the disk could be very scratched up and not able to be used
Or, This is what I have found out for myself after repairing a computer that was nuked by a virus, Your computer is set up to boot from drive c, and whenever turned on will attempt to do this. What you need to do is watch your screen when the computer first begins to start up, there will be a message that flashes at the bottom telling you how to enter the setup utility, do this.. Now change the boot device to your disk drive where you have the xp disk and restart. Remember to change it back after you have fixed the problem that was keeping it from booting up from the hard drive.
If your Windows operating system gets corrupted, you can start the computer using the boot disk and repair the damage.
The floppy disk has nothing to do with the operating system on the hard drive. You can use a floppy disk created in Windows XP to boot a computer that has Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows 3.1, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, etc...
Yes, you would need the windows xp you downloaded burned to a disk and then put that disk into the other computer then power it down boot it up, and as it boots press the function key that pulls up the boot menu then select "Boot From CD".
floppy farst boot drive and install window
A boot disk is a removable digital data storage medium from which a computer can load and run an operating system or utility program. A boot disk (sometimes called a startup disk) is a type of removable media, such as a floppy disk or a CD, that contains startup files that your computer can use to start Windows. The startup files are also stored on your computer's hard disk, but if those startup files become damaged, you can use the files on a boot disk to start Windows. In earlier operating systems that used the FAT or FAT32 file systems, such as Windows 95 and Windows 98, a boot disk was especially useful because it allowed a person to access files on a hard disk even if Windows was unable to start. This ability also represented a security risk, because anyone with a boot disk and access to the computer could start the computer and access any file. Hard disks formatted with NTFS have built-in security features that prevent using a boot disk to access files. The Windows installation disc contains the files necessary to start Windows, so it is itself a boot disk. If a problem is preventing Windows from starting, you can use the installation CD to start Windows. The installation CD also contains Startup Repair, which you can use to repair Windows if a problem prevents it from starting correctly. Startup Repair can automatically fix many of the problems that in the past required a boot disk to fix
Create a dos boot disk. Make sure that it contains FORMAT and FDISK. If you have access to Windows 98 then you can create a boot disk.
A Disk Boot Fail means that the disk you normally start your computer from is not working. The computer can be started from the System Disk but that system disk will wear out so you will have no boot disk and no way of repairing the boot disk. Time to look for a new boot disk or better a brand new computer
BIOS is looking for a boot sector. If the disk does not have a valid boot sector at the address which is also known by the BIOS, it won't boot from disk.
Download and boot from the Ultimate Boot CD available from http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ Use a disk utility to erase the partition and Windows will do the rest when you install it. thank you pretty good windows xp boot disk
A Windows Boot Disk operates in DOS command line mode.
if u have winxp on the master hd, just boot ur computer from a 98boot disk and install win98 on the slave. the computer should automatically configure itself for dual boot.
Maybe you are talking about "boot.ini".This is an example of a boot.ini file: [boot loader]timeout=30default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetectWhere menu options are stored.For example if you have two operating systems installed in your hard disk. The NTLDR shows the boot menu where youhave to select which operating system you want to start. The boot menu is the boot.ini.