MPC2000 boot disk suddenly unreadable HELP

Okay, so I'm finally getting the hang of my MPC2000; I was bangin away at it for at least a few hours recreating "Drop It Like It's Hot," and the Boot Disk was in the floppy drive the whole time (cause I save my stuff to an external zip drive.) After I was all done, I turned the machine off and on again to make sure everything had been saved properly, and I get this message after just a few seconds: "Disk read error!!" I have tried it a number of times since then (happened a few days ago,) with the same result every time. It was my only copy of the OS, so here are my questions:

1. Why did this happen?
2. Do I need to buy a new boot disk?
3. Is it possible to copy the the OS onto my computer and put it on a new floppy, and if so, would that even help or is the file itself f*cked for good?

The OS is version 1.72, if that makes a difference. This is SO FRUSTRATING. Any help is much appreciated!

The easiest thing to do is download another OS from akai. I just recently came up on this same problem 2 weeks ago, and I have already fixed this problem. The error may have also caused problems in your floppy drive also, (which made me have to buy another floppy drive and install) but it's probably a faulty disk. Usually when you get a disk read error, the bad condition of a floppy disk can make it hard for a floppy drive to read its contents, so take special care of your floppy disks. Hope this helps.

It doesn't look like they have an OS for MPC2000. Will the 2000XL OS work on the regular machine?

No that one is for the 2kxl only but you can download it here :

http://www.forat.com/Downloads/2_mpc2kv172.zip

Awesome! Thanks guys, it worked like a charm. Now, to make 450 copies...