Floppy Boot Disk

Creating a CD-ROM Boot Disk for Windows 95

To Manually Create a Diskette which loads the CDRom Drivers (A Setup Boot Disk):

This section will outline the process for creating a CD-ROM boot disk for use when reinstalling Windows 95. A blank, formatted floppy and the original Windows 95 CD-ROM are required. This assumes that you are using the factory installed hardware originally shipped with your system, and that you have not formatted your hard drive or otherwise significantly altered the system configuration.

NOTE: This document will reference the SETUP screen for clarification of the CD-ROM model factory installed in your system. This information will be listed on Screen 1 of System Setup. Please take note of your CD-ROM model type BEFORE beginning with Step 1 of this process. On all Dell Dimension systems, pressing the DELETE key when prompted immediately after powering on the system will access the System Setup menus. This will be clarified further in TABLE 1.

Creating a CD-ROM boot disk:

1. Boot the system to the safe mode, command prompt only by pressing the "F8" key on bootup, immediately after the system emits a single beep, and the text message Starting Windows 95 is displayed on the display. A startup menu will be displayed.

2. Select Safe mode, Command Prompt Only, then press the ENTER key.

3. Insert a blank, 3.5 inch 1.44mb floppy disk in the "A" drive. Type FORMAT A: /U /S and press the ENTER key. The system will format the disk and respond with "FORMAT COMPLETE, SYSTEM TRANSFERRED. ENTER VOLUME NAME…" Press the ENTER key to skip the volume name entry. At the "FORMAT ANOTHER?Y/N," prompt press "N," for no, then Press "ENTER"

4. From the "C:\>" prompt, type CD\WINDOWS and Press "ENTER". Type the following commands in the order they appear below. Complete each command by pressing the ENTER key.

   NOTE: These steps will copy files needed to create the startup files.

   • CD COMMAND
   • COPY FDISK.EXE A:
   • COPY FORMAT.COM A:
   • COPY MSCDEX.EXE A:
   • COPY EDIT.COM A:

   NOTE: See TABLE 1 for the directory and file name information required to complete the following steps.

5. Type CD\ and Press "ENTER".

6. Type CD\ directory where directory equals the name specified in Table 1 below. After pressing the ENTER key you will change to the directory you specified.

7. Type "COPY (file name from TABLE 1) A:"
   • For example, for the Mitsumi CD-ROM, you would type "COPY MTMCDAI.SYS A:"
   • The system will respond with "ONE FILE COPIED"

8. Type "A:" and Press "ENTER".

9. Type "ECHO DEVICE=\( file name from TABLE 1) /D:CD1>CONFIG.SYS" and Press "ENTER".
   • For example, for Mitsumi you would type "ECHO DEVICE=\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:CD1>CONFIG.SYS"

10. Type "ECHO A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CD1 >AUTOEXEC.BAT" and Press "ENTER"

11. Type "COPY A:*.* C:\" and Press "ENTER"
    • Press N to the "OVERWRITE COMMAND.COM?" prompt.
    • Press A to all other prompts to overwrite files.
    • Restart the system with the diskette in drive A:.
    • When the MSCDEX driver loads, you will see the drive letter assigned to the CD-ROM.

    Note: If any of the files listed in the above steps cannot be located in the subdirectory specified in Table 1, you may need to call for support.

The following table translates the model type to the subdirectory in which the CD-ROM drivers are stored. Looking at the "SECONDARY DRIVE 0" entry on page one of the System Setup screen, you will see the model of your CD-ROM drive.

If "NONE" is listed as the secondary drive 0, use the down arrows to highlight secondary drive 0, and then follow the on-screen directions to set it to "AUTO". Save the new settings and restart the system. Press "DELETE" to enter setup again.

FIGURE 1. Setup screen.

TABLE: 1

In the above example, "FX120T" is the CD-ROM drive. The CD-ROM type will be listed under the "SECONDARY" entries. Now locate the model number of the drive in the list below.