Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and boot

This disc was made for bootin'

CodeMonkey — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:10:19 -0800

I would like to make a custom boot disc that is very simple to the user. All it would do is restore an image from 6 DVDs to a hard drive. The only options I would like the user to see is: 1) format drive 2) restore drive 3) exit I would like to create this menu and all sub menus that I see fit. I have seen UBCD but it is too complicated for the people I know. I would like to use Driveimage XML and have it read the discs one at a time to restore the drive. Any suggestions?

My Dream Dual Boot Netbook

lemonfridge — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:39:01 -0800

Help me build my perfect netbook! I've had my iBook G4 since I started Uni over 6 years ago, but it's starting to show it's age and things are starting to play up (apart from the battery!)

So I've ordered myself a Samsung NC20 with a 2Gb of RAM upgrade. I'd really like to dual or triple boot between Windows, OSX, and....something.

1. It comes with XP, but I'm tempted to go for a Windows 7 upgrade. Thoughts?

I like OSX and wouldn't mind keeping it an option.

2. I'd like a flavour of Linux or possible the new Google OS. Thoughts?

3. I really like how quickly my current iBook waked up when I open the lid. Can I expect the same thing from my new NC20?

4. Where is the best guide to acheive what I want? I've never dual booted anything before.

I have borked my computer. Help me save my nerd cred!

sah — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:47:46 -0800

Help me install Windows XP with a (non-bootable) installation CD! I decided yesterday that my computer needed a good old reformat. I dutifully backed up my data and then proceeded to wipe and repartition the drive. The problem? My XP pro install CD (which is legitimate) isn't bootable.

All I really want is a plain old DOS prompt so that I can run the stupid installer from the XP Pro CD (which is just a burned copy of the installation files). I have tried all kinds of boot CDs claiming to do this to no avail. The nearest I have come is using FreeDOS to give me a DOS prompt...sans CD-ROM support.

I have tried using the recovery console on a separate (and bootable) XP home CD. But once I get into the console it won't let me eject the CD and swap them out.

What is the best and easiest way to do this? Thank you in advance!

Installing Windows 7 on a MBP with a non-working DVD drive

N2O1138 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:22:32 -0800

How can I install Windows 7 (via Boot Camp or rEFIt) from an ISO? I think the Superdrive on my Macbook Pro (10.5.6) is on its last legs, because it ejects almost anything I put in it. (Meaning blank DVDs, and the DVD I burned of the ISO on my Windows XP desktop with ImgBurn). It's not extremely old (I got it refurbished on Christmas 2007), but still old enough to be out of warranty (at least I would think so). What I have available: 1tb My Book Firewire External Hard Drive 4gb 1st gen iPod Nano, that isn't even formatted as an iPod right now, so it's basically just a 4gb USB flash drive. I know I can boot from it if it's set up right, because I've been using it with this What I've tried so far:
I can't restore the iPod to the ISO in Disk Utility, so I tried to convert the ISO to a DMG (in Disk Utility and using a program called Converso), getting errors both times.

I tried mounting the ISO, erasing everything on the iPod, and copying everything straight out of the ISO to the iPod, but it doesn't appear as anything bootable.

Please help if you can

Help me feel better about buying a new laptop.

logicpunk — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:44:59 -0800

My computer is having a hardware issue when booting... I think. Started getting BSODs when booting (Windows XP, SP2). I can't say for certain what the error is since the computer restarts immediately on throwing the error (even with the automatic restart disabled). The error isn't consistent: sometimes windows will boot up fine, and I'll be able to use it normally (I'm typing on it Right! Now!).

Ran memcheck on it, and it passed. Downloaded "The Ultimate Boot CD" and booted from that - I was able to run the basic utilities, but any attempt to boot a disk image that came along with the cd either hung or threw an error.

Furthermore, the system is dual-boot, and I tried booting into the secondary OS (not booted for a couple weeks, no additional software installed for > 1 year) and it also BSODs.

