Bootable CD

[Laguna]

Hi can anyone tell me how to make a bootable CD as i have been having a LOT of trouble getting a floppy disk to work.Everytime i make one and i use it to boot any of my machines and i try to type in a command for it to do like open the DVD drive to load a disc(EG windows installation)it just says either invalid drive specification or the selected drive has no label etc etc.

Can anyone tell me how to make a Boot cd that i could use to boot a machine with no OS on it with no trouble.And is there anyway to make a bootable cd for a machine with no OS and only one Disc drive in it?And be able to take the boot cd out and then put in the windows disc?

Any help is appreciated.

[Sylvander]

1. How to make a free “Smart Boot Manager” floppy
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41498
This makes it easier to boot a chosen drive [particularly the one holding the EBCD]. You could make this just in case you ever get your FDD fixed.

2. How to make a free EBCD bootable CD
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=41485
This has a number of useful utilities included including "Image" [for DOS, by Terabyte] & "File Manager".
File Manager is the program that will allow you to display the contents of any drive [CD-drive included], then navigate to a folder/file and "Open" it.
Post #4 of this thread shows how I used this to copy Windows installation files to a partition on my HDD and run the installation from there. It's good to do this and then leave the files there permanently.

KNOPPIX (http://www.knoppix.org/) is a Linux Operating System that loads from a bootable CD, which makes it slower than an OS that loads from a HDD. But it detects all your hardware, sets itself up for use, and once running offers all the usual things that Linux offers. e.g You can go online using Firefox.

[Laguna]

My floppy drive isnt broken i just cant get any MS dos sikette i make to work properly there is nothing wrong with the FD.

Il take a look at the first link and let you know how it goes.

[Sylvander]

You can download a Windows98 Boot Floppy Image (http://www.onecomputerguy.com/install/floppies.htm#boot_floppy)
This is actually a Win98 Startup Floppy that is slightly better than the one that Windows makes.
I guarantee it to make a good workable disk [I've tried it and found it good].
Seems to me you'd have a hard job going wrong making this. All you've got to do is run the downloaded program file [with an unformatted floppy in the drive] and it will do everything necessary to make the workable disk.

These may be of interest:
Bart's way to create bootable CD-Roms (for Windows/Dos) (http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/)
Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD (http://nu2.nu/pebuilder/)

[Paul Komski]

Bart's way is somewhat of a gold standard though I have always found his instructions a bit hard to follow: see http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/cdromsi/index.php?p=1

If you want to burn a CD with your own software or using a utility such as BurnCDCC (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads/burncdcc.zip) then just download and unzip the BCD111.zip file from the Bart's page and use the mkisofs.exe file inside the bin folder in the download; you will also need a floppy image file (normally used to create a bootable floppy diskette) I havent used Sylvander's one but the winme oem startup diskette from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm has always been a goodie for me.

Use lower case for all names/naming. Create a new folder called zfiles in the c: drive. Place mkisofs.exe in the root of the c: drive (next-to but not in the zfiles folder). Place whichever floppy image file you decided on into the zfiles Folder. Next rename this diskette image file to floppy.img. Open a command window (entering cmd into the run box is one method). At the command prompt type and enter (exactly as follows and noting the single spaces):-

c:\mkisofs.exe -v -b floppy.img -o mybootcd.iso zfiles

If all has gone to plan you should have created a mybootcd.iso file in the root of the c: drive and which you can then burn to a CDR/RW. You can also optionally include other files you want to have available on the eventual CD inside the zfiles folder. If you want these files to be accessible from the eventual CD then the floppy image file must contain CDROM support. I have suggested the root of the c: drive because it creates the simplest command line but the files can be placed elsewhere and given different names.

In a nutshell what this does is create a bootable CDROM that has "two compartments" an emulated floppy drive accessed using the A: drive letter and a CDROM volume accessed by whatever drive letter the floppy image you used would have pointed to if it had been made into a bootable floppy disk.

Some of the burning software packages can do the whole thing for you but you usually need the full retail edition of Nero or whatever to create a boot floppy CD and include the files you want to access.

If you are intending to run a Win2K or WinXP installation from installation files and not by booting to the original cdrom use winnt.exe and not setup.exe to run the installation.

[Laguna]

Well slvanders bootable floppy worked like a charm.Thanks a lot its a great boot disk and shows you ALL your hardware and makes life a lot easier to direct to drives etc.

Thanks Slvander.

[Paul Komski]

If a boot floppy now works it looks like you either had a corrupt file system on your other floppies or they were simply bad with surface defects. The good thing about writing image files to floppies is that they usually only complete the write process if verification is confirmed. Formatting startup disks from windows doesnt do this.