how do you writeaboot disk?

[davelu]

I being searching everywhere on how to write a boot disk but all my results ended up with how ot make them not how to write them. I want to write a boot disk that boots up and runs dos then automatically copys a file then restarts the computer. ANy HELP would be appreciated.

[Tristan Lall]

Unless you actually want to write the boot disk by collecting and/or writing from scratch the necessary files, try this:

1. Go here and read about MS-DOS 7.10, which is effectively the back-end of Windows 98.
2. Download this, which contains the necessary files. (Their server was very slow, so you may need to wait longer than you expect while downloading.)
3. Get WinImage, install it (free trial period).
4. Create a floppy disk with the image in the .zip file, using WinImage.
5. Add RESTART.COM to the disk, in the root directory. (Attached to this post, in a .zip file.)
6. Edit the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to include (at the end of the file) the lines:

   copy filepath.001 filepath.002
   call restart.com

   In the above, substitiute the correct path and file names that you wish to affect.
7. Now boot the computer with the floppy. It will do its thing and then restart.

It works; I tested it on a virtual machine. Note that if you have an NTFS drive, you'll likely need a different boot disk instead, available from the same source--but since you refer to DOS specifically, I assume that you've got an computer with a FAT16 or FAT32 file system.

Alternatively, if you have access to a Windows Me or lower computer, you can create the bootdisk directly from there, then follow the same procedure to modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

[bombadier337]

All you have to do is make a bootdisk, then modify the autoexec.bat to do what you need it to I believe. You could probably find a minimalist boot disk at www.bootdisk.com and then not have to worry about taking out files to clear up space.

[davelu]

Thx!