Why do we see a:\> even when booting from CD.

[ashwa]

while we boot from HD we see C promt.
while booting from floppy we see A prompt &
when booting from bootable CD we still see A prompt...why so?

i have 4 partitions labelled as C,D,E,F & G(dvd rw). when trying to change driver letter of any of the drive by going to administrative tools & then to computer management, then using disk management i never see letters 'A' & 'B', why so?

 

[raybay]

Go into your BIOS, which you can do at startup by pressing the key that is flashed briefly on the screen. Usually <ESC>, <F1>, <F2>, <F10>, <F11>, F12>, or <DEL>
Then edit your boot order in a way that suits you.

 

[Nodsu]

There are two ways of booting from CDs. Native CD booting and floppy emulation. If your CD was made bootable using floppy emulation, then you will boot from a virtual floppy drive that appears as A:

A and B are not visible in disk management, because these drive letters are reserved for floppy drives.

 

[ashwa]

Go into your BIOS, which you can do at startup by pressing the key that is flashed briefly on the screen. Usually <ESC>, <F1>, <F2>, <F10>, <F11>, F12>, or <DEL>
Then edit your boot order in a way that suits you.

how will that help in understanding the answer to my que? i dont wanna change the boot order, even if i choose dvd drive as my 1st booting device n then boot from bootable CD then also it shows A:\> & thats what i want to know,y?

Nodsu There are two ways of booting from CDs. Native CD booting and floppy emulation. If your CD was made bootable using floppy emulation, then you will boot from a virtual floppy drive that appears as A:

A and B are not visible in disk management, because these drive letters are reserved for floppy drives.

can u pls tell how a CD can be made bootable using floppy emulation? i have only made bootable floppy disk using win98 & use the default windows xp cd to boot/reinstall.

 

[Nodsu]

Your CD burning program should have an option to write a bootable CD. And you should have an option there to read in a (hopefully bootable) floppy.

 

[ashwa]

Your CD burning program should have an option to write a bootable CD. And you should have an option there to read in a (hopefully bootable) floppy.

will try it

 

[ashwa]

but why to have an A promt when there is no need of it? as pc's now a days dont carry floppy drive

 

[Nodsu]

Really? You have seen every single PC in existence?

Anyway, you probably misunderstand the A: prompt. You get the prompt in a program, namely DOS. When DOS was created, floppies were the only medium used on PCs. And today, floppies (virtual or real) are usually the only medium where DOS is run from. Removing floppy support from DOS would be something like removing CD-ROM support from Windows assuming that everyone uses flash drives or DVDs nowadays.

 

[MetalX]

They really should rewrite Windows so the A:/ drive and the B:/ drive are no longer reserved for floppies... I mean, nobody uses those things anymore. You can buy flash drives that hold about 3000x the capacity of a floppy, and they're smaller. I can see if they have it there for "virtual floppies" as you say, but why not just remove the concept entirely, and allow for 2 more drives/partitions?

 

[ashwa]

Really? You have seen every single PC in existence?

Anyway, you probably misunderstand the A: prompt. You get the prompt in a program, namely DOS. When DOS was created, floppies were the only medium used on PCs. And today, floppies (virtual or real) are usually the only medium where DOS is run from. Removing floppy support from DOS would be something like removing CD-ROM support from Windows assuming that everyone uses flash drives or DVDs nowadays.

hmm its clearing up a bit...yah, earlier OS/bootdisk use to come in floppie(if i am not wrong)...plsss ans these

so DOS cant run without a floppy support, is it?every time we run DOS/command promt we are using virtual floppy?

cant run DOS from CD as such, we use the virtual floppies?

every pc has a virtual floppy? are these virtual floppies in BIOS?

i dont have a floppy drive now so whn i run DOS from my winxp i m using virtual floppy? while booting from bootable CD its actually the virtual floppy it gets booted from right?

 

[DeepMartin]

They really should rewrite Windows so the A:/ drive and the B:/ drive are no longer reserved for floppies... I mean, nobody uses those things anymore. You can buy flash drives that hold about 3000x the capacity of a floppy, and they're smaller. I can see if they have it there for "virtual floppies" as you say, but why not just remove the concept entirely, and allow for 2 more drives/partitions?

I kind of agree with you

I took out mine since i though it might help with less power consumption and better airflow/less cables but it didn't make a HUGE difference just made "my computer" folder load a tiny faster and less cables to deal with so i am happy about giving up on it

but everyone including me relates A: or B: to floopy and hey theres no need to rewrite everything and leave people that use it with the hassle of adapting to a new letter when you still got D to Z to fill up and those are a lot of pendrives lol

 

[Nodsu]

If you do not have a floppy drive, then you should be able to assign A and B to drives. At least I can in Windows XP and 2003..

It would not be good idea to remove the A: B: reservation though.. Imagine a program that assumes A: is always the floppy drive. And now that program wants to format the floppy..

 

[ashwa]

well i tried changing the drive letter but it doesnt show A & B letters while renaming the drives.

can u pls ans post #10 if i aint eating too much of ur brain .

tnx.

 

[Samstoned]

now you gone and done it:chef:

 

[kimsland]

hmm its clearing up a bit...yah, earlier OS/bootdisk use to come in floppie(if i am not wrong)...plsss ans these
That's right
so DOS cant run without a floppy support, is it?every time we run DOS/command promt we are using virtual floppy?
No, Windows runs on Dos without floppy support
No, a Dos command prompt can be run on your HardDrive
cant run DOS from CD as such, we use the virtual floppies?
For Booting Yes
every pc has a virtual floppy? are these virtual floppies in BIOS?
Yes, every OS can run virtual hardware
No the virtual hardware is not in BIOS
i dont have a floppy drive now so whn i run DOS from my winxp i m using virtual floppy?
No, you're using real Dos not virtual
while booting from bootable CD its actually the virtual floppy it gets booted from right?
That's right, just the bootable part

I love BootCd's, I've been making them for years now
A long time ago, I worked out how to edit everything in bootable CD's
But I am now defeated by Linux bootable CD's, which are far superior

 

[ashwa]

I love BootCd's, I've been making them for years now
A long time ago, I worked out how to edit everything in bootable CD's
But I am now defeated by Linux bootable CD's, which are far superior

tnx a lot kimsland for the ans u provided...can u pls provide me with links that will help me in making bootable CD's so that i can clear up my doubts by making some of them myself.

i m not of expert level. just a rookie trying to increase my knowledge so pls provide site links that will be easy for me to understand.

regards & tnx all

 

[kimsland]

Start with:
www.bootdisk.com
And
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

There are millions of others, but this is where I started

Windows PE
BartPE (I liked this one most)