Xp Boot Disk

I am trying to make a floppy boot disk to install WinXP on my computer. I think i was sucessful, but my computer wont take it. it tells me to "Insert bootable media into the appropriate drive" but when i do and press enter, the computer shuts down. if I put the hard drive i am trying to use in this computer that i am currently using (accepts bootable cd roms) and install it from there, can i then put it into the other computer?

thanks

 

You don't need a floppy to install Windows XP, the CD is bootable.

Longer answer, No you cannot install XP on a hard drive and move it to another machine. It creates a hardware profile of the system and will not run in a different system. It is part of MicroSoft's Anti-Piracy efforts.

 

Is this a legal version? You can download and create boot disks from this site if you can't boot to the CD:
Click Here

 

no, i mean this computer doesnt accept bootable cd roms. whenever i try to insert the xp boot floppy, the computer doesnt even read it and it shuts down. it does this without a floppy too.

 

and i dont have 6 working floppy disks

 

The floppy or the CD ROM.

 

If you want to install XP from an NT environment you need the 6 floppy diskset. However you can install XP from dos if you really are in a bind. Bootup with a floppy that has CD-rom support. You can get a windows 98 bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com. After you boot from the 98 bootdisk go to the i386 folder on the cd-rom and run winnt.exe. Setup.exe won't run from dos but winnt.exe will.

 

How did you make the XP bootfloppy? You can't load the ntkernal from a single floppy by the way. So there is no such thing as an XP bootfloppy, not like the one for windows 98. The closest you can come is to do this. Format a floppy on an NT system and copy these files from your harddrive to it, NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini. NTBOOTDD.SYS and BOOTSECT.DOS too if they are there. It's not a real boot floppy but it may save you if your system isn't hosed to bad. It won't let you boot from the cd-rom either.

 

i dont know what to do......... aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this computer is so f ed up

 

Use the 98 bootdisk to load the cd-rom drivers and run winnt.exe from the i386 folder on the XP CD.

 

i have windows 95 too... but see, i have bootdisks, but my drives refuse to read them! my a:\ floppy LED light stays on all the time, and doesnt read. my cd rom spins, but it doesnt read bootable cd-roms, even though my BIOS tells me that it indeed CAN read bootable cd-roms. i disconnected and reconnected the floppy ide cable, and i even took out and put back in my mobo battery... i didnt know what else to do. now my monitor doesnt even turn on when i start the d**n thing.... aghhh and alphanumeric, im sorry, but i have no idea what youre talking about.

 

Usually if the floppy drive led is on all the time that means that the cable is reversed. Take one end of the floppy data cable off, flip it over, and put it back on. On my PC I have to hit the space bar when prompted to boot from a cd. You have to watch for the "boot from cd....." message and hit the space bar when prompted. If your cd is a copy it possible that it isn't bootable, depends on wether it was copied correctly or not. Have you tried booting from it in another PC?

 

Which post don't you understand?
The short answer is if you can't boot from the cd you will have to use the floppy disk set. If you don't have them then you will have to download the utility to make them from Microsoft.

 

i dont understand the whole winnt thing... see, ive tried using my cd burner as my cd drive for that computer (it is bootable) and it still doesnt boot. i dont get a boot from cd prompt. i tried flipping the cable, but then my BIOS told me that it couldnt detect my floppy.

 

Um, it's the disk that's bootable not the drive. It doesn't really have that much to do with the drive. In order to boot from the cd (the disk) your bios has to support it and the cd has to be bootable. If you have the original XP cd then it should be bootable, they all are. If it's a copy then it may or may not be bootable, depending on how it was copied. Just because the cd autoruns when you put it in the cd-rom drive doesn't mean it's bootable.
If it isn't bootable then you have to use the floppy disk set. Windows XP like 2k is based on an NT kernel, there is no DOS. You can't bootup from a 9X boot-floppy and run the setup on the XP cd. You will get a "setup can not be run from dos" error message. However if you change directories to the i386 folder on the cd, you can then run winnt.exe from dos. If your cd-rom was D then it would be D:\i386\winnt.exe If you use a win98 boot floppy you have to use the "with cd-rom support" option.