Starting diagnostics from the boot CD

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Starting diagnostics from the boot CD keeps the operating system out of the picture. What you’re really starting is the specialized setup program, and it doesn’t affect your system in any significant way. Your system must provide the means to boot from a CD. Fortunately, most modern systems provide this capability and you shouldn’t experience any problems. The following steps get you started using this technique:

1. Place the boot CD in the CD drive and restart the system.

2. Press Enter when you see the message to boot from a CD or DVD.

The setup program tells you that it’s installing some device drivers and other software. The drivers and other software represent the minimum required to interact with your system. For example, the setup program may have to install a driver to access the hard drive. When the initialization completes, you see the Install Windows dialog box, shown in Figure


3. Select the appropriate options in the Language to Install, Time and Currency Format, and Keyboard or Input Method fields. Click Next.

The setup program displays a different set of options. The main option shown in Figure is Install Now, but you don’t want to install the operating system at this point. What you want to do is access the diagnostic programs. Look at the options in the lower-left corner of Next Figure




4. Click Repair Your Computer.

You see a System Recovery Options dialog box.

5. Select the partition that contains the copy of Windows you want to manage.

6. Click Load Drivers, if necessary, to load the drivers for your hard drive. Place the disk containing the required drivers in the disk drive and click OK.

You should need to perform this step only for older devices, such as Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) drives. Follow the vendor instructions to load the driver.

7. Click Next.

You see a System Recovery Options dialog box containing three diagnostic options, as shown in Figure Noe you can do the Performing a Memory Test using Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool option.When you finish performing diagnostics, click Restart or Shutdown. The Shutdown option actually turns your system off unless it lacks the required functionality. The Restart option always restarts the system. Make sure you don’t press Enter when you see the Boot from CD or DVD message when you want to start the system normally.



Starting diagnostics from the boot menu

Starting diagnostics from the boot menu is considerably simpler than starting them from the boot CD. In this case, you want to start your system normally. However, when you see the boot menu, press F8 to display the Advanced Boot Options menu. The “Using a Special Boot Mode” section of this chapter describes all these options. You may want to start the memory diagnostic rather than use an advanced boot option. In this case, press Tab to access the Tools menu. The only selection in the current version of Windows is Windows Memory Diagnostic. Press Enter to choose this option. The “Performing a Memory Test” section of this chapter describes this option in detail.

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