The lappy for my megasquirt is being a twat. I can only get it to boot in safe mode. I want to access the cd rom from the a drive but i don't know how.
I don't even know if the cd rom does work.
I've created a windows system disc and added on what SHOULD be the driver for the cd rom.
Basically on the net I found a site and followed this text below.

After you copy the CD-ROM driver over to the startup floppy, you’ll also need to copy over a Microsoft-supplied system-level CD-ROM driver called MSCDEX.EXE. You should find a copy of it in your Windows/Command folder on your C: drive. If it's not there, you'll definitely find it on the Windows 95 CD that came with your computer.

The next step is to open the Config.sys file and add one line to it. To do that, you'll use the DOS Edit application that’s installed on the boot floppy as part of the standard Create System Disk routine.

To get to the application, open an MS-DOS window by going to the Start menu and selecting MS-DOS Prompt from the Programs menu item. After the window opens, switch to your A: drive by typing A: and then Enter.

Once you get an A:> prompt, type in "edit" (without the quotation marks) and hit Enter and you’ll be presented with a basic text editing program. Open the Config.sys file on your A: drive.

By the way, make sure you’re not editing the Config.sys file on your C: drive or you could have big problems. You should be able to easily tell because the basic Config.sys on the standard boot floppy has only one line in it and it refers to Himem.sys.

Put your cursor underneath that line and type in:

Device=A:<name of your driver> /D:MSCD001

Don’t actually type <name of your driver>—that needs to be replaced with the exact spelling of the driver file you previously copied onto the floppy disk. So again, in my case it was:

Device=A:nec_bm.sys /D:MSCD001

Save the Config.sys file and close it.

The next step is to create a simple Autoexec.bat file on the floppy. While you’re still in the Edit application, go to the File Menu and select New... Then type in the following line:

MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

When you're done with that, go up to the File menu, select the Save As… command and save the file as Autoexec.bat (capitalization doesn’t matter) on the A: drive. Exit the Edit program and then close the MS-DOS window by clicking on the X in the upper right hand corner.

That’s it.

After all this when I boot from the floopy it loads up and I get a message
"bad file or command"
I've tried it with spaces between the exe and / of these files as well to no avail. MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001

Help please cause I need to find out if the drives duff or how to access it. It is an old lappy but in good nick and will be ideal for the squirt (if I ever get the car finished)
As always thanks in advance
Gary

Might seem obvious but if you can boot to safe mode you don't need a start up floppy. Just make sure your cd device driver and mscdex.exe are somewhere in the path specified in the c:autoexec.bat file --- if I were doing it I would copy it into 3 places C: and C:windows and C:windowsdos.

Then alter the existing c:config.sys and c:autoxec.bat using the built in windows system editor that is run "sysedit" from windows.

You may find the entries all ready exist in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files but were commented out (ie have a ; in front of the relavent lines) by the windows setup program.

As I said before any PC that can't boot from CD isn't worth the hassle.

[Edited on 23/2/08 by britishtrident]

Or possibly a 'rem' in front of the relevant lines if someone as old fashioned as me first wrote the autoexec or config files :-)

The auto exec bat and config sys on the c drive do not have any mention of the drivers etc. In fact it looks like the guy I got it from was clumsy in deleting the files and docs before i got it from him.
I'll post the config and autoexec files later to see what you reckon as I'm Building the car at the moment.