Planning a Reliable Configuration

Creating a Windows 2000 Startup Floppy Disk

You can use the Windows 2000 startup floppy disk to access a drive with a faulty startup sequence. This disk can access a drive that has either the NTFS, FAT16, or FAT32 file system installed. The Windows 2000 startup floppy disk can help with the following startup problems:

Corrupted boot sector.
Corrupted MBR.
Virus infections.
Missing or corrupt NTLDR or Ntdetect.com.
Incorrect Ntbootdd.sys.

The Windows 2000 startup floppy disk can also be used to start from the surviving member of a mirrored volume. However, it might be necessary to modify the file Boot.ini first.

The Windows 2000 startup floppy disk cannot be used for the following problems:

Incorrect or corrupted device drivers that have been installed into the Windows 2000 System directory.
Startup problems that occur after the boot loader starts.

Use the emergency repair process to work around or fix these problems. On the Windows 2000 Advanced Options menu, choose Last Known Good Configuration or, if necessary, reinstall Windows 2000. For more information about the emergency repair process, see "Repair, Recovery, and Restore" in this book. For more information about the Last Known Good Configuration, see "Startup Process" in this book.

Note

The Windows 2000 startup floppy disk must include the files NTLDR, Ntdetect.com, Boot.ini, and the correct device driver for your hard disk drive. NTLDR, Ntdetect.com, and Boot.ini usually have their file attributes set to system, hidden, and read-only. You do not need to reset these attributes for the Windows 2000 Startup disk to work properly.

To create a Windows 2000 startup floppy disk

Insert a blank, formatted 1.44-MB disk into the floppy disk drive on a computer that is running Windows 2000.
Copy NTLDR, Ntdetect.com, and Boot.ini from the Windows 2000 Setup CD to the floppy disk.
If you have a SCSI system and the SCSI BIOS is not enabled, copy Ntbootdd.sys to the floppy disk.

Important

Recreate your Windows 2000 startup floppy disk after the installation of any Windows 2000 service pack.

If you are making a Windows 2000 startup floppy disk while your computer is still functional, copy Boot.ini from the hard disk drive. If you have not yet made a Windows 2000 startup floppy disk and you are encountering problems, you must get the files from another Windows 2000 computer and modify Boot.ini to match the configuration of the computer that is having problems.

For more information about creating and using a Windows 2000 startup floppy disk, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base link on the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources.