Thank you, Michael and Lynn, for the response. It emboldened me to make the
experiment, and sure enough, when booted from the startup disk, the system
did stop at DOS and did not change any Windows settings.

As additional confirmation, I repeated the experiment this morning after
having changed the CD ROM from drive D to drive E (in Windows) and having
left the system shut down overnight. Sure enough, when I booted from the
startup disk, the hidden ".dat" files on drive C retained yesterday's date,
and when I subsequently booted from the hard drive, the CD ROM was still on
drive E.

En route to this innocent conclusion, however, disconcerting things take
place. Immediately after pushing the "power on" button (with the startup
disk in drive A), the "select" lights flash a few times on both the CD ROM
drive and the JAZ drive. This I take to be a response to Plug and Play
queries. I'm subsequently notified that the system has found a SCSI
adapter, but no attached drives. (This is the problem I'm trying to solve.)
Then the system says that it's "starting Windows" (the first time I tried
the experiment, my heart stopped in my boots). It grinds on a little
longer, reading something from the floppy, and there's a line saying
"Microsoft Windows, copyright ..." something or other. Finally, however it
comes to rest at a Dos command line.

It's clear that this DOS is not the old DOS -- it's much more tightly
integrated with Windows.

Nonetheless, the experiment pretty strongly settles what I was trying to
find out: that the problem lies in the hardware. The system is apparently
coming to its own conclusions about the presence or absence of various
devices, without peeking at what Windows already supposed. So I'll have to
look at the usual suspects: jumpers, cables, terminators, and maybe the Jaz
device itself (which is already a replacement unit for the original).

-- Dick Fredericksen
----------
> From: Michael and Lynn Curtis <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] Testing startup diskette.
> Date: Wednesday, May 13, 1998 10:10 PM
>
> Yes, you can boot safely with that disk and it will stop at DOS prompt
and
> not change any settings.
> Mike Curtis
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dick H. Fredericksen <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wednesday, May 13, 1998 11:27 AM
> Subject: [PCBUILD] Testing startup diskette.
>
>
> I made a startup diskette, but before trusting that I can reinstall
Windows
> 95 from scratch (if I ever need to), I'd like to test that I can at least
> boot from the diskette.
> Can I do that without threatening my existing Windows 95 stuff? That is,
> will the boot record just bring up DOS and stop there?
>
> And if it does stop there, will "bringing up DOS" have attempted to set
up
> any of the Plug and Play devices?
>
> -- Dick Fredericksen