How to create a boot floppy?

[Dittohead]

Um... the title explains it all I guess. I need one for a new computer.

 

[Zipperhead]

what o.s.?for 98=control panel/add-remove programs/startup.

Zip

 

[Viper GTS]

Personally, I make mine from DOS.

1) Re-boot into MS-DOS mode.
2) format a:/s
3) Copy: fdisk, format, xcopy, mscdex onto the root of the floppy.
4) Test it.

Viper GTS

 

[Dittohead]

yeah w98, that's right, thanks

 

[Celstar]

Viper you c0uld do that if you want to do it the hard way. If you're using windows 98, your best bet would be to find anyone with windows 98 and make a bookdisk from Add/Remove Program in the control panel. Thanks.

 

[Viper GTS]

I do a lot of stuff the hard way.

Making a bootdisk through Windows leaves out a lot of the stuff that you really need if you want to accomplish anything. A boot disk without fdisk, format, xcopy, & mscdex is practically useless.

Viper GTS

 

[Celstar]

You know a win98 bootdisk has all those things.

 

[Viper GTS]

Maybe...

But I'll take any excuse I can to play with DOS.



Viper GTS

 

[Budman]

There you go Bootdisk.com .

 

[chiwawa626]

lol viper

 

[CalebTG]

Yes, but the w98 bootdisk uses ramdisk and stupid menus which take forever to load up.

I usually make a disk in w98, then edit my own custom config.sys and autoexec.bat to include himem and cdrom and thats it, while I extract all the useful programs (fdisk, format, xcopy, etc...) onto the disk rather than rely on the slow extraction of compressed files onto the ramdisk.

 

[Whitedog]

it's been a while, but I think you can open an MS-DOS box, and go to c:\windows\command dir and just type bootdisk, and it makes you a Plain bootdisk with all the gooberage minus the ramdrive crap (fdisk... etc..)???
I just use Explorer myself Format, then copy whatever crap I need out of the command dir.

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Gotta agree with Viper and Caleb, ie. making a boot disk the old fashioned way.

Although the FAT32EBD boot disk is nice too, it does not use the ramdisk and is what I usually use when building a new machine (as it will always work with any CD drive) ...

 

[BillyPackerFan]

I agree with the dos tips above..
But it all depends on waht you want the boot disk for.
all the dos commands can be found in the Windows\command dir
but if you are using to dupe a drive be sure to copy Xcopy32.exe and use
Xcopy32 /c /h /e /k /r /s

 

[fow99]

try doing a search 'boot disk' and there is a site offering an package which will generate a 'best' boot disk automatically. better than the one built by win98. just forgot the site's name.