can I get my computer to go to the usb floppy disk drive on startup? I want to use a start up disk, but my internal floppy died so I got a external USB. But I can't access it on startup.
It let me put the usb drive in the boot section, but it doesn't go to it at all on startup. I'm running XP
How can I fdisk my drive if I can't use a start up disk? I put the start up disk on a cd but it doesn't work either. I'm running XP and I want to get to dos to fdisk or format and I can't get there right now. The boot section in bios is set to external floppy and my cd is in there, but it doesn't read either of them on startup. Any suggestions?
don't need to fdisk as can delete a partition & make a partition thru the xp cd. done that twice in 2 days on 2 laptops.
What about the C drive? Can I do that too? format it? It has only 1 partition I've always used win98 startup to get to dos and do everything from there. I don't know how to get to dos on XP without that startup disk
i prefer using win98 boot disk to fdisk & format the hd before loading xp but sometimes i have no choice but to use the xp cd. when you bootup on the xp cd, you'll do a f8 to do an agreement with ms then xp will check to see if there is a version of windows already there. that is about where you can delete the partition, make a new partition & format the drive before loading xp. you might have an option to format the hd in fat32(win98) or ntfs.
OK, I tried that and I get the same menu I'd get if no disks were in. The cd light comes on for a sec then the regular menu comes up. The best I can do is get to dos prompt in safe mode. Are you getting a different menu? If not, what do you choose to format?
you didn't read the manual properly as you change the boot order using the + or - signs. put the cdrom as 1st boot then the hd. read page 78 of the motherboard manual as it tells you that. i have that manual on my screen currently.
ok, I have it set to boot from cd I put in the xp cd and pressed f8, but it just went to boot from cd and went to set up xp. There was nothing about formatting or any of that.
you pressed f8 to soon. let xp start loading & it will ask you to press enter for 1 thing & f8 for another. it will then check for an existing windows version, around that time it will give you the option to delete the partition.
