I wrote this last year, and am now providing the “Making a Boot Disk” section for everyone’s reference and correction. Making a boot floppy is not difficult. It requires a floppy disk with a capacity of at least 1.2 MB, and there are also quite a few tricks to it. Below I will introduce some techniques for making a boot disk:
I. Making a simple boot disk under DOS real mode.
We often see materials mentioning that when upgrading the BIOS of a motherboard or graphics card, you need to make a clean boot disk. What does “clean” mean here? Actually, a so-called clean boot disk means that besides the three files MSDO-S.SYS, IO.SYS, and COMMAND.COM, this boot disk must not have any memory-resident programs at all, such as CD-ROM drivers, AUTO-EXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, etc. Only in this way will it not conflict with the system during a BIOS upgrade, ensuring the success and reliability of the BIOS update. So, how do you make a clean boot disk?
Actually the method is very simple. After starting the machine, hold down F8 to enter the Windows startup menu, choose “Command prompt only” or “Safe Mode Command prompt only”, insert a floppy disk into the floppy drive, and use sys A: to transfer the system. This boot disk is simple to make and has only three system files: io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com, with no other memory-resident program files present (such as autoexec.bat, config.sys). It is mainly used for BIOS overclocking or virus removal. Of course you can also use the FORMAT A：/S command to make a clean boot disk.
II. Making a simple boot disk under the graphical interface
Open “My Computer”, right-click the A drive icon, and choose “Format” from the pop-up shortcut menu. At this point another “Format” dialog box will appear. From “Format type” choose “Full”, then from “Other options” choose “Copy system files”, and then click the “Start” button to begin formatting the floppy disk. After formatting is complete, a “Format Results” box appears listing the formatting results, including total disk space, bad sectors, available space, and other information.
III. Making a standard boot disk during Windows 98 installation
Anyone who has installed WIN98 knows that after the installation files have been copied, the installer will prompt you whether you need to make a boot disk. At this point we can insert a 1.44MB floppy disk to complete the creation of the boot disk:
During Windows 98 installation, the installer will prompt you to make a boot disk and will also tell you what the boot disk is used for. When installation reaches this step, the boot disk creation wizard appears. Find a blank floppy disk and insert it into the floppy drive, then click “OK” to start making the boot disk. After waiting a little while, the standard boot disk will be finished. It is best to enable write protection on the boot floppy and put a label on it, then keep it in a safe place for future use! This boot disk can conveniently start the computer after the system fails.
IV. Making a standard boot disk under the graphical interface using “Control Panel”
In Windows 98, the whole process of creating a boot disk has been made graphical, and it uses the special feature of Windows 98—the wizard. Almost every operation has a wizard, greatly reducing the difficulty of operation. For users, this is very simple and convenient, though a bit slower, and there are also those annoying prompts.
If you did not create a standard boot disk during Windows 98 installation, since the boot disk creation function is integrated into the “Add/Remove Programs” function, you can still open the “Startup Disk” tab in the “Add/Remove Programs Properties” dialog box at any time after starting Windows 98 and create it there. The process of creating a standard boot disk is as follows:
You need to prepare a blank, formatted floppy disk and the Windows 98 installation CD. Go in through “Start”--“Settings”--“Control Panel”, find “Add/Remove Programs” and double-click to open it, choose the “Startup Disk” tab in its dialog box, press the “Create Disk” button, then insert the floppy into the floppy drive. When prompted for the Windows 98 CD, insert the CD, and the system will begin copying the boot disk information. Then an “Insert Disk” dialog box pops up and prompts you to insert the floppy disk; click “OK”. At this point the system starts copying files to the floppy disk. When finished, remove the floppy disk from the drive and store it properly. Later, if the system has problems and cannot start, you can use the boot disk to boot and locate and eliminate the fault.
However, when making this boot disk you need to insert the WIN98 installation CD, and it takes quite a long time to make.
