Creating a WinXP SP2 bootable disk

[choogen]

I'd like to create my own bootable Windows XP setup disk on a preloaded Windows system (XP Home SP2). I have an Acer laptop that came without an XP installation CD, just a couple of recovery CD's. When I got the laptop (in late 2005), SP2 was already installed, at least I think it was.

 

To make the bootable disk, I've been following the instructions here to the letter. It asks me to use ImgBurn to burn the CD and uses a pre-defined project. All I had to do was to load this project. Burning the CD itself seems to work fine,(although there's one window popping up saying I didn't specify the Volume Label, but ImgBurn made a suggestion that I went along with). But upon rebooting, all I get is this famous error: couldn't find NTLDR. According to the FAQ of the aforementioned website, this NTLDR-error means that something went wrong with burning the CD.

 

 

I checked to see whether my laptop even had that NTLDR file. The search function found it twice (244kb), but only in the Windows section of the C: drive. To be exact: C:\Windows\ServicePack Files\i386 and also here C:\Windows\$NT ServicePack\Uninstall. Elsewhere, I've been told not to copy any files from that C:\Windows drive for making a bootable disk, so I didn't use any of these files.

Instead I've tried adding (a copy of )the NTLDR file manually from a Bart's PeBuilder CD that I had already made (itself based upon some XP Upgrade cd). But that attempt also resulted in a coaster CD: again, the NTLDR file wasn't found.

 

1) Do I absolutely need that NTLDR file to be in my C:\I386 directory for ImgBurn to work? Should NTLDR have been in that directory and did Acer maybe remove it for some reason?

 

 

2) Can you check whether there's anything in the load project that's amiss?

 

IBB

 

[sTART_BACKUP_OPTIONS]

BuildMode=1

Destination=0

TestMode=0

Verify=1

WriteSpeed=0

Copies=0

FileSystem=1

PreserveFullPathnames=0

RecurseSubdirectories=1

IncludeHiddenFiles=1

IncludeSystemFiles=1

IncludeArchiveFilesOnly=0

AddToWriteQueueWhenDone=0

ClearArchiveAttribute=0

VolumeLabel_ISO9660=VRMHOEM_EN

VolumeLabel_Joliet=

VolumeLabel_UDF=

Identifier_System=

Identifier_VolumeSet=

Identifier_Publisher=

Identifier_Preparer=

Identifier_Application=

Dates_FolderFileType=0

Restrictions_ISO9660_InterchangeLevel=0

Restrictions_ISO9660_AllowMoreThan8DirectoryLevels=1

Restrictions_ISO9660_AllowMoreThan255CharactersInPath=1

Restrictions_ISO9660_AllowFilesWithoutExtensions=1

Restrictions_ISO9660_AllowFullASCIICharacterSet=1

Restrictions_ISO9660_DontAddVersionNumberToFiles=1

Restrictions_Joliet_InterchangeLevel=1

Restrictions_Joliet_AllowFilesWithoutExtensions=1

Restrictions_Joliet_AddVersionNumberToFiles=0

BootableDisc_MakeImageBootable=1

BootableDisc_MediaEmulationType=0

BootableDisc_BootImageFile=C:\w2ksect.bin

BootableDisc_DeveloperIdentifier=

BootableDisc_LoadSegment=07C0

BootableDisc_LoadSectorCount=4

[END_BACKUP_OPTIONS]

 

[sTART_BACKUP_LIST]

C:\XPSETUP

[END_BACKUP_LIST]

 

 

 

 

I've tried different versions of ImgBurn, but that didn't make any difference. Have attached log files for both attempts.

 

 

ImgBurn (double) Log file (version 2.3.2.0): 13.15 kb

ImBBurn log file (latest version): 4.63 kb

ImgBurn.log

Copy of Logfile ImgBurn.txt

Edited January 21, 2011 by choogen

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Yes you need to have ntldr in the i386 folder.

 

This option - 'Restrictions_ISO9660_AllowFullASCIICharacterSet=1' - doesn't even exist as an option in the program. It won't do it any harm though.