Boot disk for XP

My computer is doing all sorts of things it should not do--and neither I or the repair technician can determine what the problem is. I'm afraid I may have to erase the HD and reinstall XP.

Anyhow, yesterday when I tried to boot, a bios screen came up and ended with "Disk boot failure. Insert system disk and press ENTER." I didn't have such a disk, so I turned my computer off and then on. And after a ton of error messages, I got to my desktop and it's still working just fine. This however, has not been a 1-time occurence.

But I have never heard of a boot disk for XP. Is there such an animal and if so, where can I get one?

That is a rather generic message in Windows. From the OS Help Files:
**
To create an MS-DOS startup disk
The MS-DOS startup disk you create will allow you to boot into MS-DOS.

Insert a floppy disk into your computer's floppy drive.
Open My Computer, and then click the floppy disk drive to select it.
On the File menu, point to the name of the floppy drive, and then click Format.
Under Format options, click Create an MS-DOS startup disk.
Click Start.
Important

Creating an MS-DOS startup disk erases all information on the floppy disk.
Notes

To open My Computer, click Start, and then click My Computer.
The MS-DOS startup disk only allows the system to boot into an MS-DOS prompt. The disk contains no additional tools.
**
This will get you onto the hard drive but will that help? Maybe...Now there is something else called "Automated System Recovery". Again from the Help files:
**
Automated System Recovery overviewYou should create Automated System Recovery (ASR) sets on a regular basis as part of an overall plan for system recovery in case of system failure. ASR should be a last resort for system recovery, used only after you have exhausted other options, such as Safe Mode Boot and Last Known Good. For more information about other recovery options, see Repair overview.

ASR is a two-part system of recovery: ASR backup and ASR restore. The backup portion is accomplished through the ASR Wizard located in Backup. The wizard backs up the system state, system services, and all disks associated with the operating system components. It also creates a file containing information about the backup, the disk configurations (including basic and dynamic volumes) and how to accomplish a restore.

You can access the restore portion by pressing F2 when prompted in the text-mode portion of setup. ASR will read the disk configurations from the file that it creates and restore all of the disk signatures, volumes and partitions on, at a minimum, the disks required to start the computer. (It will attempt to restore all of the disk configurations, but under some circumstances, it might not be able to.) ASR then installs a simple installation of Windows and automatically starts a restoration using the backup created by the ASR wizard.
**
This may be more of what it is suggesting. Now the OS cd is bootable so if you need to use the Recovery Console you can boot to the cd and run FIXMBR or whatever else you need.

Thanks. rik, where did you find that information you quote about establishing automated an system reovery. I would like to do that once I get my current problem corrected. That won't help me much at the moment though because I've never created an ASR and my problem is NOW.

But I couldn't find it anywhere in XP's Help and Support, nor did I find it (what you included in your reply) in any of the online MS references (articles) to which Help and Support sent me. And if it's somewhere in my home edition XP, I don't know where to look.

FYI Only. My computer came back from the repair shop and it was working there. But since it has twice frozen (once with a blue screen) and I was able to get it going and working normally by shutting power off and then turning it on again. Only sometimes it would do weird things like produce a bios screen, a 'Windows Home Edition' screen and a completely black screen, the 3 of which alternated (1-2-3) 4-5 times--and then my computer suddenly booted and worked normally. At the moment it's working perfectly.

I don't feel knowledgeable enough to try and repair it at all. Guess I'll try walking into repair places and ask them if they can fix it and hope I find someone who says confidently: "Yeah, I can probably fix that!"

You know that sounds like a power supply problem Wumply.I've run across a few machines that have trouble starting and even restarting.A new power supply solved the problem for the majority and one defective motherboard for one that had trouble restarting.Depending on what kind of motherboard you have I would buy a new power supply first,otherwise it will cost a lot more if you bring it to a shop and have them try to figure out an intermittant problem like yours.If the power supply does not work you can take it back and say that it didn't fit your case.Let us know if you want to try this and someone here will walk you through it step by step. :D

can i boot up my xp with windows 98 startup disk?

No,you need a special set of boot disks for xp.Forgot the source,but maybe I can dig it up for you. :D

no its ok

zipp 51. Got your post re my problem being a power supply. Some of my computer's behavior which I did not describe in detail leave me still inclined to suspect more a corrupt program (no idea which one it could be) or a corrupt kernal. But with no real evidence either.

But I'm really writing to ask if you could dig up for me the source of those disks you said in your reply to biker666 were needed for booting XP. Btw, I do have a floppy for booting XP that I downloaded via PCWorld. It consists of 3 files: boot.ini, ntldr and nsdetect.com...but it didn't help me. Could they be what you thinking of?

wumply

I was wondering, zipp 51 (or anyone) why aren't there some people around who know Windows and XP inside out (the O/S that is) who could come and look at your computer. Sure, one would have to pay but I agree with your skeptcism re repair shops for something like this. And just now when I tried to go on standby I got this message: C:\Widows\System 32\batmeter.dll is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the chkdsk (which is chkdsk.exe) utility. I ran it; it said it was deleting 4 files, and vanished. But when I tried to go to standby again, the message reappeared and went only when I clicked its OK button RAPIDLY 5 TIMES. GO FIGURE!!!

Hi Wumply,

Cut and paste one of these links in your browser for the boot disk maker for win xp(http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en).or(http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q314079).I think one of these options is what you arte looking for.

I'm working on the batmeter.dll file.So far I found that it is a battery helper file found in your setup.I believe that you can restore this file by running scannow /sfc from your run command.Be sure to put the space after scannow. :D Also was wondering if your xp is an upgrade from an earlier windows?

Don't you ever sleep Zipper? :)

@Wumply, The info I provided was from the XP Pro Help Files...I'll have to check Home version tomorrow to compare the files. They shouldn't be different I wouldn't think. Also www.bootdisk.com is a good place for those as well...Please keep us posted on the problem...

Never heard back from wumpy about this problem. Maybe he got tired and formated the PC. Anyhow, I have a similar problem with my computer at the office, but I think that drive controller is bad, and this is BADDD!!. I have sometimes all my drives disappear from the BIOS.
WUMPY, DID YOU GET IT FIX??