V. One trick for making a standard boot disk under the graphical interface
Now I can tell you a secret: making a standard boot disk is essentially just copying all the files in “C:\Windows\Command\EBD” onto the floppy disk. Understand now? So as long as you directly copy all the files in “c:\windows\command\EBD” to the floppy disk, you can create a boot disk. But before copying the files, you must remove the system, read-only, and hidden attributes from the files in that folder. The method is to click “Folder Options” on the “View” menu in “My Computer” or “Windows Explorer”. Click the “View” tab, then make sure “Show all files” is selected. After setting that, double-click to open the “c:\windows\command\EBD” folder, select all the files with the mouse, and drag them onto a clean floppy disk.
In this way, not only can you achieve the same purpose of making a boot disk, but it is also faster than the several methods above.
VI. A second trick for making a standard boot disk under the graphical interface
Under Windows 98, sometimes when making a boot disk by executing the bootdisk.bat file under “c:\Winndows\command”, the system prompts:
The EBD directory does not exist。Change to the Windows\COMMAND directory and try again.
This means “Cannot find the …\EBD\… directory, unable to make a boot disk.” If you encounter the same problem, and for the moment do not have the installation disc at hand, but urgently need to make a boot disk just in case, you can use the following method:
Remove the read-only attribute from the bootdisk.bat file, open it with Notepad, and make the following changes:
1. Delete “if not exist EBD\NUL goto NODIR” under “:CHECK”.
2. Delete “:EBD /autotest” from “format %DefFloppyDrive% /u /v:EBD /autotest” under “：FORMAT”.
3. Delete the entire following section:
:NODIR
echo.
echo The EBD directory does not exist.
echo Change to the Windows\COMMAND directory and try again.
echo.
goto END
Save and exit, then change the file back to read-only. Now execute bootdisk.bat again; the system will no longer prompt an error message, and the boot disk will be created successfully. Be sure to keep it properly stored away; no telling when it might come in handy.
VII. One method of making a standard boot disk under DOS
Since Windows 95 (including Windows 95OSR) does not save all the files needed for making a boot disk onto the hard disk, not only is it completely impossible to create a boot disk under DOS, but even under Windows 95 you need to insert the installation CD when making a boot disk. Under Windows 98, however, things are different. Because when installing the Windows 98 operating system it has already copied all the files needed for making a boot disk to the hard disk, this eliminates the need to insert the CD, making it possible to create a boot disk directly under DOS.
Bootdisk is located in the ％WinDir%\Command directory. It is a batch file used to create a boot disk, and the subdirectory EBD under its directory is exactly where the files needed to create the boot disk are stored. The files in this directory were extracted from EBD.CAB on the Windows 98 installation CD. When Windows 98 cannot start normally, press F8 during POST. A startup menu will appear; choose “安全命令模式（safe mode command prompt only)”, entering DOS mode. Then enter the “C：\Windows \Command” directory. In this directory there is a batch file named Bootdisk.bat. Run this file and the following text appears:
Please specify the drive letter of your floppy drive
Press 1 for A：
Or
Press 2 for B：
Choose an option ?
The program asks you to choose the floppy drive location. In general choose “1”. Type “1” and press Enter. Then it begins creating the boot disk. After a few minutes of formatting and file copying, a Windows 98 boot disk is successfully made. The boot disk made by this method can start the CD-ROM drive, and its effect is exactly the same as the boot disk made in "Control Panel|Add/Remove".
This function eliminates the “usual practice” of having to enter the graphical interface to create a boot disk, and because it uses a character interface, its operating speed is also slightly faster than the graphical interface. The result is still quite good!
VIII. A second method of making a standard boot disk under DOS
When the Windows 98 system has crashed and you cannot enter Windows 98, and you want to reinstall the system but have no boot disk at hand, then aside from making a boot disk on someone else’s machine, if your system can still enter DOS, first start the machine, hold down F8 to enter the Windows startup menu, choose “Command prompt only”, and type:
attrib -s -h -r c:\windows\command\EBD
Insert a blank floppy disk, then type:
copy c:\windows\command\ebd\*.* a:\
and it will be completed.
