How to create a bootable cd

The burning software asks for a floppy so it can read the files and use them to create a boot image for the cd. This is the best way to make a bootable CD.

Hi D.C.

First a question:
When you say "I have a Operating System installation disk that does not boot on startup." Have you ever been able to boot from CD or only from floppy or hard disk. If you have never been able to boot from CD even when using commercial operating system diskettes, then the problem lies in your BIOS or in the CD-ROM. The bios must support booting from CD and the CD-ROM must be ATAPI compliant to use as a boot device.

As to the rest of your question: the files needed at boot up depend on the operating system you are using. For example: basic DOS functions are handled by hidden files IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS which call the non-hidden files COMMAND.COM and CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT . You can get the basic functionality by making a boot floppy using FORMAT A: /s and then using ATTRIB to unhide IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS and then copying the whole contents of the floppy to the cd project.

That is for DOS, Windows 9x uses IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS as the hidden files andalso requires CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.COM, AUTOEXEC.BAT. Additionally, you need WIN.COM, KERNEL32.DLL, KERNEL386.EXE, GDI.EXE, GDI32.EXE. If you want to provide backward compatibility for 16 apps you need WIN.INI, WINFILE.INI and SYSTEM.INI. Windows 9x also requires registry files found in the /Windows directory. These are USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT.

This should get you started. As a note, some of these files are hidden system files, and to see them in windows explorer you need to click Tools, Folder Options, View and then select "Show hidden files" and deselect "hide system files". Then you can see all of the needed system files.

I didn't include steps for NT or Windows 2000, I hope that instructions for DOS and Windows 9x should fit the bill. Let me know in a rating reply if you need more help.

Cheers,
dan

First, make a bootable DOS floppy. This floppy disk needs to also have all the device drivers, CD-ROM drivers, MSCDEX, and the startup files you need. This floppy should boot up on any computer.(Test it on one or two.) Make sure that once the machine has booted, you can connect to the CD-ROM drive from DOS

Then "burn" that bootable floppy image into a special area of a CD-ROM.

When your system boots up with a CD-ROM in the drive that has this "virtual A-Drive" floppy on it, it will actually boot from that area, just as if it was a floppy drive.

For additional info:

http://www.netbsd.org/Documentation/bootcd.html

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

Good luck,

Maxwell

If I understand your question, I do not believe that you looking at how to make the CD bootable, but how to change the boot process to your own liking.

The easiest way is to get a regular floppy boot diskette and copy this diskette to a working directory on your system. I suggest that you use a WIN98SE boot disk.

Once you get this copied to your directory, you can read most of the files there with notepad and make any changes that you want. Stay away from command.com. The WIN98SE boot disk will also give you working copies of autoexec.bat and config.sys that you can modify.

If you add any additional commands to the loadup, make sure that you copy the drivers to this working directory and that you point these drivers in the right direction. I suggest using the make directory and copy commands (md on c:\? and copy to c:\?) to carry this out, so that the disk can be used on different system configerations (ie: added drives/partitions/cds).

After doing this, start up yourburner program, tell it to make the cd bootable and when it ask for your file directory, point it to your working directory.

I made my disk this way. It lets me boot the any WIN9X system the way I want (inc ME), but I went several steps farther. I copies the windows command directory so I can use attrib, deltree, ect. without having to have separate disk.

I hope that this is what you were looking for.

Paul.

The OS I am installing is Windows 2000 Advanced Server.

I am unable to use Adaptec as my CD drive is unrecognized by this program.

There are two web pages I would suggest you:

http://www.windowsxp.nu/bootcd/ and
http://www.bink.nu/bootcd/

The first is about making a bootable Windows XP CD, the second is about making a Windows 2000 installation CD with service pack included (aka 'slipstream installation')

Read the two pages, combine this information and I think you might have an answer.
And if not, it at least gives you a start for looking further. At least I gave it my best shot. :-)

You can always check for updates on the site of adaptec to see if your cd is supported in a update.

http://www.roxio.com/en/support/;jsessionid=LFQLUJ22GC32BT33IAVBVQQ

www.roxio.com

regards,

Leopold

make sure you have the correct boot order or options set in bios to boot from a cd also some systems (newer presarios) wont boot a cd from the primary ide channel and some systems wont boot the cd if the cdrom drive isnt set up as a master on any channel or if it resides on the secondary channel at all if you just want to know how to set up and burn a cd that is bootable I am only amilliar with adaptec easy cd creator when doing this but you go into cd layout properties in the file menu and change the file system om the cd to iso9660 and check the make cd bootable check box

have you used adaptec direct cd b4 ?

if you do , there is 2 way of doing it ,

1. After formating the cdr or cdrw , going to dos and type sys x: Which x is your cdrom drive .

2. Just copy the entire Starup Disk like 98 or me to your formatedcdr or cdrw .

It works for me

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