How to make an Emergency Boot Disk

If your hard drive expires because of a configuration fault, invalid setup, or boot disk failure, Windows 95 and 98 will lock up and dump you abruptly at the DOS prompt. In this situation, the only thing you can do is restart your computer from the A: drive instead C: drive. If you don't have a boot disk handy, you will be in a big trouble. If you thought in advance of creating a boot disk, you can check for and remove a virus or reverse any knotty changes to the system files (AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS) if you've deleted by mistake or caused any changes to them. In all such cases, making an emergency boot disk is a good idea. Every time you put in new software or hardware to your computer, you should create another set of emergency boot disks.

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Making a Windows boot disk:

Making an emergency boot disk for Windows 95 and 98 is straightforward. These OS offer to create a startup disk for you as part of the setup procedure when you install them. You can use any blank 3.5-inch 1.44 MB floppy disk. Though you can use any blank disk, please be aware that a boot disk is not formatted the same way as a normal disk you use to store data. If your disk is not formatted correctly, it will not work as a boot disk. So format it properly.

Step by Step procedure to make Emergency Boot Disk

Put a blank floppy disk into drive A:. Double-click My Computer. Right-click Floppy Drive and choose Format. Under Other Options, check Copy System Files. The system files are three files and are what distinguish a system disk from a regular disk. Two of the files are hidden (IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS) and the third, COMMAND.COM, provides basic DOS commands such as DIR and COPY. Choose Start->Settings->Control Panel and double-click Add/Remove Programs. Click the Startup Disk tab, and then click the Create Disk button. You may be asked to insert your Windows 95 or 98 CD.

Windows 98 boot disk comprises generic SCSI and IDE drivers that let you access most CD-ROM drives. If the generic drivers don't work with your CD-ROM or you need to add CD-ROM support for Windows 95's boot disk, the procedure is a complicated one. It is better to load the driver in DOS, so you can access the CD-ROM drive when you boot to a DOS prompt. In this case, you must load at least two files. You need one or more real-mode device drivers that allow DOS to recognize your hardware and the Microsoft CD-ROM extension called MSCDEX.EXE, which is located in the \Windows\Command folder. This file permits the operating system to access the CD-ROM file system. If you have a SCSI drive, you need to load ASPI drivers for the SCSI adapter.

Real-mode CD-ROM drivers

Most of the drivers work only with a specific CD-ROM drive. If you have a DOS driver disk, find and use the driver for your drive. Your next-best option is to ask the PC manufacturer for real-mode CD-ROM drivers. If these do not work for you, you'll have to track down drivers through web pages ultimately. Download the correct driver file, and then copy it and MSCDEX.EXE to the boot floppy. Next, modify the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files on the boot disk:

Add the following line to CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICE=a:\driver_name.sys /D:MSCD001
Add the following line to AUTOEXEC.BAT:
A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /L:

Make sure to replace the name of the driver you downloaded. In the above examples the /D switch is required; the label that follows the switch must be identical in both startup files. The /L switch is optional; use it to control the letter assigned to the CD-ROM drive at startup.

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