Computer Buying Guide

To create your Windows 2000 boot disk, you will need 4 high-density 1.44MB floppy disks. The Windows 2000 boot disk is spread over the four disks. Label them Disk 1 to Disk 4.

If you have the CD on hand:

Insert it into a CD-ROM drive.

Click start, then click run.

In the box type e:bootdiskmakeboot a: where e is the letter of your CD drive and a: is the floppy drive letter.

Follow the instructions on screen. You now have your Windows 2000 boot disk.

To use them, just insert disk 1 into the floppy drive and restart, or turn on your computer.

The Windows 98 boot disk will allow you to boot your computer up into DOS mode so that you can install Windows 98. The Windows 98 boot disk includes files that will let you format and partition your hard drive.

Note: The Windows 98 boot disk has an older version of fdisk so drives bigger than 64GB will have their size reported wrong. Download updated version at Microsoft.

Click Start

Point to Settings and click Control Panel

Click Add/Remove Programs

Click the Startup Disk tab

Click the Create Disk button. You will be prompted to insert a disk.

When finished, click OK to exit.

Note: If your machine does not have a floppy drive but allows booting from USB storage, you can also use an inexpensive external hard drive or flash drive rather than the floppies, which you can buy at the Dell.com Data Storage page.

You will need 6 blank floppy disks for creating the Windows XP boot disk. Make sure they are all blank first or that you don’t mind losing the data on them. Windows XP doesn’t really need the boot disks unless your computer does not allow booting from CD-ROM.

Download the appropriate file from the list below.

Windows XP Original release:
Home Edition: Windows XP boot disk
Professional Edition: Windows XP boot disk

Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Home Edition: Windows XP boot disk
Professional Edition: Windows XP boot disk

Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Home Edition: Windows XP boot disk
Professional Edition: Windows XP boot disk

Start the program by double clicking the file.

Accept the user agreement.

It will tell you that you need 6 floppy disks to create the windows XP boot disk.
The disks you put in will be erased so make sure there is nothing on them you want to save.
You will be prompted for the floppy drive letter (usually A:).

You will need to insert one of the disks now.
When ready press any key and the process will start.

Follow the directions for all six disks.

Booting from the disks

Just put the first disk into the floppy drive before turning on the computer and you will be prompted to insert each disk, one at a time.