Setup won't load to format hard drive?

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

Paul Greeff wrote:

Hello Ken

Thank you, and well said. I'm equally happy to learn and am enjoying
this newsgroup participation.


You're welcome and thanks for reminding me. I still haven't tried it.
The reason is that I want to do it when I first boot in the morning,
and I keep forgetting. I'm in my usual fog before I have my coffee,
and powering on first thing is an automatic thing for me.


I finally got around to trying this. Much to my surprise, you seem to be
right. My apologies and thanks for pointing it out.


--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
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"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in message
...
Paul Greeff wrote:

Hi Ken

Willing to try something? Make a Windows 98 boot disk, then make a
bootable CD using that boot disk as the source of boot information.
I have a CD like that, made in that way, and it doesn't prompt for
a key to be pressed in order to boot from CD.

By comparison, a Windows XP CD seems to be set to wait a few
seconds for the user to press a key. If no key is pressed, it
redirects to the MBR on the hard drive. It's easy to prove - with
your BIOS set to boot CD / HDD / Floppy, start it with your XP CD
in the drive. Then restart without the CD in the drive.


Sure, I'd like to try that, and I will, when I get the chance. I
don't even need to make a bootable CD; I probably have several
non-Microsoft bootable CDs around.


That's been my experience. I can't put "MVP" at the end of my
signature, so if you maintain your position on this, I'll bow out
gracefully.


Nothing at the end of anyone's signatures guarantees that he's
always right. As a matter of fact, almost the only thing I'll
guarantee is that all of us, including those of us with the MVP at
the end of our signatures, are sometimes wrong. Perfection isn't
possible, and *everyone* makes mistakes. Somebody's advice is useful
if he's mostly right, and you can be mostly right even if you don't
have letters at the end of your name.

So even though I still think I'm right, I'll try this and report
back on what I find. If I'm wrong I'll be happy to apologize and
thank you for teaching me something. It may be a couple of days
before I get to it though.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup



Paul

"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in
message ...
Paul Greeff wrote:

I've only seen that "Press a key to boot from CD" message on
Windows 2000 and XP bootable CDs. (Not sure about Windows 98....
it's been too long since I used one!) Are you sure it's not a
MS-specific feature on their bootable OS CDs?


Yes, I'm sure. It can't be. Booting is a function of the BIOS.
Also, nothing can be read from the CD until the computer has
booted.. The only way *anything* on the CD could be an MS-specific
feature would be after it had already booted from it.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup




"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote in
message ...
Bob Harris wrote:

On most PCs it is possible to set the boot order at the BIOS
level, without the need for pressing any extra key along the
way later. That "press a key to boot from CD" sounds more like
some special bootloader or other software above the BIOS level
(i.e., on the hard drive somewhere).


No, it's a BIOS feature, and a common one, giving the user the
chance to boot from the hard drive even if the CD is first in
the boot sequence..

Dustin, if you are set to boot from the CD first (and if you're
getting the "press any key" message, you are) and it's not
booting from it, there are only three possibilities: either
something is wrong with the CD drive, something is wrong with
the CD (e.g., it's not a bootable CD), or your keyboard isn't
being recognized.

What kind of keyboard do you have, USB or PS2? Have you tried
booting from other bootable CDs?

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


Consider, if the PC had no hard drive (or a dead
one or a balnk one), it should still be bootable from floppy or
CD. Go back to the BIOS and try setting the boot order. That
may be separate from listing bootable devices, or it may be on
the same screen. If necessary, read the motherboard manual, or
if a pre-built PC, check their support website for more info,
including possibly a downloadable manual.
As for formatting a hard drive, if the drive (really the
parition) is not being used by XP, then XP itself would be the
easiest way to format it. Use XPs disk managment tool, or if
the drive appears in explorer, just right-click and choose
format.

But, if you want to format the drive where XP is installed
(usually C, then you must do that from outside of XP. Running the
XP recovery console from the XP CD is a
possibility. Running the XP recovery console from a stack of 6
or so floppies (free download from Microsoft) is a also a
possibility.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994
However, the best bet might be to use the CD that came with the
hard drive, assuming that you installed it yourself. Or,
download an ISO image and burn it to CD from almost any hard
drive maker. Such CDs also have disk testing tools. Just
avoid anything that sounds like "low level", since these tests
may be destroy pre-existing data everywhere on the hard drive.
I have had good luck with the Seagate tools:
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/ They also offer a a
floppy version, but that does less, and its screen are more
DOS-like.

"Dustin" wrote in message
...
I am trying to reformat a hard drive, but when I boot to the
installation CD,
it loads Windows normally. Is there another way to get to
Windows Setup?