Formatted system drive but have no boot disk

[joshmill]

I'll spare you the details that led to this. In the end all that matters is that I got frustrated and formatted my c: drive. I did this by booting from the the Windows XP Disk in my CD-ROM drive however once it finished reformating the drive I received a message that a Windows/sys/... (something like that) file couldn't be created and then only had the option to retry (I did with no avail) or to exit. It rebooted but now only gives me the option to boot from the diskette drive but I don't have a boot disk.

It seems so obvious now (duh) but since the c: drive is formatted the CD-ROM is no longer installed or recognized and I have no way to boot becuase I have no boot diskette.

I have another version of Windows XP installed on my secondary HD...not sure if that offers a potential out or not...? Did I just completely trash my computer or is there a way of this complete blunder?

Many thanks,
Josh

[waycoolgal]

I have never heard of such a thing. Have you used that Operating System disk before. If you downloaded it or got it from a source other than Microsoft it could be set up to fail. Answer those questions before I go further.

You can do a google search and find boot disks that you can download. Do a search.

[knsljo]

it seems so obvious now (duh) but since the c: drive is formatted the CD-ROM is no longer installed or recognized and I have no way to boot becuase I have no boot diskette.

Your CDROM will always be recognised if it works. It has nothing to do with being installed on the c drive. Check your bios to see if CDROM is recognised. If not that would be why its asking you to boot from the floppy drive. If its not recognised check all cables to cdrom or try another one.

[joshmill]

[quote=waycoolgal]I have never heard of such a thing. Have you used that Operating System disk before. If you downloaded it or got it from a source other than Microsoft it could be set up to fail. Answer those questions before I go further.

I have used the Operating System disk before - to load a 2nd version of XP on a different hard drive just a couple days prior. The disk worked fine in that regard and it is definately a Microsoft disc (brand new even).

[joshmill]

Your CDROM will always be recognised if it works. It has nothing to do with being installed on the c drive. Check your bios to see if CDROM is recognised. If not that would be why its asking you to boot from the floppy drive. If its not recognised check all cables to cdrom or try another one.

Interesting...I checked the bios but it is not recognized. The cables are tight and I was just using that drive to run the XP installation. Do you really think it just broke?

[knsljo]

Interesting...I checked the bios but it is not recognized. The cables are tight and I was just using that drive to run the XP installation. Do you really think it just broke?

Try different ide cable if it still doesn't work try different ide socket on motherboard, if still doesn't work try different power cable, if it still doesn't work bin it and get a new one.:cheesy:

[waycoolgal]

Any piece of hardware can go just like that. Also a power supply that is not doing its job can cause things to quit working too. I had a cd writer once that quit working and just left it alone because I had gotten a dvd writer. When I replaced my power supply all of a sudden the cd writer was working again fine. Actually same with my floppy drive. It quit working for along time but when I replaced power supply it started working again.

[gangot]

I have the same problem and i want to know what worked for you. .