Boot Floppies

Creating Boot Floppies/CD
If you need to install Windows9x from either a Standalone or Networked computer, it is a good idea to create some boot floppies.
The following instructions detail a few samples Standalone Computer Boot Floppies Adding a Generic CD ROM Driver Sample CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT Files Downloading Windows98 Boot Disk & Bootable CD ROM Creating NT Boot Floppies
Standalone Computer Boot Floppies
Create a boot floppy with any CD ROM, SCSI, Sound, and Mouse drivers, as well as some DOS utility files. This can come in useful if you need to install in an emergency, such as not being able to boot to Windows9x.
1.	Format a floppy with the /S option. This will install the system files necessary for booting to the floppy
2.	Create a CONFIG.SYS file. The following is a simple CONFIG.SYS File. Your actual drivers would need to be added: device=himem.sys device=emm386.exe noems device=cdrom.sys (Your CD ROM Driver would go here) dos=high,umb files=30 buffers=30 Be sure to add any third party drivers you may need to access your hard drive. This would be in a situation where you BIOS does not suppport large drivers
3.	The following is a simple AUTOEXEC.BAT File. @echo off cls mscdex /d:12345678 (where 12345678 is the string for your particlar CD Drivers)
4.	The following are a few Utility Files that may also come it useful. These need to be from the same version of DOS use used to format the floppy. FORMAT.COM FDISK.EXE SYS.COM HIMEM.SYS EMM386.EXE MSCDEX.EXE XCOPY.EXE DELTREE.EXE ATTRIB.EXE DISKCOPY.EXE

Adding a Generic CD ROM Driver
The following details how you can add a CD ROM driver that should work with most IDE CD ROMS
1.	Copy the OAKCDROM.SYS (41 K) file to your floppy disk
2.	Add the fillowing line to the CONFIG.SYS file DEVICE=OAKCDROM.SYS /D:mscd001
3.	Add the fillowing line to the AUTOEXEC.BAT file MSCDEX.EXE /D:mscd001

Sample CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT Files

CONFIG.SYS

device=himem.sys /testmem:off
device=emm386.exe /noems
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001
dos=high,umb
lastdrive=z

AUTOEXEC.BAT

@ECHO OFF
cls
set temp=c:\
set tmp=c:\
path=a:\
LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:mscd001 /L:X
doskey /insert
smartdrv

You can download a Windows98 Boot Floppy Image or WindowsME Boot Floppy Image
1.	This is a single executable that will create a Win98SE Boot Disk with CD ROM Support
2.	Download this file to your hard drive (not the floppy disk)
3.	Insert a floppy disk
4.	Run the program from your hard drive
5.	It will automatically format, copy and verify the data to the floppy disk.
This is a boot floppy that will allow you to access most CD ROM's. It has a much faster boot time than the original since it doesn't take the time to create the RAM disk and uncompress all the utilities to it. It automatically loads SMARTDRV which can speed up many OS installations. It automatically assigns the drive letter X: for the CD ROM drive so you always know what it will be There are a lot more DOS utilities that don't normally get added when you make one from Win98. For example Diskcopy, Doskey, Format, More, Sys, Edit, Chkdsk, Deltree, Extract, Updated Fdisk, Attrib, Label, Mem, Scandisk, Scanreg, Smartdrv and Xcopy.
6.	There is also a Win98 CD ROM boot image you can download. In addition to all the other DOS utilities, the CD version also has: DELPART - For deleting DOS and NTFS partitions. Can delete extended NTFS partitions. FDISK121 - FDISK with additional options - See the documentation, and READNTFS - Read and Copy files on a NTFS partition. The CD image needs to be burned using a program that recognized ISO images.

Creating NT Boot Floppies
If you can't boot to NT for a variety of reasons, it might be a good idea to have made up a boot floppy before the problem arises.
1.	Format a floppy from within NT
2.	From the root of the C: drive, copy Boot.ini NTLDR Ntdetect.com and if you have them Bootsect.dos Ntbootdd.sys
3.	You can use this floppy to boot if you were getting errors like NTLDR not found.

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