format the partition again. If you boot from the CD, XP will offer to format it for you.

[Memetic]

Hmm to me Winston that looks like you might still be on the Floppy.

It may be as Orac says. You can't see the CD as the PC does not know how to access it.

How old is your PC? If it's only a few years old it is quite likely that you can set it to start directly form the CD as Orac says.

Reboot your PC and go into the BIOS (normally done by hitting the DEL key as it starts booting.)

One of the menu selections will be Boot Order and will give a variety of options such as Floppy, HDD, CD - HDD, Floppy, CD etc. Select one with CD as the first choice. Save and exit. *Don't change anything else!*

Insert the XP CD in the drive and reboot. Follow the XP prompts from the screen.


And it is a VERY good point about a standard format not fixing viri - you may need to do all of this again if you have not got rid of them - still practice makes perfect :)

Oh and scan all the files you saved to CD before you open them!

[Memetic]

Any luck Winston?

[Winston]

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions!! I've just got back from a trip so I'm gonna attack it first thing tomorrow after a nights sleep. Fingers crossed, i'll report further. Cheers

[Winston]

Hi again
I think I may have been a bit misleading with the prob, I'll just reconfirm what I did.
ADD/Remove programs, properties. clicked on the start up disk tab and selected create disk, i then stuck in a formatted floppy and clicked ok.
I then did something like format c (i can't find my instructions!!)
Now when I start the pc (with the floppy in) it goes straight to a black screen with "microsoft windows millenium start up menu" and 1. Help 2. Start up with cdrom support 3. start up without cdrom support 4. minimal boot
I can't find my ME disks but a friend has given me their XP disk
Sorry to be such a pain!

Ps thanks for the advice about the viruses I didn't realise that

[ORAC]

The floppy is a boot disk made to work with ME, it won't work with XP, and XP doesn't need it anyway.

1. Take out the floppy and put it to one side.
2. Put the XP CD in the CD drive.
3. Reboot the machine.
4. With no floppy and no system on the HDD it may go straight to the CD and boot into the XP set up menu. If not, reboot and follow the instructions above on how to change the BIOS boot order.
5. If that doesn't work, your motherboard doesn't support boot from the CD, and you'll need to get a set of XP boot floppies as described above.

(It's not relevant, but I came across this today and thought I'd share it.) ;)

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