How do you make a hdd bootable?

Answer 1

Use the Microsoft Windows disk and install the operating system.

Answer 2

or

CHECK BIOS BOOT SEQUENCE
1. First, set and check the boot sequence in your BIOS.
2. For systems with an AWARD BIOS, go to BIOS Features Setup, and set the BOOT SEQUENCE to A,C,SCSI.
3. For systems with an AMI BIOS, set the first boot device to FLOPPY, and the second boot device to IDE0.

BOOT FROM BOOTABLE FLOPPY DISK
1. If you don't have a bootable floppy disk, you can create one if you have another system that's working.
2. If the HDD on the system that's not booting has Windows 95 on it, make sure you use a system that's also running Windows 95 to create the boot disk.
3. To create the boot disk from a working system, go to START / Programs / MS-DOS Prompt. This will open a DOS window.
4.Insert a blank disk into the A: drive. For the following DOS commands in bold text, type out the exact commands and then hit ENTER.
5. FORMAT A: /U/S - this will format the disk and make it bootable.
6. COPY C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SYS.COM A: - this copies the SYS.COM utility (which is needed to make an IDE HDD bootable again) to the A: drive.

MAKE HDD BOOTABLE
1. Boot from a bootable disk, or from the disk you've just created by following the above instructions.
2. At the "A:\>" prompt, type SYS C:. This will make the HDD bootable again. When it's done, remove the floppy disk and hit the system reset button.
3. If you get an error message that says, "Bad command or file name," then you are missing the SYS.COM file on your boot disk. You can copy SYS.COM to the disk by following step number 6 from above.

Answer 3

First and foremost, before you can make a HDD bootable, you have to partition it first using a program like fdisk.exe(DOS) or others. After partitioning it you can now format the partitions you have made in your HDD and make the option of making it bootable thru the format program like format.com of the old DOS or make your drive as slave to another hard drive and use windows to format your HDD with the boot option enabled.
Hope this will help. Goodluck!

Answer 4

First of all you need to prepare the disk.

If you are using Windows XP then boot from the CD, and follow the easy instructions on screen.

If you want an alternative OS such as Windows 98 then follow these instructions.

You will need to boot from the CD rom, choose Start Computer with CD Rom support.

At the prompt: type path=d:\win98
type fdisk
Fdisk is a disk partitioning utility. You will need to create a primary partition and make it active.

You will then need to restart your computer
Again boot from CD - Start computer with CD Rom support

At the prompt: type path=d:\win98
type format c: /s
that will format the hdd and make it bootable.

If you want to install windows 98 then just type the format c: command

then type setup /ie /is /iv /nr

The switches will help speed up the installation process a little.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

It defends if you will be using MS windows (ex. 2K or XP) then you can you the Installer CD and the setup will do it for you just follow the on screen procedure.

But if you just want the HDD to boot like DOS BOOT you may want to use a bootable disk or bootable CD and partition or format disk then there is this utility called SYS (like SYS C:)

Hope it helps! happy computing.

Answer 6

The easiest way would be to go to here ->
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm and download one of the Win98 boot disks, it makes a bootable floppy disk.

Put this disk in the PC you want to make the bootable HD in, and the turn it on.

You then need to run the Fdisk command on floppy disk, and follow the instuctions.
note that this will erase anything on that hd.
When that is done you run the format command on the floppy disk with the following command line( exactly ) =

format c: /s

then remove the floppy and re-boot :)

JB

Answer 7

a hard drive is not bootable until a partition is made active on it,and a operating system installed on it ,a hard drive is basically usless without a operating system on it
you can install xp from a new hdd by pressing del and going into setup and changing the boot order to cd-rom first and save and exit and then restart
you can then create,delete and install partitions and install xp on your system
good luck

Answer 8

1. insert windows bootable floppy disd
2. switch on the computer. it will go to dos mode.
3. when the command A\:: appears, type fdisk
4. go to " Make the partition active....., send the drive u want
5. exit and start to installation.

Answer 9

This entirely depends on which operating system you are using, but in general you must use whatever option is available in your format utility to create a boot sector on your disk. Here is a pretty good outline of the procedure: http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/hdd-c.html

Answer 10

You need to install a boot sector