XP Home edition...making a bootable floppy for recovery

[bonafide247]

Hello all

I realize this isn't a forum for XP Home edition, but I didn't know where else to post, so maybe you guys can help!

I need some advice. My brother has an HP laptop running Windows XP Home Edition. I believe he is expereincing a hard drive failure, and I am unable to boot up to Windows via any option (safe mode, etc)

I am attempting to make a boot disk that will allow me to access the command prompt and browse through the hard drive. I'm not sure where to begin, was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. Thanks!

Matt

 

[bcastner]

The obvious first question: what is the error message received when you try to boot?

Can you set the BIOS to boot from CD?

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...efault.aspx?scid=kb;en-gb;307654&ln=en-gb

Does he have a floppy disk?

http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/Q119/4/67.asp&NoWebContent=1

The error message is key to helping you.

 

[wolluf]

If you think its hard drive failure, you might want to download drive diagnostic utility from manufacturer's website (they usually have one).

Otherwise, if recovery console (from bcastner's link) is no good, if the drive is formatted fat32, a win98 boot floppy (

http://www.bootdisk.com

if you need one) will give you access to to the filestore.