A good, valid system disk is invaluable in the event of an emergency. Taking a few minutes to create a good one is a good idea.

A system disk is a diskette with Windows system files and necessary setup files. Its purpose is to be able to boot your system in the event that the hard drive fails to do so. It is also used to setup a hard drive. By sticking the system disk into Drive A and booting, your computer can get the necessary files it needs to boot up off of that disk instead of the hard drive.

The easiest way to create a system disk is to format it in Windows and tell it to copy system files to the diskette. In Win98, the system disk is rather complete, as it copies everything you would need over, including the RAMDRIVE software and CD-ROM support.

The procedure to create an emergency system disk is different depending on what operating system you use. I will cover the Windows operating systems here, as they are, of course, the most popular.

Windows 95

1. Go to the Windows Control Panel.
2. Click on Add/Remove Programs
3. Click the Startup Disk Tab
4. Click the Create Disk button and follow the instructions

Windows 98 and General Notes:

1. Find a blank floppy diskette and stick it in Drive A:
2. In Windows Explorer, right-click on A:, then choose format.
3. Click on “full” format, and check “Copy System Files”.
4. Click OK. It should start to format. Make sure the disk isn’t write-protected. If it is, Windows will tell you.
5. When done, you will probably have command.com, Drvspace.bin, Io.sys, and Msdos.sys on the disk. But you want more to make the disk truly useful.
   Copy fdisk.exe, format.com, edit.com, Qbasic.exe, regedit.exe, Uninstall.exe, sys.com, scandisk.ini, chkdsk.exe, and attrib.exe to the diskette. Make sure both Edit.Com and QBasic.exe are on the disk because Edit won’t work without Qbasic. Some of these files are not really necessary, but may be of help in certain situations. You may want to copy config.sys and autoexec.bat over to the disk as well.

6. If there are any other files you think should be there, by all means, copy them over. Its your disk.
7. Remove the diskette from the drive.
8. Flip the write-protect latch over to keep this disk from being corrupted.
9. Test the disk by booting your system off of it.

Windows 2000

1. Go to Start Menu / Run
2. Type “ntbackup” and click OK.
3. In the Backup Window, click on Emergency Repair Disk with a blank, formatted diskette in Drive A.

Windows NT
Follow the same procedure as Win2000, but type “rdisk” instead at the Run text box.