... A Do-It-Yourself Boot Disk ...

As he teaches, so he learns.

Suggested by the well known … Fred Langa … a freelance computer/web author whose current primary work now reaches an audience of over two million readers per month. He is also Editorial Director of WINDOWS Magazine, and Editor in Chief of Byte Magazine ... All right, here we go:

Take a blank floppy. In Explorer, right-click on the floppy, and select Format. Click Full format, and in the "other options" area, type CUSTOM BOOT in the Label area, and check "display summary" and "copy system files." Then click Start.

When the format is done, check the "Format Results dialog that appears; make sure there are "0 bytes in bad sectors." If the number isn't zero, get a different floppy and start over.

When you have a perfect floppy with the system files on it, copy these files to the floppy from your \windows, and/or \windows\system and/or \windows\command directories:

Attrib.exe
Chkdsk.exe
Deltree.exe
Edit.com
Emm386.exe
Fdisk.exe
Format.com
Himem.sys
Mscdex.exe
Smartdrv.exe
Sys.com
Xcopy.exe
Xcopy32.exe
Xcopy32.mod

The above are very handy tools:

Attrib lets you access and remove even system or "hidden" files if you need to do so.
Chkdsk give you a fast way to check the basic integrity of your hard drive.
Deltree gives you a fast way to nuke selective chunks of your directory structure.
Edit lets you edit text files such as your autoexec or config files, from DOS
Himem and Emm386 are memory managers.
Fdisk, Format, and Sys are the trio of apps you need to rebuild a hard drive from the ground up.
Mscdex is one of the two files you'll probably need to access your CD from DOS.
The Xcopy files speed and simplify operations such as copying your Windows CAB files from CD to your hard drive.
Smartdrv is a disk cache that can enormously speed Deltree and Xcopy operations.

To access your CD from DOS, you also need at least one other file. Windows provides two generic CD Rom drivers -- Oakcdrom.sys on newer versions of Windows and Nec_ide.sys on some older versions. One of these will probably work with your CD ROM: search for those files on your system (or on one of the boot floppies mentioned above) and copy it to the new boot floppy. In my case, I use Nec_ide.sys.

I also toss in a couple of old DOS utilities that you may or may not have: MSD.EXE is the Microsoft System Diagnostics, which can be useful for tracking down memory or IRQ conflicts. MEM is a tiny utility that can tell you what's going on with your system's memory. LLPRO.EXE is a 10-year-old, DOS-based version of LapLink that takes just a couple hundred KB of space, but lets me do simple, slow DOS-level file transfers through a serial- or parallel port so I can load additional software onto the target machine without having to copy everything by floppy or burn special CDs.

Don't worry if you don't have these files -- they're what I use, but the salient point here is that you can add whatever other files you want, up to the capacity of the floppy.

Next, using Notepad or the Edit app, write and save a Config.Sys and Autoexec.Bat file to the floppy.

As a starting point, try these:

Config.Sys:

device=himem.sys
device=emm386.exe NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEhigh=NEC_IDE.SYS /D:MSCD001

Autoexec.Bat:

lh MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

Next, boot to the floppy. If your system doesn't boot, you missed a step -- remove the floppy, boot to Windows, and try again.

When you do successfully boot to the floppy, try accessing your CD from DOS (put a CD in the drive, type the appropriate drive letter for the CD, and the type DIR to see a list of files.

If it works -- and it probably will if your PC is of fairly recent vintage -- you're all set: You now have a custom floppy that has just the files you want and need for your utility, repair, diagnostic, and reinstall work. Make a second copy of the floppy for safekeeping, slide the write-protect tab on the back of the floppy, and then tuck both copies in a safe spot.

If you can't access your CD, you probably have a nonstandard CD drive. Check your existing C:\CONFIG.SYS (open it with Notepad or Edit) and see if there's something that looks like a CD driver referenced in there -- it will usually end with "sys" and often has the letters "cd" as part of the name. For example, old Creative Labs SoundBlaster CD ROMs might use a driver called something like "SBCD.SYS," and the line referencing it might look something like:

DEVICEHIGH=C:\SB\SBCD.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220

Copy the entire line to the floppy's config, sys, but edit the line so it no longer references the C drive:

DEVICEHIGH=SBCD.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220

Next, copy the SYS file itself from its original location (C:\SB\SBCD.SYS) to the floppy.

Now do the same thing for C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT: Look for a file with "CD" in it. For example, you might see something like:

rem - By Windows Setup - C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /M:15

Copy this line to the floppy's Autoexec, but remove the REM and the references to the C:\ drive, like this:

LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /V /M:15

And then -- if you haven't already -- copy the referenced EXE to the floppy. In this case, you'd copy C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE to the floppy.

Now reboot, and see what happens. You might have to dig more lines from your existing C:\CONFIG.SYS and C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT, but when you're done, you'll have a versatile floppy that's specific to your PC and that has the files you need to perform just about any kind of low-level work you need to do.

Well, any errors or suggestions? ...

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