whats the difference between floppys

I just thought of something, Is the Microsoft windows 98SE floppy that came with the laptop the same as making my own from the add remove folder where it says create a start up disk? If not which one is used to fix problems, Im confused between these 2 floppys and how to use them,Thanks for anyones help

 

It should be unless you need some unique driver for your CD-ROM drive.

 

Without being able to see them I can only guess but I would say probably so. You can look at them in windows explorer to see what's on them. Put one in the drive and click the a: drive in windows explorer.

Also, you can right click on the drive when you have one of the floppies in it, and choose properties to see how much space is being used on the disk. Then do the other one. If they both use the same amount of disk space my guess is the two are the same.

More? Open the autoexec.bat and config.sys files on one of them in notepad (a shortcut to notepad in your send to menu works great for this). Then, leave the two notepad windows open, remove the disk, put the other one in and open the two files on that one in notepad. Now you can compare the files from each of the disk. If they're the same on each disk you can just about bet everything you have that the two disks are the same. If they're different, the two disks are different for sure.

Lastly, try booting from them. You'll find out in a hurry if they're different that way.

You can probably use either one for fixing problems although you won't be able to fix every problem with them. If your computer won't boot you can boot from the floppy you make in windows (probably the other one too) and use it to run scandisk or chkdsk. You can copy, move, rename and delete files and folders with the disk. You can make new folders on your hard drive with it. Also, you can use it to defrag the hard drive. There's a tool on it for extracting files from cab files. It can be handy for those times when Windows won't start because of missing or damaged file. If the file that's missing is one that's on the win98 cd, you can use extract.exe to extract a new one from the cd. Put it in the proper place (usually windows\system in these cases) and if you're lucky, you're up and running again.

There's a text editor on the disk. At the prompt, type edit and it'll open. You can use it to edit files like your autoexec.bat or config.sys. Usually you have to use the keyboard to do everything in it but you can get mouse support for it too. There's a file on the disk name mouse.com. To get mouse support when using the disk simply type mouse at the command prompt before you open edit. You can see what edit looks like by opening a command prompt in windows (with a boot floppy in the drive) and at the c: prompt type a:. Then type edit.

You can also use it to partition and format your hard drive. Also, you can use it to install windows if your cdrom isn't bootable. This is just a few examples of what you can do with it.

The problem is, it's all in a DOS based environment so you have to know the proper commands to get things done. With each of the tools on it you can get help though. For example, to get help for the extract command, type extract /? at the a: prompt and it'll show you the proper syntax needed to use the command. Same goes for scandisk, defrag, etc.

I could go on and on with this. The point is, you want to have one. Though you are limited in what you can do with it, it can turn a major problem into a minor one. If you don't know what to do with it for whatever problem you're having you can always ask here.

 

floppy information

Thanks for the information.