How to use a boot disk to troubleshoot and repair a computer?

[mattbell]

This may sound like a stupid question but how do you use a boot disk to troubleshoot and repair a computer?

[doctorgonzo]

That depends a great deal on what the problem is. It's like asking "How do you use a hammer to build a house?" A bootdisk is only a tool, it doesn't have any magical properties.

What trouble are you having?

[mattbell]

I have no problems i just wanted to know generally how can a boot disk be used to troubleshoot a pc?

[doctorgonzo]

When I hear "bootdisk," I take that to mean some DOS-formatted bootdisk. It's a floppy with an OS. If you can't boot normally, you can boot from a bootdisk and poke around, maybe run an antivirus program, maybe fix the file system, stuff like that.

It may also mean booting from the Windows XP CD, for example, and using the repair console to try to fix things. Again, you are booting from a disk (in this case, a CD) instead of the OS that is on your hard drive.

[edfair]

It allows access to some hardware without the overhead of the windows GUI. You can get access to some hard drives, depending on OS, and you can control the serial and parallel ports to test them. It may also allow you to run command line diagnostics/service aids.