The process of making a Windows 2000 boot and/or rescue disk is very simple. The following files are required: NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, and BOOT.INI. The process is a simple as copying these files to a floppy diskette. First, copy the NTLDR file from your system parition (probably c:\) onto a freshly formatted floppy disk. Next, copy the NTDECTECT.COM and BOOT.INI files from the system partition onto the diskette.

     As seen above, you don't have to run the SYS.COM or FORMAT.COM/S commands to write to the boot partition as with previous versions of Windows or DOS. There is one more thing to note, the BOOT.INI file must be configured to boot from the hardware in which the diskette is being used. If you copied these files from another Windows 2000 machine, you may need to edit BOOT.INI before copying to diskette. Configure the file so that it will present an appropriate boot menu for the location of Windows 2000 on the computer in which it is intended to be used.

Restoring The Boot Sector / Files

     To restore the NTLDR boot file to a system partition, you can simulate an installation of Windows 2000. After the "copying files" process is over and the system wants to reboot, cancell the installation and delete the temporary files. Edit the boot.ini file.

     If you have a 2000 boot disk with the NTLDR, boot.ini, and NTDETECT.COM, you can boot into Windows 2000 and install the Command Console. This is issued from the command prompt and requires the CD-ROM's i386 directory. The command is d:\i386\winnt32 /cmdcons. This process will install the NTLDR on the system partition if it is not already present. Note that this process only works when you don't need to configure the booting of another operating system on a dual boot configuration. You will have to use the install and cancel process.

     If you dual boot, you need to first reinstall the boot files for the non 2000 operating systems. For Windows 9x, boot from rescue and issue sys.com c:. Then use the install process to restore the Windows 2000 boot files. This process will create an additional file needed to boot the other operating systems such as Windows 9x, the file is 'bootsect.dos'. Configure the boot.ini file accordingly.