Question about a clean XP install.

[toddmd2]

I'm trying to get XP to let me reinstall w/a reformat. I've made an XP disc with SP2 slipstreamed onto it, however, no matter what I try the cd is not bootable. I've read every tutorial imaginable to get it to work and it just won't. I'm fed up with trying to get it to boot. So now I'm going to try and reformat/reinstall through Windows. I don't care if my XP disc bootable, so forget about that. What I want to know, and this is all I want to know, is: if I choose to start the XP installation from within Windows (this is the only way it will work for me) and choose the "advanced" option (which allows for reformatting/repartitioning), when my pc needs restarted to go ahead with the installation, will installation be able to continue if the cd isn't bootable?

 

[riser]

I had this problem the other day when I was trying to install XP on a PC.

If you still have an ISO or the original slipstreamed install, burn it to a CD again. You might even be able to copy your current CD.

When it burned, chances are it burned the bootable portion outside of what your cd-rom can read. If you burn it again, chances are it will work.

If I remember correctly, I tried running from Windows and it wouldn't work.

So I just made a bootable diskette with cd-rom drivers, created a bootable image and burned that to a CD.
Booted to that CD, then I put my XP cd in and ran it.

Anyhow, had a problem with the XP CD so I burned it again and was able to boot to it.

 

[peartree]

The answer to the original question is: No. If the CD you're installing from isn't bootable, then you're stuck. In this case, you wanted to slipstream SP-2, so booting with the original XP CD isn't likely to do you much good. Once you have the drive partitioned and formatted, and have the XP files copied to disk, the system should no longer need to boot from the CD. If there's a point before that, you can download boot floppy images for XP from Microsoft, create a set, then install.

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