So I'm thinking it's a hardware issue...somewhere. I've ruled out the memory, and the hard drive doesn't seem to have anything to do with it (else why would it hang on booting from cd), so it's probably something on the motherboard, i.e., I need a new laptop. Still, I have this nagging feeling that it *might* be software, somehow, so I'm wondering if there are any other diagnostic steps I should take to convince myself the laptop is (soon to be) toast.

Hands-free reboot?

zardoz — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:52:16 -0800

I have an Intel iMac, and have partitioned off a Boot Camp drive that contains Windows XP. Is there any way to restart the computer into Windows without having to hold down the Alt key? I generally run OS X, but sometimes boot up Windows for various applications. I'll go to the apple menu, select "restart", wait for the shutdown and then I have to hold down the Alt button (I have a Microsoft keyboard; maybe the Mac keyboard key is something else), and then I choose which partition to boot, Mac or Windows.

I want to skip those last steps. I know I can, in OS X, go to the System Preferences and choose the default boot drive, and I've got OS X as my default. But what I want is an option right in the apple drop down menu. Instead of just "restart" and "shut down", I wish there were an additional option: "reboot in [Windows]".

And it would be great if there were yet another way to do the same thing within Windows; again, instead of just "shut down" or "restart", I could choose the drive right then and there.

Is there anything I can do to make this happen? It's not really that much time wasted, but I'd like to be able to not touch the keyboard, sort of a set-it-and-forget-it type of reboot.

This is not my beautiful OS.

tmcw — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:59:40 -0800

My fantastically unstable IBM T42 (which is on it's 3rd, soon to be 4th, life) died a little while ago, no longer booting into Ubuntu. However, it loves to boot into Windows. How do I nuke both? I'd like to run Ubuntu on this computer for another few months until it takes all of my vital data with it again. I've tried running LiveCDs to fsck the primary drive (ubuntuforums didn't care, apparently), but all of these failed. I can boot into Windows and it works fine - and I can even run some ext3 drivers/wrappers and access my linux partition from there (I have, so all of my data is now backed up). However, what I can't do is boot into any OS other than Windows. I'd like to basically wipe drive and boot partition so that I can put a new install of an OS on it - and I'm considering DBAN, although wondering if that's A) recoverable, in that the drive will still be usable B) going to fail like LiveCDs did.

Plan 2: I can get this laptop fixed under a very good warranty. Good enough that I've already gone through two hard drives and an LCD on it. However, they believe that a Windows installation is enough for any student. Not this student. So if I can just botch it up tremendously, I can get a clean slate by that method.

Thanks for any help. I'm getting a mac, and backing up my data, but to have a formerly high-end ThinkPad running XP is just a loss of potential.

Reveal my boot-a nature ... or shake my boot-y?

lukemeister — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:02:46 -0800

After receiving mixed advice three months ago, I bought an HP Pavilion Elite m9150f running Vista Home Premium. Except for being a little slow to boot into Windows, I've been happy with Vista ... until last night, when Vista Service Pack 1 installed "successfully". I dutifully rebooted and now it won't boot into Windows at all. I've tried system restore from two restore points. Neither works, although I do get a helpful message stating that "a recent upgrade" may be causing problems. The computer can boot into Fedora 8, so it's not hosed, but I've run through my limited bag of Windows tricks. Any suggestions?

Dear PC, I swear I won't ever mess with your partitions again if you just this once...

willie11 — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 12:06:06 -0800

Oh crap! While attempting to clear, reformat, and merge my ubuntu partition with my primary NTFS Windows partition, I somehow managed to give the GRUB boot-loader brain damage. Now I can't boot in to either partition need to fix this before my girlfriend comes home and sees that I've rendered her computer useless. When I boot, I get the following error,

Booting form local disk...
GRUB Loading stage 1.5

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 17

And it just hangs there forever, mocking and blinking... blinking and mocking... I wiped, reformatted, and merged my existing linux partition in to my windows partition while in windows using partition magic. However, upon reboot, I received that error. The file structure is intact, I checked with the liveCD, but GRUB is useless.

How can I get windows back?

