Number 213 - February 2001
Getting Prepared For That Dreaded "Crash"
by Paul Cohen, July 2000 Bits & Bytes,
The Tampa Bay Computer Society
    "...if you have trouble starting Windows 98, you can use that startup disk to start your computer, run diagnostic programs and fix many problems..."

    Microsoft, in their ultimate wisdom, have seen fit to provide us with a means of making an emergency start-up disk. It can be obtained by going to; Settings, Control Panel, Add and Remove Programs, Startup Disk and finally, Create Disk.

    M/S tells us that one disk can be used "if you have trouble starting Windows 98, you can use that startup disk to start your computer, run diagnostic programs and fix many problems". It does not say that it will put your computer back in the condition that it was in before the crash! I will add, at this point, most of us should not get too comfortable with what we are told that this disk will do for us. In most instances the disk will let the computer start but it will be in DOS. Good luck from that point on, unless you have all the necessary startup files on another drive that can be accessed from DOS.

    Iomega Zip drives can do that and now the newer CD-RW is ideal for that purpose. The files that need to be included for the startup procedure include; Config, Dos, Drivers, Flags, Gwscan, Nvram, Temp, Autoexec.bat, B.bat, Command.com, Config.sys, Io.sys, Msdos.sys.

    If you are using a program such as, Adaptec Easy Creator version 3.5, you can also make a Bootable CD by following these steps:
    1. Insert the source bootable floppy disk into your floppy disk drive.

    2. Select CD Layout Properties from the File menu

    3. Click the Data Settings tab.

    4. Select the ISO 9660 from the File System option

    5. Select Bootable CD-ROM

    6. Follow the procedures in How to Make a Data CD

    When Easy CD Creator begins writing files and folders to your blank CD-RW, two files are at the root directory of your CD layout, Bootcat.cin and Bootimg.bim. It would be advisable to make the M/S disk and any other appropriate file saving system that you might have and do a "dry run" before that fateful day comes along.

TOGGLE Editor's Note
    Your computer's BIOS is normally set up to read your disk drives, on start up, in the Sequence A:\, C:\, ... so if a "boot floppy" is in the A:\ drive, it will be read first. However, in order to make the computer read a "boot CD" before it reads the the C:\ drive, you need to go into the BIOS setup and change the sequence to make the CD-ROM readable first by placing it before the C:\ drive in the sequence -- usually CD-ROM, A:\, C:\, ... although some BIOS's yield only the choice CD-ROM, C:\, A:\.
  Number 213 - February 2001