CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

3.1. Working with Boot Disks

If you find yourself with a computer that will not boot because of an Os problem, you want to use a startup disk or a boot disk to get your system back into a bootable state. A boot disk holds system files and can start the OS on your computer.

Windows XP doesn't truly have a boot disk like older OSes have, but a disk can be formatted with Windows XP, and the Windows XP boot files can be copied over to the disk. This disk can then take the place of a corrupted boot sector on a Windows XP system. Book V, Chapter 6, describes the files that are required for booting Windows XP and provides details about each. Book VII, Chapter 2, looks at boot issues related to these files and how to resolve the boot issues. The files required on this disk are

• NTLDR

• NTDETECT.COM

• BOOT.INI

• NTBOOTDD.SYS (if it exists)

NOTE

Use a Windows XP boot disk only as a replacement for a damaged or corrupted hard drive boot sector.

A similar disk can be created for Windows Vista, but this disk would require the following files on a Windows Vista–formatted disk:

• bootmgr

• \boot\BCD