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Make CDRom bootable?

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5 replies

by ballyb

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Does anyone know how I can make an older PC's cdrom, bootable? This is the situation:

(133mhz, 64 mb, 1gig scsi HD, floppy and cdrom drives)
Want to fdisk and format it (clean).
I want to load up NT4 (for simple testing, etc):

I have a '98 boot disk; it sees the HD (c:) and the Ramdrive (d:). When I do e: (etc) dir...it doesn't see the cdrom drive. I know there is a way to add the cdrom command to the boot disk, eg. adding mscdex.exe to the autoexec.bat...or something?! But am confused!

Appreciate any help?

5 replies

by timwalsh

The ability to boot from a CD-ROM is provided by the system BIOS. It may be possible to do a BIOS upgrade on your sysytem to provide the boot capability, but maybe not. You need to check out the BIOS manufacturer's Website to see if an upgrade is even available. Based on the machine specs you gave I am assuming this is an older computer, so you may just be out of luck.

by murphysbest

Your CDRom is not being recognized. The 98 Boot disk covers some drives but not all. You need to find out your model number and try searching at http://www.driversguide.com/ (paste into your browser - no spaces)for a driver for your CDRom model number. If you cannot find it there try a post there, but also add to your post here and include you model number.

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