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How Do I Make a Boot Floppy?

Q: I want to be able to boot my Windows 2000 PC if the hard drive goes south. But I don't see a way to make a Startup Disk, as I could in Windows 98. What's the alternative?

A: There's a good reason why Windows 2000 doesn't let you create a boot disk that starts the computer and drops you into DOS. Unlike Windows 9x (and Windows Me), Windows 2000 can run DOS only as a box within the operating system itself. If you can't boot to Windows 2000, you can't run DOS; it's that simple.

The alternative here may be easier to use than a boot floppy: If you have a problem, just stick your Windows 2000 Setup CD in the drive, then reboot the PC. If your computer's BIOS and CD-ROM drive support bootable CDs, you'll see a message like "To boot from the CD, press any key." Be sure to keep the CD in a safe place to use in emergencies.

Many older PCs, however, won't boot from a CD. So before your machine breaks down, use Windows 2000 to create what Microsoft calls an Emergency Repair Disk, which contains some of the tools that you'll need to fix damaged systems. Pop a floppy into the A: drive, click Start, Run, type NTBACKUP and press Enter. When the Backup utility opens, click the Emergency Repair Disk icon.

To reinstall Windows 2000 if your system won't boot up, you need to create a four-floppy set of Setup disks: Put your Windows 2000 Setup CD in the CD-ROM drive, put the first floppy in its drive, and choose Start, Run and type E:\bootdisk\makeboot a: (where E: is your CD-ROM drive letter). Follow the screen prompts. When you're done, label the floppies and store them in a safe location.

You can create the Setup floppies from any Windows or DOS machine that has a CD-ROM drive--which is good to know if your system won't start and you neglected to create the disks earlier.

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