FDC Failure, no boot.

signal — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:42:37 -0800

Can't boot PC, getting "FDC Failure". PC (Pentium 4, 1.6 GHz, AMIBIOS 2001 American Megatrends).
I turn on the computer, get 2 beeps and "FDC Failure, press F1 to continue". Do so. Go to windows' "we apologize" screen, with options: safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, start windows normally. Regardless of which I choose, computer tries to boot from scratch again, get "FDC Failure", etc.
Googling shows "FDC Failure" is floppy problem, but I don't have the floppy in my boot order.

Why does Windows eat my internet connection?

judge.mentok.the.mindtaker — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:07:53 -0800

Why does Windows eat my internet connection? I have a dual boot system. Windows XP 64 on one side, Fedora 7 64 on the other.

Whenever I boot from Fedora to Windows, I notice two things happen, although I am not sure if they are related to each other.

This is when I switch back to Windows:
1. My clock is set 5 hours in the future, and every time I try and reset it, when I go back to windows it is always this way. Fedora appears to be self correcting, but windows can't deal.

2. My internet is fux0red for about 10 minutes after I boot into windows. I can get some traffic out, and my connectivity comes back slowly, like I can connect to some sites and not others. The other people in the house also notice issues with their connection whenever I reboot my computer back into windows. 5 - 10 minutes after I reboot, internet connectivity returns to normal with no apparent human intervention.

I should note that when I boot back to Linux FROM Windows, I have immediate connectivity and noone in the house notices.

This makes me suspect that there is some DNS caching issue going on with my router, but if that is the problem, then how could my computer be causing the router to dump its cache? Could the solution be as simple as "buy a new router"?

T.I.A.

WinXP Install CD Won't Boot! What gives?

goingonit — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 11:55:16 -0800

Why will neither my computer nor VMware boot the Windows XP SP2 installation CD I got from my university? So I run Linux, but I have a Windows Virtual Machine set up with VMware for times when I just can't avoid using Windows (and, um, Civ 2). My VM just got accidentally erased. So I got a new Windows XP install CD from my university, and got all set to reinstall WinXP....but it doesn't boot. Through either VMware or through my hardware itself. All of the files are on the CD, as far as I can tell.

VMware will boot a Knoppix CD, so it's not the drive's fault. It's also not this CD in particular, since the guy at the help desk booted it when I got it. I even tried copying the whole CD to an ISO image (with dd, so it preserved the boot sector too) but that didn't work either.

Why is this happening? What can I do to install Windows XP onto this VM?

Failed Vista install boot problem

lemonfridge — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:39:26 -0800

I tried to install Vista but the install failed. Now when my PC boots I have to jump through some hoops to get it working. Help! When booting it presents me the following options:
* An earlier version of Windows
* Windows Setup Rollback

It automatically chooses the second option which fails, but gives me a chance to go back to the previous menu and choose to load an earlier version of Windows (which works fine)

Here is a video of the boot process

Ive given up on installing Vista for now. But would love to remove these option screens so that I can boot normally again.

Vista is broken

punishinglemur — Thu, 10 May 2007 12:55:24 -0800

About an hour ago, I told Windows Vista to hibernate. Now, when I try to boot, I get a "Windows failed to start" error. Apparently, winload.exe is either missing or corrupt. According to the error, I need to use my installation disc to fix this. Unfortunately, I won't have access to a Vista install disc until next week. Is there *any* other way to fix this, or am I just screwed?

Ubuntu ate my XP bootage

onshi — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:11:05 -0800

Ubuntu ate my WinXP via Grub: help me induce vomiting? After an apparently botched Ubuntu installation, I now only have Ubuntu boot options visible in the GRUB bootloader. From inside Ubuntu, I can see that all of my Windows XP data and NTFS partitions are alive and well (thankfully).

How do I get back into windows?

Backround: XP on disk 0, NTFS data partition and Ubuntu partitions on disk 1. The Ubuntu installation is totally expendible.

How to automatically lock workstation upon logon in XP?

