Using Startup Disks

I question I have been asked many times is... Why do I need or what is a start-up disk?

The answer is... You do not need one BUT it is a very handy tool to have if your Computer fails to start at some time in the future. Let us consider the normal start up of a Computer. Whenever you turn on your computer, the first thing you see is the BIOS software running its instructions. On many machines, the BIOS displays text describing things like the amount of memory installed in your computer, the type of hard disk and so on.

Once the BIOS has tested the Video, RAM, Keyboard, Diskette and Hard Drives etc the start up files located in the boot sector of the Hard Drive are used to load the first part of the operating System. Any failure of these files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS) on the Hard Drive will cause this loading to cease and the Computer will not start. If you have a special start-up diskette containing these same particular files you can start the computer to the A: prompt by putting this diskette into the diskette drive and restarting the computer.

Starting the computer this way will allow the user to run some diagnostics in DOS on the Hard Drive and hopefully eventually fix the problem. Please note for this procedure to work the computer must be set to boot up first from the A: Drive followed by the C: Drive. If this is not the case then the CMOS must be altered accordingly. To enter the CMOS setup, you must press a certain key or combination of keys during the initial start-up sequence. Your CMOS may use "Esc," "Del," "F1," "F2," "Ctrl-Esc" or "Ctrl-Alt-Esc" to enter setup. The correct keys are normally displayed on the screen at boot-up or found in the Main Board (Motherboard) manual. Please exercise extra care when altering anything in the CMOS setup.

To create a simple start-up diskette all you need to do at the DOS prompt is type the command :C:\>FORMAT A: /S The switch /S transfers the boot-up files to the correct location of the diskette drive.

To enable your CD ROM Drive to work you need to have both AUTOEXEC.BAT & CONFIG.SYS files on the diskette. In addition you will need a copy of the Device Driver file for your CD ROM.Both these files may be made with notepad and saved with the correct names (Config.sys & Autoexec.bat)

The CONFIG.SYS file will contain a line like this:

DEVICE=CD.SYS /D:DRIVER

The device line loads the CD-ROM driver, CD.SYS. Your particular CD-ROM driver will be named something like AOATAPI.SYS or similar. Substitute the correct name of the driver file in your Config.sys.The /D names the CD-ROM device, in this example DRIVER.

The AUTOEXEC.BAT file will contain a line like this:

MSCDEX.EXE /D:DRIVER /L:R

The purpose of MSCDEX.EXE in AUTOEXEC.BAT is to assign a drive letter to the device, hence, the /D:DRIVER has to be the same in both files. The /L:R tells your computer to make your CD-ROM drive letter R. You may assign any available letter.

Resident commands (Meaning available to you for use when you bootup from this diskette)

COPY, CD, CLS, DEL, EXPAND,DIR, MD, PROMPT, PATH, TIME, DATE, TYPE

Non Resident (Meaning NOT automatically available but usable if you put a copy of the executable onto the startup diskette)

FORMAT, FDISK, ATTRIB, DEFRAG, DELTREE, DISKCOPY, EDIT, SCANDISK, SYS XCOPY

Make a Startup Diskette for your version of Operating System NOW and test it works BEFORE you need it.!!