How to make a startup disk?

[PurpleDemon]

I'm hoping this is a possibility.

I have a friend in Forks, Washington that needs her computer wiped and given a fresh install of XP or maybe even trial Windows 7.

The problem is the CD is the last boot device. I tried to guide her through the bios to change it, but it was not going to work out this way.

I was wishing I could just put my hands through the phone.

Short of her shipping it to me, and there are not really any savvy techs in the small town of Forks, I was thinking of maybe there was some way to boot a floppy to read the cd rom drive.

I know maybe a longshot, but seemed like in theory it should be possible.

Any thoughts? Would a windows 98 disk work even though XP is NTSF and Win 98 being FAT32?



Thanks

[atifsh]

1: try the f10 or f12 or esc keys, that gives a menu to boot device regardless of what its been set in the bios. so u can choose to boot via cd if any of those keys works on ur system.

2: yes by using startup disk made in 98 will start as cdrom available, but u will not see the ntfs partition, but u dont need to, just browse to i386 folder in winxp disk and run winnt.exe if i remember correctly.

u may endup with real slow read, but i dont remember what that file was that should be run before to make it faster. ... oh yeah smartdrv.exe (i think )

[UncasMS]

The problem is the CD is the last boot device. I tried to guide her through the bios to change it, but it was not going to work out this way.

What exactly happened/did not work? Is she able to enter the bios and change/safe settings?

Maybe the bios version could help finding some infos on the inet concerning boot sequence?

Furthermore maybe one or two digital pix taken from the options/problems can help if sent to you?

I'm not really sure this might work:

- insert a bootable CD (could as well be a disk like ultimate boot cd which has wiping tools onboard as well)

- before powering up the pc REMOVE powercable from harddrive just so far (not entirely) that the hdd wont have power and the pc will try the next best entry/device of its boot sequence

- as soon as the cd/dvd drive is used quickly connect power cable to hdd again

i have never tried this so i'm not sure that whatever tool is run from the cd used for wiping will read/search for harddrives in this very second only when it is being started and possibly finds the re-connected hdd or maybe it cannot find the drive as the hdd wasnt available at bootup.

since i dont see any risk i'd give it a try.

[PurpleDemon]

Thanks atifsh. I'll give that a try.

@UncasMS. By default it is boot sequence. floppy, hdd, cd. I did get her to the screen to change it but when she went to the highlighted line and pressed enter or even the arrow she said it wasn't an option to change.
She is a novice on this and I am trying to work over the phone on this but isn't working.
I am sure it's possible if I had the pc. That's why I was hoping the boot disk option.

Thanks all. I'll let you all know what happens.

[UncasMS]

When trying to change to boot sequence maybe she could hit page-up/down or +/- to change values?

On the other hand highlighting the value to change and taking a look to the right hand side of the screen for directions on the keys to press to change settings may also help.