Need DOS boot disk with USB drivers

I have a fairly new COMPAQ laptop with VISTA on it. It won't boot; my daughter-in-law uses it during the day for homework and internet games, mostly games. I think it got a virus and ate the boot sector. Regardless, I just want to recover data and reformat, rebuild. Problem is that there is only one hard drive, no floppy, and several USB ports. I want to be able to boot with a boot disk and copy the data files I need to a flash drive.

I have been to bootdisk.com and several other places and downloaded ISOs and files and everything. I built boot disks. I have an old tower with floppy drive I am working on to build disks. Most work on the tower and recognize the USB. Only one boot disk will work on the laptop, a WIN98 DOS bootdisk that has READNTFS buried in the image. READNTFS reads the hard drive. I built an image from that that I added USB drivers to. It works on the tower, bit on the laptop tt boots, but hangs in the scanning USB devices section.

Does anybody have a bootdisk image that will work with the "newer" hardware that will read USB ports so I can copy my data off the harddrive to a flash drive.

thx

Hi 70Vette ,

I am probably not the best person to guide you on this but why don't you download WinBuilder & create a VistaPE Boot disk which has usb drivers (or could very well be inbuilt) thereon?

Load the resultant VistaPE into your CD/DVD Drive, boot off it with a flash stick within one of the usb ports & copy the necessary files to the stick from the minimal vistaPE bootdisk. There is a VistaPE forum where helpful people could give you guidance as to the technical generalities. If you do not have access to Vista then you could download WAIK from MS?

Or you could try this & repair the Boot sector?
http://members.rushm...~jsky/id39.html
& then this might help?
http://members.rushm...~jsky/id38.html

The above links rely on you having U-Torrent to download so for a limited period of approx 30 days here is a Rapidshare upload that I have undertaken for you to get the Vista RE image/ISO
http://rapidshare.de...y_Disc.iso.html
Depress the "Free" button and the download, fingers crossed should begin?
So grab it while you can Tick tock tick tock!

Hope this helps?

Regards & Best wishes,

ispy

Copying what I posted on the original thread:

If it's a fairly new laptop it will probably boot from USB. I would try with VistaPE, since IMHO its support for USB booting is easier and better. And you don't have to have a Vista DVD to build it, you can use only the WAIK as a source (although a real Vista DVD is preferable).

Get VistaPE from here. Then get the latest WinBuilder.exe from here (all you need is WinBuilder.exe).

You may want to get my MBRFix script. Any MBR-fixing script that comes with VistaPE does not understand Vista MBRs.

Then after a successful build you can go into the Finalize/Create ISO script and use that to format and set up a flash drive for booting. Be sure to pick the format option the first time.

Then stick the Flash drive into the laptop (and any other USB storage you want attached) and press whatever key you need to for a boot menu (F12? F11?) at the very beginning of the boot. Some version of "USB hard disk" should show up; select that.

Don't expect any wireless network to work, but if you plug a cable into the Ethernet port before booting there's a good chance you can transfer your files over your network. I think there's a "map network drive" script included in VistaPE.

There is a very nice article about USB drivers in DOS
http://www.unet.univ....php?n=Main.USB

Method a)
- There some premade boot floppys, see link above (you can burn them on a CD using Nero or so and using floppy emulation) with USB drivers inside already, maybe you need to add NTFS support. For more NTFS in DOS info see http://www.unet.univ...php?n=Main.NTFS
as shell I recommend NDN http://ndn.muxe.com/

Method b)
- Also described there... When you have created bootable USB with DOS and you boot it you do not need any more DOS USB drivers because BIOS will keep care then.

Method c)
- Install either UBCD4WIN on USB or a Full XP on USB using USBoot (currently my favourite).

Tip:
Make a fairly easy test before you start if your BIOS can boot USB, see at http://www.usboot.or.....6amp; Pretest