Member Avatar for xrayeyes2u

I am trying to do an Fdisk/format on my friend's laptop. There is no floppy drive available. Is there a way I can use the CD Rom to do the procedure? In the past I have always used a WIN98 Start up disk - am unsure how to proceed since no floppy drive present.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Georgia

  • 2 Contributors
  • 2 Replies
  • 395 Views
  • 12 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by xrayeyes2u

Dani AI

Generated

The error messages reported by — "File \CMDCONS\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. Error code 7" in both Recovery Console and Setup — strongly point at a read/load failure rather than a Windows setup logic bug. Common culprits are a corrupted or improperly burned install disc, a CD/DVD drive that has trouble reading the media, or underlying hardware faults (bad RAM or a failing hard drive). Since already suggested using CD-based boot media, run a few focused checks first.

Quick diagnostics and media fixes:

  • Confirm the XP disc boots on a different machine. If the same error appears, the disc/image is the problem.
  • Rebuild the install disc correctly (burn the XP ISO as an image, not by dragging files), use a different blank CD and burn at the slowest reliable speed, or use an original retail XP disc if available.
  • Clean and inspect the disc for scratches and try a different CD/DVD drive if possible.
  • Check BIOS boot order (CD-ROM first) and disable any odd floppy emulation entries. If memory is suspected, boot memtest86+ from CD to check RAM.

Ways to partition/format without a floppy:

  • BartPE or UBCD4Win can build a Windows-PE style boot CD from XP sources and expose NTFS/partitioning tools without a floppy.
  • GParted Live (or any Linux Live CD with parted/gparted) will boot from CD and let partitions be created/wiped and formatted to NTFS so the XP installer can use them. These approaches replace the old Win98 startup disk approach and eliminate floppy dependence.

If rebuilding media and swapping drives does not clear the error, run hardware diagnostics next: memtest86+ for RAM and the HDD maker’s bootable diagnostics for the hard drive. Reinstall attempts on hardware with failing RAM or bad sectors will repeatedly fail with similar load errors, so rule out hardware before repeating setup.

Recommended Answers

All 2 Replies

Member Avatar for caperjack

I am trying to do an Fdisk/format on my friend's laptop. There is no floppy drive available. Is there a way I can use the CD Rom to do the procedure? In the past I have always used a WIN98 Start up disk - am unsure how to proceed since no floppy drive present.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Georgia

If you Are just trying to format and reload winxp ,just bootto the wixxp cd and format and reload winxp .
If you have a burner and NERO software you can create a bootcd using the content of the win98 boot floppy .in nero choose create bootcd and copy the content of the floppy to the cd and burn it ,it will boot computer just like a bootfloppy

Member Avatar for xrayeyes2u

I have tried to go into Recovery Console as well as Win XP Pro Setup utilizing the Win XP Pro disk - I get the following errors:

Trying to use Recovery Console the error is:
File \CMDCONS\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. The error code is 7
Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.

Trying to use Windows Setup the error is:
File \$WIN_NT$.~BT\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. The error code is 7. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit.

I have also tried to just do a fresh install using Win XP Cd but it will not finish loading....it goes to Preparing for install then shuts the computer down.

Any ideas??
Thanks,
Georgia

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.