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General discussion

Boot Disk

Jan 19, 2009 6:38AM PST

So, I installed the beta of win 7 on an old comp earlyer, just burned the image on a regular cd, so no bootability from cd.
Problem was my old win xp took up most room on c, so I had it installed on D:
So far so good, then I decide to format C:, that would make room for it and I can reinstall it there. Well, it seems that wasn't a very good idea, now comp doesn't seem to be able to use c:
It finds it and IDs it, but it can't format it, everything seems to be gone, it's just like an unformated disk.
Well, when I reboot my comp it won't boot, and I don't find a bootdisk for win7. It says I have to reinstall a .dll file because it's the wrong version, but that's probably because I tried my old XP bootdisk.
So, Any ideas?

Discussion is locked

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Ouch!
Jan 19, 2009 7:35AM PST

Several points:

1.) Windows 7 does not fit on a CD, only a DVD.
2.) Drive letter (C:, D:, etc) depends on which OS you were running at the time. (Whichever you are running should always report itself as CHappy Thus, be sure you clarify what C: and D: are.
3.) If you tried to format C: as in the partition containing XP, that explains everything. Remember, format means 'delete all that is here' so by telling it to format C: you told it to delete Windows XP, all of your programs, all of your personal files, etc.
4.) In addition, the boot information for every OS installed is, by default, saved to the partition to which the first OS was installed. That means C: also included the boot information for Windows 7.

Thus, you're most likely in a situation where your backup is your only outlet as you prepare to reinstall Windows and all of your programs from scratch.

John

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cd or dvd
Jan 19, 2009 7:47AM PST

if it quacks...

Thanks for the info, then I probably deleted the boot information yes... though.

Well, I did find an old win bootdisk that let me run testdisk.exe and that let me delete the partition, now I have another issue, when I turn computer on it says: No operating system...
Well that's all good, but how do I get win7 from my DVD? I can't seem to run the cd (or DVD if you must) at all.

Will the xp bootcd created by nero allow me to change the cd and run it?

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Did you simply burn the ISO as a file?
Jan 19, 2009 8:11AM PST

ISOs need to be burned as images, meaning their contents are extracted and then burned. If you simply burn the ISO to disc then you have a backup of the ISO and an inability to install the OS. If that's not the case, ensure you changed the BIOS boot order such that the optical drive comes before the hard drive.

As to your second question, no, it will not enable you to 'change' the CD/DVD or run it. However, if that is an image Windows XP (created by Nero) you may be able to recover your previous setup by booting to it.

John

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ok
Jan 19, 2009 8:19AM PST

Because I unpacked the iso with poweriso and then burned the filed to a dvd, obviously wrong then.
So how do I do it right?
I tried to find out with nero 7 but it says file is over 2gb and too large to be burned in an iso format...

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Try a free alternative...
Jan 19, 2009 9:09AM PST

CDBurnerXP, for instance, gives you the option of burning an Audio DVD, Data DVD, or ISO. Nero should also support ISOs over 2GB in size--sounds like that may have been a trial or 'reduced functionality' version.

John

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Seems poweriso
Jan 19, 2009 5:58PM PST

has a burning part, was fairly easy to burn and now it works like it should. Thanks for your help! It was most helpfull.

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burnning with Nero
Dec 29, 2009 11:52AM PST

for iso files over 2Gb you have to use the UDF file system to burn them.