Help an old idiot Please! - Burning MemTest86 CD problems

[aldenpayne]

After burning CD (several times) only 2 files on it - BOOTCAT.BIN & BOOTIMG.BIN. What I'm I doing wrong? How many files should there be? MY SYS INFO:XP home Ed. sp3. Burning w/ Roxio. Have extracted w/ XP's extractor & 7-zip. Computer has been acting "strange" for several months now. Would like to do a re-install but I want to know that HDW is OK B/4 I do.

Any help anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated. TY

[David (PassMark)]

The number of files depends on if you are using V4 or V5 of MemTest86. As I suspect you have an older system, I assume you are using the current V4.3.6 release and not V5.

Here is the process for XP.

Step 1:
Get the Windows CD image for MemTest86 V4 as a .ZIP file
http://www.memtest86.com/downloads/memtest86-iso.zip

Step 2:
Using your favourite ZIP program (e.g. 7-Zip) extract the Memtest86-4.3.6.iso file from the .ZIP file.

Step 3:
Use your favourite CD burning software create a CD-ROM using the extracted ISO image.
Job Done.

Step 4:
(If required) go into BIOS and adjust your boot order to make the CD Drive the 1st boot device.

For Win7 users:
For Win 7 & 8 the process is much easier as Win7 includes the ability to handle Zip files and also burn ISO CD images without any 3rd party software.
For the Zip file, right click on the downloaded .ZIP file and select the "Extract to Here” option to get the .ISO.
For the .ISO file, right click on the extracted .ISO file, then select "Open with / Windows Disc image burner"

Common mistakes to avoid
Be sure that you create a CD image from the ISO file rather than just burning a copy of the ISO file onto a data CD. If you have a .ISO file on the CD/DVD at the end of the process you have done it wrong.

Don't extract the contents of the .ISO file. WinZip or similar programs that can open up and extract files from .ISO files, but you don't need or want to do this.

Instead look for “Burn Image from File” or "Record Disc from Image" or similar option under the File menu of your favourite CD burning software.

Files on the CD, after burning
In the root folder of the CD, you should see these files and folders (for V4.3.6)

15/11/2013 08:37 AM 235,846 GUIDE.PDF
15/11/2013 08:37 AM 125,475 SRC.TGZ
15/11/2013 08:37 AM <DIR> ISOLINUX
20/07/2013 07:28 AM <DIR> SYSLINUX

Why you might want to use USB instead.
CD drives and DVD drives are going the way of the Dodo. The vast majority of newish systems support USB booting. USB booting is faster. Further in V5 of MemTest you can also write test reports and logs to the USB drive.

Still having problems with the CD
You can purchase a pre-made Memtest86 CD from our web site.