Boot Disk

[Full-Whammy]

I have a borked operating system meaning i have to reinstall it (i cant even get to the login screen) but the problem is my XP disk is not bootable. i have tried the xp floppy disks (where theres 6 of them and then it asks you for your disk) but it doesnt recognise the disk) on any other machine the disk loads up fine in windows so there isnt anything wrong with the disk. i have tried an emergency boot disk but it cant access the cd rom, any ideas?
(yes im new to this sorta stuff) :(

[dangerous_dom]

this is always handy... http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

[Sticky]

.... i have tried the xp floppy disks (where theres 6 of them and then it asks you for your disk) ....

Are you sure you are using the correct Setup Disk Utility?

Pro:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=55820edb-5039-4955-bcb7-4fed408ea73f&displaylang=en

Home:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e8fe6868-6e4f-471c-b455-bd5afee126d8&displaylang=en


.... on any other machine the disk loads up fine in windows so there isnt anything wrong with the disk ....

Assuming you are talking about the actual XP CD.... if your CD isn't bootable, then even with CDROM set as highest boot priority in the BIOS, it won't boot at startup on any machine. In that case, I can only assume that the CD you are using is a backup to your original. You can rectify that by burning the boot file from your original XP disk onto a new disk along with with a new backup, and you'd be best to streamline SP2 at the same time. There many guides on the net to do so.

Hope any of the above helps.