DOS help wanted

[Eric Van Tassel 101233.342@xxxxxxxx]

Can the collective wisdom help me with a stupid problem?

I've been having an occasional problem with my PC (Intel 486, running DOS
6.2 and Windows 3.1). When I try to boot up in the morning, the PC thinks
there's a floppy disk in the 3.5" drive and gives me an error message to
that effect -- "Failure to read Diskette ..." or something along those
lines -- followed by "F1 for setup ... F2 to reboot ..." recurring
infinitely.

So far it's always capitulated in the end and decided to cooperate, but
only after repeating the above sequence several (or many) times over. The
last time it happened, I inserted a floppy in the drive but didn't push it
home -- that is, it was just sitting halfway into the slot -- and perhaps
that had something to do with the fact that the next time I switched the
power on the boot worked fine.

My PC guru (my brother, in fact) e-mailed me with instructions on how to
make a "boot disk" that could be used in such an emergency, but I printed
the e-mail out and deleted it from the hard drive without following the
instructions and making the boot disk; now I can't find the printout and am
too embarrassed to ask him for the explanation again.

Can anyone stand in for brother guru?

Wanly
Eric Van Tassel