anyway to get to dos w/o floppy drive?

blingboi · Post by **blingboi** » Fri May 21, 2004 6:36 pm

i want to format xp.. but i dont have a floppy drive(broken)

is there anyway to dos to "format c: " without a floppy and bootdisk?
i dont have a bootable xp cd either, so that wont work

i have xp currently installed

but my new radeon 9600 pro i just installed is acting screwy, bad frame rates in cs.. its probally because i took my radeon 7000 out and replaced it with the 9600 pro(i used driver cleaner and uninstalled the drivers for the 7000 correctly)

i think i just need a fresh install for the 9600 pro to work right

any help?
thanks

blingboi · Post by **blingboi** » Fri May 21, 2004 6:48 pm

i should also add, ive tried the catalyst 4.5(wdm and omega drivers) and also the 4.4, 4.3 and a random 3.xx catalyst driver

so im positive i just need a clean install..

and if its of any use

my specs are

TYAN S1598 Trinity ATX motherboard
AMD Duron 900 processor
512 megs of pc-133 SDRAM
80 gig WD harddrive

its a beater system i guess.. its for my brother before i head back to college

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Fri May 21, 2004 7:16 pm

you can use your XP install cd...boot to cd and the first part of the setup program allows you to create/delete partitions and select your file system format (NTFS, FAT32, etc).

beyond that...you could get fancy and use a bootable USB memory stick or something, but there is no need since the XP cd makes it so easy.

strange you're having probs with the vid card too...i've always just uninstalled the old card, reboot, shutdown, install new card, boot up...install latest drivers and off i went.

.02

blingboi · Post by **blingboi** » Fri May 21, 2004 7:20 pm

thanks, but i dont have a bootable cd, i have an image of it on my second partition and used isobuster to empty its contents.. if im able to get to dos i can install xp again

b-man1, i probaly did something wrong but this card seems powerful, but im not sure whats wrong.. only a fresh install will tell, maybe its my sorry motherboard.. iono

btw b-man what version drivers did you use?

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Fri May 21, 2004 7:40 pm

i just used whatever was the most current when i got the card...the unified drivers make it super easy.

you can always burn a bootable dos cd. check out http://www.bootdisk.com or similar for the files and then nero if you have it to make the cd bootable.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:21 pm

You can also download an image for a 98 Boot disk from Bootdisk.com

blingboi · Post by **blingboi** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:53 pm

wow, i think somethings mess up.. are you supposed to have 2 Ati2evxx.exe's in your task manager?... because i do

i think i messed something up

blingboi · Post by **blingboi** » Fri May 21, 2004 9:53 pm

posting again.. 13 is a bad number

smb · Post by **smb** » Sat May 22, 2004 10:17 pm

If I were you, I would uninstall the drivers again, boot into safe mode, then use a registry cleaner to find any unnecessary driver entries. then reboot normally and reinstall the ati drivers.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sat May 22, 2004 11:29 pm

If you have a CD burner you can easily burn a bootable WinXP CD.

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=248

Hipnotic_Tranz · Post by **Hipnotic_Tranz** » Sun May 23, 2004 12:19 pm

Originally posted by blingboi
are you supposed to have 2 Ati2evxx.exe's in your task manager?... because i do

I do as well and mine works fine.

Magexx9 · Post by **Magexx9** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:32 am

Something I've done before. Chances are you might have a spare hd, or at least might have access to one. Format it, make it bootable, put what files you need to get going.

Another thought:
I haven't done this in xp but have in 98. What about booting to some type of dos mode window and formating from there. Like when xp is booting up, can you press f8 and get to a dos windows w/ cd support? If so you could format /s then copy setup files. Hope I've helped.

Mage

blingboi · Post by **blingboi** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:35 am

ah i think thatll work.. i was thinking about makinga 5 meg partition and extracting the bootdisk to there
but im not sure if that will work.. im not sure how i execute the bootdisk to get it started

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:59 am

Originally posted by Magexx9
Another thought:
I haven't done this in xp but have in 98. What about booting to some type of dos mode window and formating from there. Like when xp is booting up, can you press f8 and get to a dos windows w/ cd support? If so you could format /s then copy setup files. Hope I've helped.

Mage

XP has NO true DOS support. Only the command prompt. Plus DOS can't read NTFS if you use NTFS unless you get special drivers.