Member Avatar for 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

  • 4 Contributors
  • 7 Replies
  • 219 Views
  • 4 Years Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by gangot

Dani AI

Generated

Short summary and practical recovery plan tied to the thread: formatting the system partition removed the OS but cannot make the motherboard forget an optical drive. As observed, a missing CD-ROM in the BIOS points at hardware or BIOS settings, and ’s power-supply note is a valid additional cause. Two parallel goals exist: (A) make the machine boot from external media again, or (B) use the existing second XP installation as a rescue environment to restore or reinstall the formatted disk.

A focused diagnostic checklist:

  1. With power off, swap the IDE cable and use a different molex power lead; move the drive to another IDE socket. Check the drive jumpers (master/slave/cable-select) when two devices share a cable.
  2. Reset CMOS (battery removal or jumper) and set BIOS to Auto-Detect for drives; confirm the optical drive appears in the BIOS list.
  3. Test the optical drive on a different PC (or try a known-good drive on this PC) to isolate motherboard vs drive vs PSU.
  4. If the drive is detected by BIOS but the CD does not boot, confirm the disc is bootable and that “boot from CD” is enabled.

Rescue options using the working XP installation (no new floppy required): boot the working HDD by changing boot order or temporarily disconnecting the formatted disk. From the running XP it is possible to copy the XP CD contents (the i386 folder) to disk and run winnt32.exe to start setup on the formatted drive without relying on the dead optical device. If bootable media can be created (WinPE, USB installer, or external USB CD with BIOS USB-boot), the standard Recovery Console commands fixmbr, fixboot and bootcfg /rebuild can repair boot records.

If data must be preserved, image or copy the partition first by attaching the formatted drive to the working system before any reinstall. If hardware diagnostics show a dead optical drive or a failing power/IDE channel, replacing the drive or using an external USB optical drive is often the quickest path to a clean reinstall.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for 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.

Member Avatar for 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.

Member Avatar for joshmill

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).

Member Avatar for 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?

Member Avatar for 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:

Member Avatar for 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.

Member Avatar for gangot

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

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.