Ekim Neems — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 16:11:13 -0800

I'm trying to find a "lost" tweak that automatically used XP's "lock workstation" feature on boot. I've recently reformatted my computer, but about 6 months or so ago on Digg or Reddit or one of those link dumps I came across a tweak to help with boot-up times. Basically, instead of the standard XP logon screen (or the NT style one), it would log me in automatically and then immediately lock the workstation. This gave me the security of password protection but while it was locked it would load all my startup programs. I believe it required editing the registry. Does anyone know how to accomplish this?

Help me boot into windows with a broken bootloader and no installation media...

handee — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:52:06 -0800

I've messed up my boot loader. I have a (working, legal) XP installation, but it won't boot, and I don't have any Windows installation media. How can I fix it? Linux, Windows and general stupidity feature in the creation of the problem, and getting the computer ready to give away in time for Christmas is the aim. I'm giving my old laptop away at Xmas. The recipient is unlikely to want the dual-boot-ness, so I had two tasks on my hands.

1. Change the boot-loader (grub)
2. Reformat /dev/hda3 from ext3 to something Windows can see.

But Dr Stupid here did the tasks in the wrong order, and using fdisk I f-ed the disk before dealing with grub. Grub now gives me error 17 (cannot recognise filesystem). So I can't boot into Windows or.

All the recovery software is all on the hard disk already and despite having a legal copy of XP I don't have any media (cheers, PC World). All I have to do to access the recovery software is to press F10 during boot to use it. Except that won't work, 'cause grub intercepts the boot process.

So how can I overwrite the grub bootloader in order to boot directly into Windows, bypassing all grubbiness?

I have installation and livecd versions of ubuntu, and am assuming that if I boot into XP once, I should be able to tell it to overwrite the MBR itself (bonus question - once in XP, how do I do this?).

How to boot PC XP and Intel OSX from external drive?

h2 — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:55:45 -0800

How do I configure a 2.5" 60 gig usb external drive to boot Windows XP on a PC as well as be able to boot Mac OS X 10.4 on an Intel MacBook?

Windows won't load

aznhalf — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 20:04:44 -0800

Stuck at Windows Logo during boot up. Run out of ideas... I just finished building my first computer.

Windows seems to install correctly. I get to Windows and I load a Nvidia display driver.

I restart and my machine hangs at the Windows Logo, forever loading.

So I reformat my machine and try again, same thing happens.

I reinstall several other times and try loading different drivers and everytime the same thing happens.

As long as I don't install a driver then Windows will load up normally if I restart.

Here are my system specs:
Asus P5NSLI Mobo
Seagate 320GB x raid 0
nvidia 7900GT
Windows XP

One thing to note, it was a huge pain getting raid to work because the raid driver doesn't fit on a floppy! I had to search around and ultimately had to slipstream the drivers into the Windows XP install cd. Could this be causing diffuculties?

My mobo has the most up to date BIOS.

I've totally hit a wall here anything at all would be much appreciated!

How can I return my Windows XP computer to its original speed after goofing up the Prefetch folder?

jordanian2 — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 22:17:31 -0800

How can I return my Windows XP computer to its original speed after goofing up the Prefetch folder? Last week, I followed some advice that said to erase all the files from my Prefetch folder and change the registry so only boot files are preloaded. After getting irritated by slow program loads, I changed the registry back to normal.

Now, however, when I open programs, my computer stops dead for 10-15 seconds to load it. Is there any way I can get my computer back in shape? Or do I just have to wait it out until the Prefetch folder learns which programs to preload?

By the way, even opening "My Computer" or "My Music" will take 10-15 seconds to load.

Good riddance?

furtive — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 18:59:59 -0800

Help me make my choice from one of the three options below: 1) Fix Windows so that it boots without messing up my Ubuntu. 2) Remove Windows completely. I don't need it anyways. 3) Shrink Windows to the bare minimum and reclaim the space with Ubuntu. I made the switch to Ubuntu a short while ago and have no inclination on returning to Windows. Recently when I tried to boot into Windows (XP Pro) I got a BSOD with the following error:
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
My boot.ini looks good. I did some research and noticed that if I do an fdisk that I get the same error for all my partitions:



furtive@furtive-laptop:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Password:

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes

16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77520 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System

/dev/hda1   *           1       50565    25484728+   7  HPFS/NTFS

Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

/dev/hda2           50570       76357    12996585   83  Linux

Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.

