Copy Windows boot CD set to single DVD?

[ntscuser]

One of the few sensible things I ever did was to purchase a full set of boot CD's from Hewlett-Packard in case the recovery partition failed. The trouble is the set is seven CD's long and each has to be loaded in turn. The loading process alone takes a minimum of 35 mins. If it goes wrong for any reason I have to start all over again.

Is there any way I could copy the contents of the seven discs to a single DVD and load them all in one go? I asked Hewlett-Packard for a DVD but they said were not allowed to supply it that way for some legal reason or other. The files in the recovery partition look very much like a DVD image to me. I've tried various PC help sites without success.

TIA

(kim)

[BJ_M]

you can make a bootable dvd - if your dvd drive supports it ...


to make this work - you are going to have to go through a number of steps ... but it can be done ....

google info on bootable dvd for lots of info and methods

[Abbadon]

It would be less painful to just make a clean installation, including latest drivers and proceed to make a restore DVD using Norton Ghost.

It takes only like 10 minutes to make a full installation of my system (including UT2K4 with latest patches) and the restore is bootable.

Just my two dollars

[TJohns]

There's a chance it won't work anyway - if the recover software looks for specific volume labels (disk names) or scans a certain file on each disk (whose content is different for each CD) you might not be able to produce a DVD that the software will accept as a full recovery media!

Trev

[GKar]

There's a slim chance you may be able to create a slipstreamed bootable stripped down DVD version of your OS with nLite, not sure but your can try it.
Go here:
http://www.nliteos.com/

You'll need .net 2.0 for it to work.

[bevills1]

You should be able to make a boot DVD with all CD content if the total capacity of the CDs doesn't exceed capacity of a DVD using Nero. Just copy CDs contents into a folder on HDD, select make boot DVD in Nero and add files to burn to DVD from folder to which CDs were copied.

[ntscuser]

You should be able to make a boot DVD with all CD content if the total capacity of the CDs doesn't exceed capacity of a DVD using Nero. Just copy CDs contents into a folder on HDD, select make boot DVD in Nero and add files to burn to DVD from folder to which CDs were copied.

Thanks. I tried that but the folder and file names conflict when they are copied to the same directory. They would normally be loaded separately from CD1, CD2, etc.

Following BJ_M's advice I've found a description of how to make a cut down version of the boot CD set but I'll only find out for certain if it works if there's a major system failure at some point in the future. Most backup guides assume a PC ships with MS' own setup utility which is seldom the case these days. Hewlett-Packard and others use an OEM version of Windows from which certain crucial files are missing, presumably to stop them being used on another PC.

(kim)

[Supreme2k]

Thanks. I tried that but the folder and file names conflict when they are copied to the same directory. They would normally be loaded separately from CD1, CD2, etc.

Alternately, you could put each CD's files in its own folder (CD1, CD2, etc.), then when it asks ou to put the next CD in (or asks for a file), point it to that folder.

[ntscuser]

Thanks. I tried that but the folder and file names conflict when they are copied to the same directory. They would normally be loaded separately from CD1, CD2, etc.

Alternately, you could put each CD's files in its own folder (CD1, CD2, etc.), then when it asks ou to put the next CD in (or asks for a file), point it to that folder.

There's no file navigation during the installation process, just a blue screen with "Insert next disc" and "Okay" button on it.

(kim)

[Supreme2k]

I have not tried this whole process before, but have you tried clicking OK? Usually if the program doesn't find the disc, it will then give you the option to navigate.

Another option is to overwrite the duplicate files. Many times the individual discs contain redundant files in order to make each disc self-contained. If you have the resources (cheap blank -R/RW, available drive space), give it a test.