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Create boot partition for memtest on windows xp

I have a lab full of xp machines, and I want to be able to run some sort of memory test on them.
The machines have no floppy, and no cd drives.

I know that UBUNTU auto installs a memtest partition when ubuntu is installed, so i added ubuntu to my model PC, with xp as the first boot option.
This worked fine on my model machine, but when I create a ghost image of it, and push that image to a new machine, it just loads into a black screen that says GRUB in the top left corner. I know grub is ubuntus loader, but why wont it just boot into xp like the model machine. I have pushed the same image back to the model machine and it worked fine.

Is there a way to use this configuration so that it works correctly with a ghost image?
If not, is there a way to create a separate boot partition to run memtest+86 in the boot list?

Everytime I turn on the computers, I need the computer to give me the option to run windows xp, or a memory test, with windows xp as the default.

Thanks

scrathcyboy

Why put yourself through all this just to run a mem test? There are tons of programs that will do it in XP --

home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/DiagnoseXP.html
pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/memorytest.htm
www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Memory-Tweak/MemTest.shtml
www.snapfiles.com/get/memtest.html
hcidesign.com/memtest/
csg.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/network/memtest
searchwincomputing.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1148540,00.html

to list just a few.

dwils15

ASKER

i was under the impression that it would be more accurate if the memory was not in protected mode. If this is not the case then a windows program is fine. Do you recommend any one of those in particular?

thanks

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scrathcyboy

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dwils15

ASKER

thanks. Is there a way to make it autorun, so i dont have to go to all 300+ computers and click start?

scrathcyboy

You can drag the memtest icon into the startup group on one computer. And as long as the other 299 computers do not have anything different in the startup group than the first one, you can copy the startup folder to each system. The path is like this (each user will have a different name than "All users") --

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Other than that, you could create a REG file, but you still have to run it on all 300 systems.
The other way, if you have server 2003 and AD, is to create a GROUP policy to run the memtest on all clients.