Creating a Win XP Startup cdrom

[fatBastard]

I'm trying to fdisk and format a laptop that has no diskette drive (and then reinstall WinXP). So I figured I could simply copy the contents of my trusty old Win 98 startup disk onto a cdrom, go into the bios and select cdrom as a boot option, and be done. However, the two laptops I've tried seems to simply ignore the cdrom. Is there a special download somewhere that I need to boot from a cdrom? Thanks.

[Maarchk]

Umm why do you need a startup cdrom? Doesn't your copy of winxp automatically start up when its in the drive? How old is your lap top? The last few years of computers have automatically booted off of cd roms to find new operating systems and such... Good luck

[DarkFury]

You simply need to access the BIOS on your laptop and set the CD-ROM as the first boot device... After that, you can boot up using the WinXP install disk.

It works on laptops as well (I have a DELL laptop that I re-installed the OS, and it worked just fine)

[fatBastard]

Basically I'm trying to boot to a dos prompt so I can run "fdisk" and partition a new laptop that has no diskette [A:] drive. I've already set the CD drive first in boot order(and enabled it) thru the BIOS setup but the computer is still not reading the cd on startup. Any advice on how I can acheive this would be greatly appreciated.

[Jeffbx]

All you need is the XP CD - you can partition & format as part of setup. No need for fdisk anymore.

To answer the bootable CD question - you need to follow some additional steps (http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/) to make a CD bootable. I believe the functionality is also built into Nero & Roxio.

Or, you can make your life a little easier & just grab an .iso of a bootable CD from bootdisk.com.

[DarkFury]

WindowsXP does not support fdisk anymore.... is what we are trying to tell you.

If you want to do an "fdisk", then go get a Windows 98 boot disk and do it from there.

However, if loading XP is your ultimate goal here... then doing the fdisk is a waste of time since the BOOTABLE CD from WindowsXP can format and partition your hard drive by itself. No separate "boot disk" needed. :shrug:

[seqiro]

So I figured I could simply copy the contents of my trusty old Win 98 startup disk onto a cdrom, go into the bios and select cdrom as a boot option, and be done.

You cannot create a bootable CDROM in this fashion.

As the others are saying, a legitimate copy of Windows XP is a bootable CD. You'll get all the options you need for formatting and partitioning your hard drive during installation.