Abstract of INFO-MAC archived Text file
   'info/creating-an-emergency-disk.txt'
  Uploaded 11/07/1995   7250 bytes

From: williams@world.net (Bill Stanford)
Subject: Drive Setup. But how? (C)

In Info-Mac Digest V13 #140, Al Bloom, replying to Roberto Krause, wrote:

>>How can I boot Drive Setup? My Mac (IDE Hard Disk) says always The HD
>>must not be active. I boot with s disk, click Drive Setup and he says he
>>cant boot Drive Setup from the hard disk. And a 1.44 disk is too little
>>to include Sytem AND Drive Setup. The solution?
>
>Huh? I dunno about the IDE-drive Macs, but the rest of us get Disk Tools
>for that sort of thing. Whatever.
>[snip]
>To rid yourself of the Finder on a boot floppy, first copy Disk Tools
>to a new disk. Drag System out of the System Folder. Delete everything
>else. Then copy your app to the floppy.
>
>You do have to play some games to get by without a Finder. [snip] Click on
>"boot >blocks" and rename Finder and Startup App to the name of whatever
>app you
>have on the disk. There are some goofinesses with naming. You may have to get
>rid of a special symbol in the app's name. It's easy to tell. If the
>floppy won't boot,
>rename the app, and change the "boot blocks" entries to match.

Just to suppliment Al's handy post, here's what usually works with Norton's
Disk Editor.  (Sorry for the bandwidth for those for whom this procedure is
2nd nature...despite having rewritten this myself [on the basis of a
document from Symantec (?)] I have to get this puppy out every blue moon
when I make a new Finderless floppy...and I've never seen it completely
spelt out in a FAQ)

-------------------------
Creating an Emergency Utility Disk for System 7

1       You'll need the following:

***A formatted, High Density (HD) floppy disk.  Name the diskette
something appropriate like "Emergency Disk".

***System 7's "Disk Tools" diskette that came with your Macintosh.
***the top copy of the utility you wish to boot from your emergency disk
(let's say it's Norton Utils or CP Disk Fix®)

***Norton Utilities itself on your hard disk.  If you haven't Norton you'll
need a sector editor of some kind that you're comfortable withŠ ;-)

2       Copying the System & System Enabler files from Apple Disk Tools
Diskette:

***Insert the "Disk Tools" diskette that came with your System 7 disk set.