I have mistakenly left a startup floppy of an earlier window 95
version in drive a: while starting a later version of windows 95,Since
then the computer displays a virus massage which could be removed by
clicking "c" and then "y". After this the computer acted normally but
doing this whenever I start the computer is a nuisance.

After installing windows 98 on a different disk I did a similar
mistake leaving an empty floppy in a: while starting win98.
After that, the computer on starting would go to the 1-st win98 screen
and stop there. I had to reformat c: and reinstall win98.

Does anybody know why this happened and how this could be corrected?
Also is there a way how to prevent this in the future other than
keeping alert and not leaving wrong floppies in a:

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Clarification of Question by vaac-ga on 22 Jun 2004 12:42 PDT

Thank you, crythias-ga, for suggesting to clean up the mess by
starting the computer from a Norton Antivirus cd-rom. There are
several such cd-roms available and some are very expensive because
they probably contain features I
don't need. Could you be specific telling me exactly Which one I need?
Also, will the old 03 version which Amazon.com sells for $6 do, since
I probably do nor need the ability to combat recent viruses?

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Clarification of Question by vaac-ga on 22 Jun 2004 12:55 PDT

Thank you  again, crythias-ga, for suggesting to clean up the mess by
starting the computer from a Norton Antivirus cd-rom. I forgot in the
last qualification to ask if McAffee's virus scan would not be better
an cheaper?

How to prevent in the future: 
1) Make sure you have antivirus software installed, updated, and
active, and scan all floppies.
2) Go into your computer's BIOS setup (Press DEL, F1, or whatever the
message is on startup) and make certain that the HARD DRIVE is the
first Boot Device. If the boot sector of the floppy is never accessed,
the virus can't propogate.
3) If you can, stop using floppies and start using USB key drives. At
about $30 after rebates for 128MB, you'll find that the smaller, more
portable drives are able to fill your needs faster, and you can
usually leave them in without worrying about a boot sector virus.

How to fix the problem:
Boot from CD from a retail copy of your favorite Antivirus Program
(Norton Antivirus is one that has this feature/ability). The same
place that you may change the Hard Drive as first boot device also is
the place you can set the CD as first boot device. You can usually
safely leave the CD as first boot, but Hard Drive as first boot can
speed up your boot process ever so slightly.

All you need to be certain of is that the Antivirus CD is bootable.
This is usually listed as a feature on the box. I specified "retail"
as opposed to "download" which of course won't boot as a CD :).

I'm not sure which version Norton you're looking at, but my first
impression is that Norton has had this feature for a while. McAfee is
a direct competitor, and although I've not had personal experience
with its boxed product, I'd think that it should also provide a
similar experience.

If you've been to http://www.sarc.com and have determined the fix for
your virus, you'll still need to boot into safe mode to run the fix.

The minimum you'd have to do is boot Safe Mode, Start, Run,
MSCONFIG[OK] and click the startup tab. Remove almost everything that
doesn't make sense. Check here
http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/Uncheck.htm for more info. In
general, you should leave your Antivirus Autoprotect running, and some
basic drivers. In general, one word programs with no path are safe to
uncheck.

If you want a free AV (download) www.grisoft.com has AVG Antivirus
Free version. It has a fairly good reputation. The original download
may be very very slow, though, as I've experienced.