Reformatting.. without a A: disk drive

[mooster2]

Hi, I own a COMPAQ Presario 700 and I'd like to reformat it and reinstall windows XP. However, my only disk drive (A is broken and all I have is a CD-rom drive.

Is there a way to reformat a computer using the CD-Rom drive?

Normally, I boot-up a computer with an Windows XP System Setup Disk then reformat the computer from there, but this time, this option is out since I don't have a disk drive anymore. Also, when my computer boots up, it shows the COMPAQ logo then immediately boots up Windows XP -- I tried pressing F1 or Del to enter setup but nothing happens.

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

[bcastner]

Can you get the machine to boot from the CD drive at all? If not, things get very difficult.

 

[noellees1]

Make sure you set the pc to boot from CD first in the boot order in BIOS. Then just put in your CDROM and it should be available, otherwise as bcastner says things get awakward

 

[mooster2]

Yup I can make the laptop boot up from the CD-ROM drive.. but um.. how do I make a boot-up CD? Do I just copy the contents of a boot-up disk to a CD? I tried that and it didn't seem to work

 

[mooster2]

I mean I have a CD-ROM burner.. so I burned the contents of a Windows XP System setup disk to a CD disc. Then I've put the CD in the computer and restarted it and it bypassed the CD as if it was a regular CD (it did read it tho). Then.. it started Win XP as usual (which I am trying to reformat to start back with a fresh copy of win xp)

 

[bcastner]

You either:

. Boot from the XP Restore CD hopefully COMPAQ supplied, although this brings you to ground zero for your machine;

. Boot from a "full" CD that you likely need to nicely beg from COMPAQ tech support; this may delay things a few days but you lose nothing but Windows Updates, your data and software are safe;

. Boot from a retail CD for XP that you purchase, and choose the second (R)epair option, to do an in-place upgrade.

http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp&NoWebContent=1

 

[noellees1]

Tell your BIOS to boot from CD i think would be the way to do it. Or get the newest version of nero and you can burn a bootable cd. But i sware a proper winxp cd is bootable.
Just set it in your mobos bios to startup with cd first
then hdd then if its their network, once youve finsihed the reformat and reinstall go and change it back to boot from HDD.
Should be that simple.
Bcastner - Didnt MS say that windows XP will be the last os which will be supplied with a bootable floppy route?
Surely if they dont provide this with newer verions of windows its going to be awakward for a lot of people

 

[mooster2]

Actually I do want to bring my CD to ground zero.. erase everything on my computer so that I can have a fresh start.

I don't have any of the COMPAQ cd so I guess my option is to make a repair from the CD I'm gonna try that ^_^

Thank you bcastner

 

[manarth]

Booting into bios - Compaq Presario 700.

http://web14.compaq.com/falco/detail.asp?FAQnum=FAQ2920

[tt]
Compaq FAQ: How to get into BIOS/CMOS (FAQ2920)
To get into CMOS/BIOS/Computer setup/Diagnostics/ (these are all the same), Hit F10 when the computer beeps 2x on boot. If that does not work, then disconnect the keyboard from the computer and boot the system. You will get an error offering 2 choices of F1 or F10. Plug the keyboard back in (you will no harm the system) and then hit F10.
[/tt]
It's FAQ number 83 in the list - no wonder you couldn't find it!

<marc> i wonder what will happen if i press this...[ul][li]please tell us if our suggestion has helped[/li][li]need some help? faq581-3339[/li][/ul]

 

[mooster2]

Well I got this for bootable CD.. dunno if it's a site i can trust :

http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

But you were right about nero.. or maybe i should just call Compaq and buy from them a recovery CD -_- would save a lot of trouble

 

[bcastner]

noellees1,

Quote: &quot;Bcastner - Didnt MS say that windows XP will be the last os which will be supplied with a bootable floppy route?
Surely if they dont provide this with newer verions of windows its going to be awakward for a lot of people.&quot;

I have never read this, but I will check for you.

I would not be surprised if this was not the case. A lot of new machines are being sold without floppy drives at all, including all current notebooks, although it is an option in most cases.

Microsoft plans an announcement for developers in May, 2004 for the hardware specifications for Longhorn, and I suspect a floppy disk drive is not included. (It was not a requirement for XP either.)

My guess is that you are probably right in thinking that booting from a floppy is over.

But I will check for you.

 

[noellees1]

&quot;Future products will no longer support installation via the setup boot disks. Installation of future Microsoft Operating Systems will require the ability to boot from the CD or PXE boot from Network. Setup boot disks that are provided for Windows XP are provided and supported on an as is basis.&quot;
From

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...68-6e4f-471c-b455-bd5afee126d8&displaylang=en

 

[bcastner]

noelles1,
Home is an odd one.
I do suspect, as I said above you are right.
I did put in my request to MS for an answer.
I suspect the answer is as you suggested.

 

[mooster2]

Hi again all

First, thank you very much for all your help

I've set up the laptop to boot on CD.. I've put the Windows XP CD in and then when I restarted the computer it said: &quot;Press any key to boot from CD&quot; so I press space

Then, I selected the Recovery Console from Windows setup (which looks exactly like an MS-DOS prompt) then from there, I typed: format C:

and then restarted the computer and press a key to boot from the CD and installed a fresh copy of Windows ^_^

I also used followed the guidelines of this article to reformat and reinstall windows without using any diskette

http://www.cyberwalker.net/faqs/reinstall-reformat-winxp/reformat-FAT32-XP.html

Thank you to all of you for helping me

 

[straybullet]

You may not need a floppy drive to boot XP but you sure need one to set up ICS - wont allow you to create the client setup disk on a CD-RW. grrrrr MS!

Unless of course, one of you knows a way around this *wink-wink*

 

[bcastner]

You mean, preinstall it? Highly recommended:

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...efault.aspx?scid=kb;en-gb;307654&amp;ln=en-gb

And do this while you are at it:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310497

 

[micker377]

Seems it would be quicker and cheaper to get a $9.00 replacement floppy drive.

 

[mooster2]

Micker377: Yes.. that is, if it was a replacement floppy drive for a desktop computer -_- mine is a laptop and defective floppy drives aren't easily replaces..

Aren't broken floppy drives on laptop irreplacable? (or extremely costly to fix/replace?)

I always thought that the only solution is to get an external floppy drive which costs around $100 (Canadian) (75$ US).

 

[noellees1]

Did MS ever get back to you bcastner , i was curious as to wheter they feel floppys are gone. I always find boot floppys to be more helpful than just a CD.?

 

[bcastner]

noelleees1,

Your timinig is incredible. I just last night checked that discussion topic, and the answer is "probably." See if this extract helps: "This is in part due to the new setup routines requiring to boot the machine into a Windows PE environment to perform the setup (or patch setup for upgrades).
You can see this in the Windows "Longhorn" builds. We boot from CD and pretty much immediately load up Windows PE to do the setup.
It also allows the interim builds to do a patch based setup for build to build upgrades, and also allows for the use of "image" setups (hence the often asked about .wim file as opposed to an i386 folder).
This also ultimately means that booting to a network boot disk with DOS and running WINNT "may" eventually go away too. I say "may" as various build have had this functionality and other only allow an "install" from inside
another running 32-bit OS."

Clear as mud?
As I noted earlier, my guess is that you are absolutely right.
My query led to a lengthy debate, but the above in its own way answers the issue: "probably."