Emergency - Contingency Plans

If your computer ever fails to comply with your wishes to start working, you might have to try to start it up using a different disk.  Computers are instructed to run through their bootstrap procedures (boot process) by reading instructions from the hard disk drive.  If that drive ever becomes inaccessible or can't find its data, you will need a "Plan B".

One of the first things you should do with your computer system is to create a "Boot Diskette" that will allow you to start the computer and probe around and possibly fix the problem.  To create a boot diskette, you will need to follow these steps:

Double click on "My Computer"

Use the right mouse button to click on the 3.5 Floppy (A:) icon 

Select Format from the pop-up menu

Select "Copy system files only" and then press Start. 

The disk will be formatted and files will be created that will let this diskette start your computer.  If won't do much, but it will let you see if you still have a hard drive left.