Making a Windows XP bootable DVD

ravemjr

I've formatted my windows partition and since my CD/DVD drive only reads DVD's I was wondering if anyone could help me make an actual bootable DVD with WinXP.

I've tried everything...first made an image with alcohol and burn it to a dvd...wouldnt let me because the image was from a CD. Then I copied the files from the cd manually and burnt them onto a DVD...didn't boot.
Finally I tried making an image on MagicISO and it bunt...but now it seems the drive cant even read it...so I'm guessing it used cd recording methods on the DVD. The files are there, I just can't boot them.

I even went to the extreme of running dos and trying to install from a partition with the cd contents, but in the end it doesnt boot neither.

Can someone help me?

espresso

Alcohol lets me burn CD images to DVD.
See this great tutorial for integrating SP2. There is one part that explains how to make a bootable disc.
There are some special settings in Nero plus extracting boot file from the original disc.
Read from "Creating a Bootable CD"
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/Windo...p2-bootcd.html

ravemjr

Thanks for the quick reply...I've nearly emptied a cake of DVD's because of this...

Does Nero7 work on win98?

[EDIT]: Oh pity, my Win XP is OEM from Compaq...no slipstreaming then...

steve b

I burn bootable .iso files to DVD all the time. I don't use CDs any more. DVDs are faster.

I use CDspeed or Nero Burning ROM to burn the image. You can't burn the .iso file as you would burn an ordinary file. In the case of Nero Burning ROM you have to burn an image (Click Recorder), or select DVD_ROM (Boot) on the compilation properties window. I guess you can do this with Nero Express also.

But the easiest may be to just use CDspeed -> Create Disc tab, and check "Burn image".

P.S. The easiest way to slipstream a service pack into XP is to use AutoStreamer.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/slipstream.htm

ravemjr

So what you're saying is that I could get CDspeed, put my windows CD onto the drive, go to the create disc tab, wait and it'll burn onto DVD and boot no problem?

Sorry for asking the question again, it's just that I don't wanna send any more dvd's to the trash...

espresso

@ravemjr
Why do you think you can't perform this operation? You simply need to extract the boot file with isobuster and use that file when burning DVD with Nero.

ravemjr

Nice...I think I've got it. Thanks for the tip on CDSpeed steve...not only did it go without a hitch, it has booted...but I'm still worried, since the image file took about 5 min flat to write, does CDspeed say anything when it stops the writing before the image is done?

steve b

I don't know. CDspeed is a powerful tool for "power" users, but it's not the most user friendly application. If you didn't see any errors you can probably assume it's okay.

I guess one advantage of Nero is it can verify the burn. I don't know any other way to verify an image burn. I'm not even sure Nero can verify it, but I think it claims to. Well maybe there is a way. You could use a program that copies a DVD/CD by making a .iso file on your hard drive and compare it with the original. Nero can do it, but I don't know if you can get it to make an .iso file. It prefers to make it's own variant. .nrz file, or something like that.

I just burned the "Ultimate Boot CD for Windows" to a mini DVD and it took one minute and 32 seconds. Here's what it shows. Now you know why I don't use CDs. DVDs are faster. They boot faster too.

I've noticed the .iso files on hard disk are much bigger than the actual burn. In this case the .iso file I burned was over 1 GB on the hard drive.

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espresso

I never considered CD-speed to be a tool for burning images. Guess it does things that Nero burning ROM can't (burns CD img to a DVD).
There is this great free tool called Imgburn which can verify images.

Strange thing that Alcohol wouldn't burn that image

espresso

double post
please delete

steve b

I think Nero Burning ROM can do that. It can be confusing figuring out which buttons to push though.

I like using CDspeed for burning images because it sneakily records the burner model number that did the burning, if using other than DVD-R discs. Of course DVD-R has this facility built in, but to get this for other discs, you need to use CDspeed.

Here's the burn I just did. It's poor re-writeable media and it's been burned many times, but I like the pretty colors

Hmmm. I just realized the date shown here isn't the date of the burn. I just burned it today. I guess it's the date when I made the .iso file.

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