Off Topic?- Boot to Command Prompt

Hello,

I am not sure if this is off topic, but it has to do with hardware, so I
figured I would post here. I have an HP Pavillion laptop that I believe has
a faulty CD ROM. When I first bought the system used, I tried to reformat
and reinstall the OS, but I kept having problems. It would work for a while
and then quit. That said, I figured the drive is dying so what I wanted to
try to do was boot to a command prompt and see if I could see the CD
contents in the drive. The problem is that I forgot how to create the disk
that allows me to boot to the prompt. Since I have already reformatted the
drive (when I was trying to install the OS), there is really nothing on it.
I know I have done this creating the boot disk thing before, but I forget
how I did it. Any ideas? Also, am I on the right track in trying to diagnose
this problem? Are there other things I could/should be doing to better get a
handle on the situation? Thanks,

Chris

I am not sure if this is off topic, but it has to do with hardware, so I
figured I would post here. I have an HP Pavillion laptop that I believe
has a faulty CD ROM. When I first bought the system used, I tried to
reformat and reinstall the OS, but I kept having problems. It would work
for a while and then quit. That said, I figured the drive is dying so what
I wanted to try to do was boot to a command prompt and see if I could see
the CD contents in the drive. The problem is that I forgot how to create
the disk that allows me to boot to the prompt. Since I have already
reformatted the drive (when I was trying to install the OS), there is
really nothing on it. I know I have done this creating the boot disk thing
before, but I forget how I did it. Any ideas? Also, am I on the right
track in trying to diagnose this problem? Are there other things I
could/should be doing to better get a handle on the situation? Thanks,


though it's easy to make one
you may as well just download a cd support bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com

Thanks for the reply. This may be a dumb question, but what is a "CD support
bootdisk"? On the site, it says that all of the bootdisks there come with
drivers for IDE CD ROMs. Doesn't that mean all are 'CD support' or are you
speaking of a specific one? Also, I downloaded the DOS 5.0 disk (wasn't sure
which one to download considering that the notebook doesn't have an OS
currently installed and just want to see if I can see the CD drive). I could
see the C drive, but not the D drive. I replaced the drive and can hear the
CD spin when I put it in. Does this mean that it is some sort of software
problem? Any ideas? Thanks,

Chris

"philo" wrote in message
...


I am not sure if this is off topic, but it has to do with hardware, so I
figured I would post here. I have an HP Pavillion laptop that I believe
has a faulty CD ROM. When I first bought the system used, I tried to
reformat and reinstall the OS, but I kept having problems. It would work
for a while and then quit. That said, I figured the drive is dying so
what I wanted to try to do was boot to a command prompt and see if I
could see the CD contents in the drive. The problem is that I forgot how
to create the disk that allows me to boot to the prompt. Since I have
already reformatted the drive (when I was trying to install the OS),
there is really nothing on it. I know I have done this creating the boot
disk thing before, but I forget how I did it. Any ideas? Also, am I on
the right track in trying to diagnose this problem? Are there other
things I could/should be doing to better get a handle on the situation?
Thanks,


though it's easy to make one
you may as well just download a cd support bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com