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How To Create a Windows XP Boot Disk

by on May 18th, 2006

Windows 98 served one good purpose: boot disks. The boot disks serve great purposes even today but sometimes you need to have a boot disk that will understand the Windows XP filesystem in a way that the Windows 98 boot disk did not. While it was a point and click operation in Windows 98, there are a few additional steps in Windows XP (though it’s not difficult). Follow these steps to create an XP bootdisk for NTFS filesystems:

1. From the Windows command line type format a: and hit enter.
2. Copy D:\i386\Ntldr and D:\i386\Ntdetect.com to the floppy drive. Note: Change D:\ to whichever drive letter your CD-ROM is.
3. Create a text file called boot.ini on the floppy disk with the following contents:

   
   [boot loader]
      timeout=30
      Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows
   
      [operating systems]
      multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows="Windows XP"
   

For more information, see Microsoft KB Article 305595.

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POSTED IN: How-To, Intermediate, Windows Tips