Newbie Guides A Trouble Free PC Create Start-up Disk

Windows Startup Disk

If the computer develops a problem and stops you booting or starting in to Windows, you will need an alternative way to access the files on your hard drive. Making a boot floppy disk will allow you to do this.
If you did not make a boot disk when you installed Windows and you do not have one, use another PC to create one, or copy a friends boot disk, they are all the same.

32 bit Windows PCs, come with a make repair disk utility located in the Add/Remove Programs applet in Control Panel. Select the Startup Disk tab, and follow the on screen instructions. You will need a spare floppy disk, which the utility will use to create a Startup disk. Once you have your disk it is always a good idea to write protect the disk, so nothing can accidentally change any of the files. Move the sliding tab to uncover the hole. (Covering the hole will allow you to write to the disk again)
Another recommendation is to make a couple of start-up disks. It is always possible that an error could occur on the disk, you could loose it, or your floppy drive could trash it for you. This has happened to us when we have repaired customers machines. Their floppy drive has never been used and when we have inserted our Startup disk, the drive mechanism, which is dirty and dusty manages to damage the disk surface. (Now, we carry a floppy disk head cleaner and always use it before attempting to use valuable floppy disks.)

Now, if you can't boot from your floppy disk, you have a way to get to your system files and start to deal with the problem.

One extra file that we add to our start-up disk is edit.com which you can copy from the Windows\Command folder. It is a useful utility for editing text files, and may prove invaluable in an emergency.

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