/dev/hda3           76357       77520      586372+   5  Extended

Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.

/dev/hda5           76357       77520      586341   82  Linux swap / Solaris

furtive@furtive-laptop:~$

It seems that these "does not end on cylinder boundary" messages are common when the partitions are made using megabytes instead of cylinders. I honestly don't feel like reloading my notebook again (no CD drive) and so I think it's come down to three choices:

1) Fix Windows so that it works without messing up my Ubuntu. I haven't seen any solutions to this yet, but I'm all ears. My ntfs drive is mounted with ntfs 3-g in Ubuntu if that helps.

2) Remove Windows completely. I don't need it anyways. I'd love to be able to reclaim that space for my Ubuntu.

3) Shrink Windows to the bare minimum and reclaim the space with Ubuntu. I know it was possible to do this during the install, but I don't see how to do it now.

I'll be up all night and quick to respond to any questions.

How to dual boot XP from a drive from another computer.

DZ-015 — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 06:39:20 -0800

Can I dual boot from an XP drive that came from older (dead) computer? My friend's girlfriend's computer died last week. The machine won't boot up and it looks like the mainboard is fried. My friend would like to swop the working hard drive from the dead computer into his Dell and create a dual boot scenario where he can load either operating system e.g. "Load My Windows XP Pro" or "Load Girlfriend's Windows XP Pro". I know you can connect the old drive as a slave and see it in Windows explorer, but is the dual boot scenario possible?

Windows XP not booting without Boot Logging on.

Jimbob — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:21:11 -0800

Why does my Windows XP installation not only boot when I turn Bootlog mode on? About a week ago, my Windows XP machine stopped booting properly. It will load up, the Windows XP logo will be displayed, then instead of showing me the blue "User Account Selection" screen, I just get a black screen with the mouse pointer. The computer isn't frozen - I can move the mouse around - but it doesn't go any further than that.

Booting into Safe Mode does the same thing - except this time I get a black screen with "Safe Mode" written in the corners.

However, I've discovered that by pressing F8 and selecting to boot in Boot Logging mode, I can get into windows properly, and it all works fine.

Does anyone have any ideas what is going wrong? It is difficult to work out, because when I turn boot logging on the computer works fine. It's when I don't log the boot process that the computer doesn't work, and it's under these circumstances that I need to see what is failing to load. Any ideas?

increase my Mac-fu?

lonefrontranger — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 10:13:36 -0800

Boot Camp for new MacBook Pro - will it work with Windows 2000 pro, or only XP? I do own a full install of W2K pro. I just bought a 2ghz MacBook Pro to replace my 3 craptacular PCs (2 desktops & laptop, all +5 yrs old). I don't really want to have to purchase a full version of XP.

The main reason I bought this thing was for the possibility to run dual OS to ease the transition of all my productivity and photography software from my PCs to Mac... and hopefully merge ALL my daily tasks, work, school, photography stuff, etc. onto ONE machine that can handle it.

Any way to do this gracefully without Windows XP? I can't seem to find the answer to this, tho I'm certain it's been asked.

Booting a Dell from an Ubuntu live CD: How?

docgonzo — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 10:41:55 -0800

Given that: 1. I'm a Mac type; 2. I have and want to try out an Ubuntu linux live CD on my home's extra Dell desktop; 3. I don't want to try and figure out the syntax for the startup settings file... So, uh, how do I do this?

The Dell desktop is some plain vanilla Dimension running XP Home Edition. I think the place to edit how the computer boots up is at Control Panel > System > Startup and recovery

I suspect I have to edit the startup file and add the live CD.

Currently, the start up file looks like this:

[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="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Thanks!

(Oh, and does Mr. Gates et al. make this difficult so that people will not try out the live CDs?)