IX. A third method of making a standard boot disk under DOS
If the system is already paralyzed and you cannot enter the Winndows graphical interface, you can press F8 during POST to enter DOS mode, insert a floppy disk, and do the following:
C:\>FORMAT/S/Q A:
C:\>COPY Windows\COMMAND\EBD\*.* A:
If during copying it prompts you to replace system files, you must choose NO, otherwise you will not be able to make a Windows 98 boot disk. This disk contains various disk tools and supports the CD-ROM drive, and its functions are exactly the same as the boot disks made by the methods described in the section on making boot disks.
X. Solving the problem of Windows 98 boot disks not being able to drive old CD-ROM drives
The CD-ROM driver that comes with the Windows 98 boot disk can support most CD-ROM drives, but not all of them are supported, such as CD-ROM drives connected to sound cards, older .CD-ROM drives (such as Mitsumi, Panasonic, Sony), some even older IDE controllers, etc. If the machine’s CD-ROM is incompatible with these drivers on the boot disk, it will cause the problem that the Windows 98 boot disk cannot access the CD-ROM drive. This should be solved either by the replacement method (that is, replacing the generic driver with the dedicated driver for that CD-ROM drive) or the manual addition method. Here the replacement method is used to explain the specific operation:
Suppose the dedicated device driver for this CD-ROM drive is named Sonycd.sys. First insert the floppy disk that came with the CD-ROM drive and contains the driver program sonycd.sys into the floppy drive, then copy sonycd.sys to the hard disk and rename it oakcdrom.sys. Then remove the floppy disk, insert the Windows 98 boot disk into the floppy drive, and put the renamed oakcdrom.sys into the Windows 98 boot disk, replacing the original oakcdrom.sys.
In this way, you can use this boot disk to access the CD-ROM.
XI. Requirements for making a boot disk
1. Before making it, scan the computer once with the latest antivirus software, in order to prevent viruses from infecting the boot disk during creation.
2. The floppy disk chosen should be of good quality and have no bad tracks, otherwise boot failure may result.
3. After the boot disk is made, it is best to move the small slider on the right side of the write-protect notch on the back of the floppy disk to the other side, so that the whole write-protect notch lets light through, thus enabling write protection for the floppy disk. This can both prevent accidental deletion of files on the boot disk and prevent virus infection of the boot disk during use.
4. Under the Winndows interface, you can drag the program files the user needs into the EBD folder, such as MEM.COM, and then click bootdisk.bat to create the boot disk.
5．Since there are many reasons for damage to a boot disk, such as scratches, dust, mildew, etc., the floppy disk has become the most unsafe medium for storing information. Therefore, choose a new high-quality floppy disk, and rebuild the boot disk frequently, to ensure the data on the floppy can be read reliably.
XII. Notes on making a boot disk
During the installation process of Windiws 98, not all files on the boot disk are copied into the C:\Wimdows\Command folder as necessary files. Only when you choose to create a boot disk during installation are these files copied into the C:\Wimdows\Command folder. Therefore it is strongly recommended to choose to create a boot disk when installing Windiws 98, for convenience in future use and to avoid trouble.
XIII. Checking whether the boot disk runs normally
After making it, you should use the disk for a boot test. Insert the finished boot disk into the floppy drive and restart the computer. If the hard disk uses a hard disk partitioning program such as Ontrack, then follow the on-screen instructions to boot from the floppy disk. When the boot disk brings up the selection menu, choose the first item (boot DOS7.x with CD-ROM support). When the A:\> prompt appears, test each drive by typing the drive letter followed by a colon and pressing Enter. Put a CD into the CD-ROM drive, then use the DIR command to verify whether the directory listing on the CD can be viewed. If the disc can be read normally and the CD file names are listed, then the CD-ROM drive has been installed successfully.
