To create a boot disk, follow these steps. Go to the Control Panel and open Add/Remove Programs. Go to the Startup Disk tab and tell Windows to create a startup disk.

You will now need to copy your real mode CD driver to the disk - this should have been included with your computer or CD drive. If you do not have a real mode driver for your CD, contact the manufacturer and they should provide you with one. Now add the following line to the config.sys file on the boot disk:

DEVICEHIGH=A:\CDDRIVER.SYS /D:MSCD0001

Replace the CDDRIVER.SYS with the real mode driver for your CD. Next copy mscdex.exe from your \Windows\Command folder to your floppy boot disk. Finally, create an autoexec.bat file and put it on the disk. Put the following line in the autoexec.bat file:

MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD0001 /L:D

The /L:D sets your CD drive letter to D. If you normally set your CD to a different drive letter, put that letter after the /L:

Once that is done, you should have a startup disk that will boot your PC and allow you to access your CD drive. You may also want to add some additional files to the disk. Copy himem.sys and emm386.exe to the disk. My config.sys file looks like this:


DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEHIGH=A:\SJCDAPI.SYS /D:MSCD0001

And the autoexec.bat looks like this:

@echo off
PATH=A:\
LH A:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD0001 /L:R
LH A:\SMARTDRV 2048
LH A:\MOUSE.EXE
doskey

For this, you will also need to copy smartdrv.exe, doskey.com and a mouse driver. Doskey is not needed, but I was forced into using OS/2 at work for a while and liked the KEYS=ON setting that mimicked doskey, so I've added it to my disk.

Once the disk is created, test it by booting your PC with the disk. You should boot up to an A: prompt and be able to access all drives. Note that this is for IDE drives only. If you have SCSI drives, you will need to add the necessary drivers for those as well.

For Windows Millennium, you can create a boot floppy disk either using Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel, Startup disk tab.  Or, if you just want a minimal bootable floppy disk with no extra files, you can do the following since format /s is no longer supported.  Copy io.sys and command.com from your \windows\command\ebd directory to a floppy disk.  Set the system, hidden and read only attributes on io.sys:

attrib +s +h +r a:\io.sys

That's it.  Add any additional files as you see fit.