This response came tantalizing close to answering the fundamental question.  However, 
it did not give details about the edits to the boot.ini for starting up from the 
floppy.

The Windows XP Annoyances book, on p.467, says that you just copy the three files 
(ntdetect.com, ntldr, boot.ini) from the root of your existing WinXP boot HDD (e.g., 
C:\) to a floppy.  I did that (without any change to boot.ini) and it did not work. 
 (As a check I was attempting to "boot" the diskette from a USB external floppy; 
all this is on a Toshiba Sat-3005-S304 notebook with WinXP-HE still working, but 
with the floppy set in the BIOS as the first boot device, and with no internal floppy 
installed).  

Note:  The USB external floppy appears not to be a problem, because it does boot 
a Win98se boot disk (although of course, then I cannot see the WinXP NTFS partition) 
and it boots PartitionMagic8 emergency diskettes (which does see the NTFS partition).






On Friday, February 21, 2003 at 2:07 am, My self wrote:
>I once had a user asking for help, he couldn't boot his win2k pc.
>I made him a boot disk by formatting a floppy on my own win2k computer and then, 
>like in NT4, copied the necessary files onto the floppy and edited the boot.ini 
file. 
>His computer booted fine on that floppy......
>So it IS possible to make a boot disk for win2000, only
>it should be made while the system is fresh and sound so then you won't have to 
edit 
>any files..
>

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