So, what do you think? These methods of making a boot disk are very simple, right? All right then! Everyone can get to work and make a boot disk—better safe than sorry!
：
I. Making a simple boot disk under DOS real mode.
We often see materials mentioning that when upgrading the BIOS of a motherboard or graphics card, you need to make a clean boot disk. What does “clean” mean here? Actually, a so-called clean boot disk means that besides the three files MSDO-S.SYS, IO.SYS, and COMMAND.COM, this boot disk must not have any memory-resident programs at all, such as CD-ROM drivers, AUTO-EXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, etc. Only in this way will it not conflict with the system during a BIOS upgrade, ensuring the success and reliability of the BIOS update. So, how do you make a clean boot disk?
Actually the method is very simple. After starting the machine, hold down F8 to enter the Windows startup menu, choose “Command prompt only” or “Safe Mode Command prompt only”, insert a floppy disk into the floppy drive, and use sys A: to transfer the system. This boot disk is simple to make and has only three system files: io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com, with no other memory-resident program files present (such as autoexec.bat, config.sys). It is mainly used for BIOS overclocking or virus removal. Of course you can also use the FORMAT A：/S command to make a clean boot disk.
II. Making a simple boot disk under the graphical interface
Open “My Computer”, right-click the A drive icon, and choose “Format” from the pop-up shortcut menu. At this point another “Format” dialog box will appear. From “Format type” choose “Full”, then from “Other options” choose “Copy system files”, and then click the “Start” button to begin formatting the floppy disk. After formatting is complete, a “Format Results” box appears listing the formatting results, including total disk space, bad sectors, available space, and other information.
III. Making a standard boot disk during Windows 98 installation
Anyone who has installed WIN98 knows that after the installation files have been copied, the installer will prompt you whether you need to make a boot disk. At this point we can insert a 1.44MB floppy disk to complete the creation of the boot disk:
During Windows 98 installation, the installer will prompt you to make a boot disk and will also tell you what the boot disk is used for. When installation reaches this step, the boot disk creation wizard appears. Find a blank floppy disk and insert it into the floppy drive, then click “OK” to start making the boot disk. After waiting a little while, the standard boot disk will be finished. It is best to enable write protection on the boot floppy and put a label on it, then keep it in a safe place for future use! This boot disk can conveniently start the computer after the system fails.
IV. Making a standard boot disk under the graphical interface using “Control Panel”
In Windows 98, the whole process of creating a boot disk has been made graphical, and it uses the special feature of Windows 98—the wizard. Almost every operation has a wizard, greatly reducing the difficulty of operation. For users, this is very simple and convenient, though a bit slower, and there are also those annoying prompts.
If you did not create a standard boot disk during Windows 98 installation, since the boot disk creation function is integrated into the “Add/Remove Programs” function, you can still open the “Startup Disk” tab in the “Add/Remove Programs Properties” dialog box at any time after starting Windows 98 and create it there. The process of creating a standard boot disk is as follows:
You need to prepare a blank, formatted floppy disk and the Windows 98 installation CD. Go in through “Start”--“Settings”--“Control Panel”, find “Add/Remove Programs” and double-click to open it, choose the “Startup Disk” tab in its dialog box, press the “Create Disk” button, then insert the floppy into the floppy drive. When prompted for the Windows 98 CD, insert the CD, and the system will begin copying the boot disk information. Then an “Insert Disk” dialog box pops up and prompts you to insert the floppy disk; click “OK”. At this point the system starts copying files to the floppy disk. When finished, remove the floppy disk from the drive and store it properly. Later, if the system has problems and cannot start, you can use the boot disk to boot and locate and eliminate the fault.
However, when making this boot disk you need to insert the WIN98 installation CD, and it takes quite a long time to make.
