Hi, I think it's because gemrun.bat overwites the path= statement in memory. Path tells DOS were to find files.

That means that the Windows directory nolonger is in the path (c:\windows; c:\windows\command), until reboot.
Or until you run autoexec.bat on drive c:\, as it happens on boot.

Edit: That "not ready reading drive A:" is also because of this, I assume.
There is a: in the path, which DOS tries to check/access when searching for files.
Changing everything to c: with MS-DOS Editor (edit) or Windows Notepad should help.
Adding Windows directories to the path (as found in autoexec.bat) shouldn't hurt, either.

I know, that's inconvenieant, but these Gem start-up files were meant for a dedicated DOS machine of the 80s, were only the supplied DOS is used.
The user was expected to alter the start-up files as needed.

PS: Disk 1 can be written to floppy by writing FDCOPY 460001.CFI A:, assuming that A: is the floppy drive.

thanks for the info i will give that a try and see how i go