How do I make a CD bootable ? 1

[coupleojars]

Dear all,
Should be an easy one for you lot this one..........I want to make a CD bootable so that it comes up with a dos prompt....the equivalent of getting a floppy disk and typing format a: /s. I've tried copying the io.sys and msdos.sys and also making an autorun.inf but neither seem to work . Any ideas ladies and gents ?

Have a good weekend...........Mac

 

[Win98User]

Presumably, because of the forum you are posting in, you have either Win 95 or 98.

You will find that those setup disks are bootable. Also, you need to enable the BIOS to boot from the CD-ROM before it boots from you Hard drive.

I must confess that I have never attempted to make a bootable CD-ROM from windows 9x operating system - I don't really suppose I will ever try.

There are plenty of applications out there Drive Image, Ghost etc. that will allow you to create a bootable CD-ROM but it is usually to facilitate use of those products.

Regards.

 

[crisc]

Just burn the files on your bootable floppy onto the CD. config.sys, autoexec.bat, command.com need to be on it.

 

[Win98User]

Just being nosey. Have you tried that crisc? Did it work?

Thanks.

 

[crisc]

Yes. As you mentioned, as long as the CDROM is set as 1st boot device,it will find the system files and boot from them.

 

[Grenage]

I guess as long as the medium didn't need to be written to you could just about boot it off any media available in the BIOS.

 

[coupleojars]

Tried doing as you mentioned Crisc, but that didn't work...I've tried it on afew differnet desktops / laptops too....

 

[crisc]

Is CDROM listed as the primary/1st boot device in BIOS?
Did you copy the contents of a functional boot floppy to the CD?
What is happening when you try booting from it?

 

[cyberdyne]

Hi ! coupleojars

Just by copying io.sys and msdos.sys wont make the cd bootable. First you make a bootable floppy and all other file that you want to have on the cd. ( Dont forget to add dcrom drivers and mscdex.exe)
Now run your CD writer software. ( Ex: Easy CD creator / Nero )
( I dont remember exact menu option but this is what it means given below)
There you run wizard : Select Create Bootable CD.

It will ask for bootable floppy . the you add remaining files that you want for your CD.

When your cd is ready, change yr bios setting of booting sequence to CDrom in first device. then it will boot from cd and will take you to A drive. ( This is not your floppy drive.) your floppy drive will be B drive then. and you can access yr hdd partitions.

I am using one for myself.

Good luck.

Apoorva

 

[TheZeDD]

Cyber, you are so correct. You need a burning-rom (and a burner =) that support BOOTABLE-CD Creation!

Only two files are created on the CD, .bin and um.. .cat? I am too tired at the moment to remember the other since the last time I looked at or created one was some years ago =) But I will say it is all I will use.

I'd be happy to send you an iSO (its like a meg compressed) but you should be able to find it fairly easy on your own if you have access to a burner and a burning-rom such as mentioned above.

If you would like, here is a couple links but I have not tested them myself and suggest a "Use At YOUR own risk:

http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

[lots of info but a little technical]

But I believe

http://www.nero.com/en/index.html

could help you as well with a demo version =)

- Cheers!

 

[SurferJoe]

Yeah, I don't think you can just copy those system files. That doesn't work for floppies for sure. I have windows 98 and Nero Burning ROM and I just goto control panel/add remove programs/create startup disk to make a bootable floppy, then i put a cd in my burner, fire up Nero and turn the wizard off and choose bootable cd, tell it to choose the boot files from A: and click new... Now you can add 600 and some other megs to the cd for utility programs or the win98 installs etc and then burn it...

For Example, I created a CD that has my whole drive backed up right after a fresh install of everything. I can have nothing on my hard drive, put this disk in and boot to it (you do need that set in your bios setup when you start your machine) and it automatically restores C: to how it was right after I got done installing everything fresh (only in 20 minutes instead of 5 hours) (I used 3 other programs for that, free at download.com partition resize, ranish partition manager, and partition saving)

 

[coupleojars]

Cheers surfer.....that worked first time

 

[TheZeDD]

For future refence though, 98/ME/2k and XP (PRO ONLY) will work the same.

Imaging your O/S setup in Home edition of XP will not work =/

- Great Thinking MS ... what a way to leave all the home users!