V. One trick for making a standard boot disk under the graphical interface
Now I can tell you a secret: making a standard boot disk is essentially just copying all the files in “C:\Windows\Command\EBD” onto the floppy disk. Understand now? So as long as you directly copy all the files in “c:\windows\command\EBD” to the floppy disk, you can create a boot disk. But before copying the files, you must remove the system, read-only, and hidden attributes from the files in that folder. The method is to click “Folder Options” on the “View” menu in “My Computer” or “Windows Explorer”. Click the “View” tab, then make sure “Show all files” is selected. After setting that, double-click to open the “c:\windows\command\EBD” folder, select all the files with the mouse, and drag them onto a clean floppy disk.
In this way, not only can you achieve the same purpose of making a boot disk, but it is also faster than the several methods above.
VI. A second trick for making a standard boot disk under the graphical interface
Under Windows 98, sometimes when making a boot disk by executing the bootdisk.bat file under “c:\Winndows\command”, the system prompts:
The EBD directory does not exist。Change to the Windows\COMMAND directory and try again.
This means “Cannot find the …\EBD\… directory, unable to make a boot disk.” If you encounter the same problem, and for the moment do not have the installation disc at hand, but urgently need to make a boot disk just in case, you can use the following method:
Remove the read-only attribute from the bootdisk.bat file, open it with Notepad, and make the following changes:
1. Delete “if not exist EBD\NUL goto NODIR” under “:CHECK”.
2. Delete “:EBD /autotest” from “format %DefFloppyDrive% /u /v:EBD /autotest” under “：FORMAT”.
3. Delete the entire following section:
:NODIR
echo.
echo The EBD directory does not exist.
echo Change to the Windows\COMMAND directory and try again.
echo.
goto END
Save and exit, then change the file back to read-only. Now execute bootdisk.bat again; the system will no longer prompt an error message, and the boot disk will be created successfully. Be sure to keep it properly stored away; no telling when it might come in handy.
VII. One method of making a standard boot disk under DOS
Since Windows 95 (including Windows 95OSR) does not save all the files needed for making a boot disk onto the hard disk, not only is it completely impossible to create a boot disk under DOS, but even under Windows 95 you need to insert the installation CD when making a boot disk. Under Windows 98, however, things are different. Because when installing the Windows 98 operating system it has already copied all the files needed for making a boot disk to the hard disk, this eliminates the need to insert the CD, making it possible to create a boot disk directly under DOS.
Bootdisk is located in the ％WinDir%\Command directory. It is a batch file used to create a boot disk, and the subdirectory EBD under its directory is exactly where the files needed to create the boot disk are stored. The files in this directory were extracted from EBD.CAB on the Windows 98 installation CD. When Windows 98 cannot start normally, press F8 during POST. A startup menu will appear; choose “安全命令模式（safe mode command prompt only)”, entering DOS mode. Then enter the “C：\Windows \Command” directory. In this directory there is a batch file named Bootdisk.bat. Run this file and the following text appears:
Please specify the drive letter of your floppy drive
Press 1 for A：
Or
Press 2 for B：
Choose an option ?
The program asks you to choose the floppy drive location. In general choose “1”. Type “1” and press Enter. Then it begins creating the boot disk. After a few minutes of formatting and file copying, a Windows 98 boot disk is successfully made. The boot disk made by this method can start the CD-ROM drive, and its effect is exactly the same as the boot disk made in "Control Panel|Add/Remove".
This function eliminates the “usual practice” of having to enter the graphical interface to create a boot disk, and because it uses a character interface, its operating speed is also slightly faster than the graphical interface. The result is still quite good!
VIII. A second method of making a standard boot disk under DOS
When the Windows 98 system has crashed and you cannot enter Windows 98, and you want to reinstall the system but have no boot disk at hand, then aside from making a boot disk on someone else’s machine, if your system can still enter DOS, first start the machine, hold down F8 to enter the Windows startup menu, choose “Command prompt only”, and type:
attrib -s -h -r c:\windows\command\EBD
Insert a blank floppy disk, then type:
copy c:\windows\command\ebd\*.* a:\
and it will be completed.
