Make a Boot Disk

Note! Win XP & XP Pro boot from the Microsoft XP & XP Pro CD

Windows 98 made it easy to make a boot disk. Unlike earlier systems, 98 has an option made into the boot system, to access your CD ROM. Windows 98 prompts you to make a boot disk during installation. However, many times this boot disk does not get to the user of the PC. but, you can still make your own boot disk. Go to: Start/Settings/Control Panel/ double click Add-Remove Programs/Startup Disk tab/Create Disk with a new formatted floppy in "A" drive. This will make a current boot disk that will get you to DOS prompt. The boot disk is simple to test. Just go through the normal shutdown procedure, install the boot disk in your "A" drive and start the PC again. If your setup is set to look at "A" drive first as it should, It will boot up to a DOS window with the following;

1. Start the computer with CD-ROM support.

2. Start the computer without CD-ROM support.

3. View the Help file.

Enter a choice: 1 -------------------------Time remaining: 30

If # 1 is not after "Enter a choice:" then hit "1" and "Enter" This should put you at the DOS prompt ( C:\> ). Normally your CD Drive is "D" unless you have partitions. Put a CD in the CD drive then type: D: and hit "Enter". You should see: D:\> or similar.

If you do get D: drive, type: dir/w and hit "Enter", you should get whatever files are on the CD spread across your screen. If you get this far, then you have CD access and could reload Win-98 if you needed to. At this point, you are in D: drive, so to get back to C: drive, just type: C: and hit "Enter". Once back at the C: prompt, you can just turn the PC off.

Only Use the following if you have exhausted all means to correct an operating system problem

If you are not familiar with DOS and find yourself faced with reloading 98. Use the preceding procedure to get to the "D:" (or drive letter of your CD R) and with the D:/Windows-98 prompt files spread out on your screen. Look for a folder (called "directory" in DOS) labeled: "Setup.exe". At the D: prompt, type: "cd setup.exe" (without the quotation marks). The "cd" is not for "Compact Disk" but for "Change Directory". Be sure to leave one space between "cd"and "setup.exe". Hit "Enter".This should get you started on loading Win-98. From then on just follow directions. If you had a crash that damaged Windows and you are faced with reloading Windows, more than likely all the programs you had will still be intact. The exception to that is possibly the program that you were in at the time of the crash. You should make more than one boot disk, date them and store them in different places.