Bootable CD

[munruss]

I was given a Dell laptop to fix, but the fastest way to correct this laptop is by formating. There are many corrupt system files and the OS will not boot.

I want to low level the drive, but since many of the hard drive manufactures still like to use floppy disks for their low level utilities, it is difficult for me. I do not have a floppy drive.

I want to make a bootable CD ROM so I can get this program going.

I've tried bootdisk.com, but they want money now for their stuff.

Is there a site out there that will show me how to make a bootable CD ROM that will bring me to a command prompt?

Thank you.

 

[mechBgon]

There's a good free utility for this called DBAN: http://dban.sourceforge.net It's a bootable CD that wipes hard drives.

 

[munruss]

Thanks for the link, but I can't get this to work.

 

[Fardringle]

What isn't working?

Can't load the web site?
Can't burn the image to a CD?
Can't make the CD boot?
CD boots but DBAN won't run?
Something else...?


If there is an error in one of these steps, please post the exact error message and when it happens.

 

[munruss]

This worked perfectly.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: munruss
This worked perfectly.

That's the site that came up from a Yahoo search this morning but since I hadn't test it yet, I didn't post it. Glad it works as I may need one now! 😛

One of these days, I'm going to learn to make a CD/DVD bootable. Tried to slipstream SP1 and SP2 into XP and SP1 into Vista and although the merging process was OK, never got the CD/DVD to boot ! 🙁

 

[Dahak]

One of these days, I'm going to learn to make a CD/DVD bootable. Tried to slipstream SP1 and SP2 into XP and SP1 into Vista and although the merging process was OK, never got the CD/DVD to boot ! 🙁

there are a ton instructions out there that tell you how now One Example but its even easier now, just use nLite and select slipstream and boot iso and done For XP at least


Edit --- just fully read your post. for Vista/7 its a little different. It does not have the ability to be slipstreamed. you have to do whats called Reverse Integrate the services packs which is pretty complicated. you have to install it, apply service packs, prep image, recapture image and then rebuild bootable dvd

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: Dahak

One of these days, I'm going to learn to make a CD/DVD bootable. Tried to slipstream SP1 and SP2 into XP and SP1 into Vista and although the merging process was OK, never got the CD/DVD to boot ! 🙁

there are a ton instructions out there that tell you how now One Example but its even easier now, just use nLite and select slipstream and boot iso and done For XP at least


Edit --- just fully read your post. for Vista/7 its a little different. It does not have the ability to be slipstreamed. you have to do whats called Reverse Integrate the services packs which is pretty complicated. you have to install it, apply service packs, prep image, recapture image and then rebuild bootable dvd

Hell, I had trouble out of XP. More from the guides using one burner software and me using another really. Didn't try too hard though! 😛

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: Engineer

Originally posted by: Dahak

One of these days, I'm going to learn to make a CD/DVD bootable. Tried to slipstream SP1 and SP2 into XP and SP1 into Vista and although the merging process was OK, never got the CD/DVD to boot ! 🙁

there are a ton instructions out there that tell you how now One Example but its even easier now, just use nLite and select slipstream and boot iso and done For XP at least


Edit --- just fully read your post. for Vista/7 its a little different. It does not have the ability to be slipstreamed. you have to do whats called Reverse Integrate the services packs which is pretty complicated. you have to install it, apply service packs, prep image, recapture image and then rebuild bootable dvd

Hell, I had trouble out of XP. More from the guides using one burner software and me using another really. Didn't try too hard though! 😛

Making a bootable cd with a slipstreamed os always seemed like a black art. I've played with it long enough to be able to do it with ease - "it's easy, once you know how to do it..."

http://www.winsupersite.com/sh...e/xpsp3_slipstream.asp gives info on using the slick, free and easy to use ImgBurn. I did it successfully with nero but nero's a pig if all you need is burning rom. iso buster isn't free but has the capability in trial mode to extract the image file.

ms has killed the slipstreaming capability in vista for some reason. vlite appears to slipstream but once installed, can't be updated with the next sp from ms. Don't know about w7 but assume it's like vista.

 

[corkyg]

Bart rules!