IX. A third method of making a standard boot disk under DOS
If the system is already paralyzed and you cannot enter the Winndows graphical interface, you can press F8 during POST to enter DOS mode, insert a floppy disk, and do the following:
C:\>FORMAT/S/Q A:
C:\>COPY Windows\COMMAND\EBD\*.* A:
If during copying it prompts you to replace system files, you must choose NO, otherwise you will not be able to make a Windows 98 boot disk. This disk contains various disk tools and supports the CD-ROM drive, and its functions are exactly the same as the boot disks made by the methods described in the section on making boot disks.
X. Solving the problem of Windows 98 boot disks not being able to drive old CD-ROM drives
The CD-ROM driver that comes with the Windows 98 boot disk can support most CD-ROM drives, but not all of them are supported, such as CD-ROM drives connected to sound cards, older .CD-ROM drives (such as Mitsumi, Panasonic, Sony), some even older IDE controllers, etc. If the machine’s CD-ROM is incompatible with these drivers on the boot disk, it will cause the problem that the Windows 98 boot disk cannot access the CD-ROM drive. This should be solved either by the replacement method (that is, replacing the generic driver with the dedicated driver for that CD-ROM drive) or the manual addition method. Here the replacement method is used to explain the specific operation:
Suppose the dedicated device driver for this CD-ROM drive is named Sonycd.sys. First insert the floppy disk that came with the CD-ROM drive and contains the driver program sonycd.sys into the floppy drive, then copy sonycd.sys to the hard disk and rename it oakcdrom.sys. Then remove the floppy disk, insert the Windows 98 boot disk into the floppy drive, and put the renamed oakcdrom.sys into the Windows 98 boot disk, replacing the original oakcdrom.sys.
In this way, you can use this boot disk to access the CD-ROM.
XI. Requirements for making a boot disk
1. Before making it, scan the computer once with the latest antivirus software, in order to prevent viruses from infecting the boot disk during creation.
2. The floppy disk chosen should be of good quality and have no bad tracks, otherwise boot failure may result.
3. After the boot disk is made, it is best to move the small slider on the right side of the write-protect notch on the back of the floppy disk to the other side, so that the whole write-protect notch lets light through, thus enabling write protection for the floppy disk. This can both prevent accidental deletion of files on the boot disk and prevent virus infection of the boot disk during use.
4. Under the Winndows interface, you can drag the program files the user needs into the EBD folder, such as MEM.COM, and then click bootdisk.bat to create the boot disk.
5．Since there are many reasons for damage to a boot disk, such as scratches, dust, mildew, etc., the floppy disk has become the most unsafe medium for storing information. Therefore, choose a new high-quality floppy disk, and rebuild the boot disk frequently, to ensure the data on the floppy can be read reliably.
XII. Notes on making a boot disk
During the installation process of Windiws 98, not all files on the boot disk are copied into the C:\Wimdows\Command folder as necessary files. Only when you choose to create a boot disk during installation are these files copied into the C:\Wimdows\Command folder. Therefore it is strongly recommended to choose to create a boot disk when installing Windiws 98, for convenience in future use and to avoid trouble.
XIII. Checking whether the boot disk runs normally
After making it, you should use the disk for a boot test. Insert the finished boot disk into the floppy drive and restart the computer. If the hard disk uses a hard disk partitioning program such as Ontrack, then follow the on-screen instructions to boot from the floppy disk. When the boot disk brings up the selection menu, choose the first item (boot DOS7.x with CD-ROM support). When the A:\> prompt appears, test each drive by typing the drive letter followed by a colon and pressing Enter. Put a CD into the CD-ROM drive, then use the DIR command to verify whether the directory listing on the CD can be viewed. If the disc can be read normally and the CD file names are listed, then the CD-ROM drive has been installed successfully.
So, what do you think? These methods of making a boot disk are very simple, right? All right then! Everyone can get to work and make a boot disk—better safe than sorry!
：
