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6. When the format is complete, proceed to install Windows on the lone

partition.

See Chapter 5 if you’ve already installed Windows and you wish to remove

this partition.

Boot Without a Boot Disc

I still have a box of floppy disks in my closet, most of which are boot disks for

old operating systems (Windows Me, Windows 95, DOS 6.2, DOS 4.0, etc.).

Not a single one of my PCs still has a floppy drive, but each was such a hassle

to create or obtain, I can’t bear to part with them lest someone knock on my

door one day with a 25-year-old IBM XT that won’t start up.

Suffice it to say, it can be a real pain to boot a PC before any operating system

is installed. Windows 7 comes on a bootable DVD, but if you have an older

drive that doesn’t support bootable DVDs, or if you don’t have a working

optical drive at all, what do you do? One method is to pull the hard drive from

the PC and then use another PC to copy files from the Windows setup disc to

a temporary folder on the drive. But that still leaves the question: how do you

boot the PC so you can get to those files?

Or, what if Windows is already installed, but you need to accomplish a task

you can’t do from within Windows, such as updating/flashing your PC’s BIOS,

your video card BIOS, or your hard drive BIOS?

If you’re unlucky enough to be stuck with one of those BIOS

update utilities that insists on writing files to a floppy drive,

you can use the free Virtual Floppy Drive tool from http://chit

chat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html to add a fake drive let-

ter. Run your tool, and then use Windows Explorer to retrieve

the files.

Fortunately, there are several “alternate” ways to boot a PC if, for whatever

reason, you can’t boot the conventional way: a network (PXE) boot, a bootable

USB flash drive, and a bootable CD.

Set up a network (PXE) boot

Using your PC’s built-in support for Preboot Execution Environment (PXE),

you can place boot files on a shared folder on another PC on your network,

and then boot the PC off of those files. Setting this up is a bit involved, but it’s

often simpler than using a boot disk.

Install Windows 7 | 15

Get Started with

Windows 7

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