- 1). Open a Web browser and navigate to Bootdisk.com. Download one of the DOS boot disk images to save the files to a floppy disk, or download one of the Windows 95 or 98 images and burn the ISO files to a CD. This disk will be the source disk for the "format" command.
- 2). Extract the downloaded files from Bootdisk.com by clicking on the file in Windows. Follow the directions to create a bootable floppy disk or CD. Just run the program once all files are extracted and insert the destination disk when prompted. Once the CD or floppy is created, insert the disk into its respective drive. This disk will be used to format the USB drive with the system files.
- 3). Click the Windows "Start" button and type "cmd" to bring up the Command Window.
- 4). Change directory into the boot disk directory. For example, if the floppy disks is your source boot disk and is assigned to be Drive Letter "A," then type:
"cd a:"
(without quotes) and press Enter. - 5). Insert the USB drive that will become the bootable device. Make sure any data you want to save is backed up from the device as formatting the USB drive to be bootable will erase all contents. The computer will assign a drive letter to the USB device. For this example, the USB drive letter assignment will be "e:" in this instance.
- 6). Type the following command at the A:\ prompt in the command line window (without quotes):
"format e: /u /s"
The USB drive will be formatted with the DOS system files necessary to boot the USB drive into DOS. - 7). Insert the USB drive into a free USB port on the computer and reboot the machine. If the BIOS is set to boot from the USB drive, and the USB drive is prioritized before any other available boot device in the BIOS, the computer will boot into DOS from the USB drive.
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