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Boot Cd Help
RitualOfTheTrout - Dec 16, 2005
    RitualOfTheTrout Dec 16, 2005 
I want to create a boot CD, but without using floppy drive emulation. This method is fine, but it limits you to only 1.44mb, then if you want more data you need to load CD rom drivers and what not to read any extra data.

As an example winXP installs right off the CD and never uses any sort of CD rom drivers.

I have an autoexec.bat file, and a config.sys file along with about 15 meg of other files. Is there a program where I can just point to the files I want and select to make it bootable and it will proceed to boot and follow all the commands in the autoexec?

Iv read a little bit about Harddrive emulation, which would also work but I do not know how to go about doing that or how to make an image of it to burn..

Any help on the matter would be great, thanks!

    it290 Dec 16, 2005 
Can you give us a little more info on what you're trying to accomplish?

    RitualOfTheTrout Dec 16, 2005 
To simplify it a bit, I created a winXP startup disk. I basically rewrote the autoexec.bat and config.sys files to do what I want. I added CD-Rom support, and then it loads files into ramdrive and what not.

I started Nero and clicked on create bootable CDrom I added my files then selected the disk as the boot image. It works great, but its a pain because 1 I need to load CDRom drivers, and two everytime I want to make changes I need put the disk in, edit the files and save them to disk then go through the process all over again.

The CD autodetects the network card, loads the driver then it loads norton ghost and automatically connects to the session.

I just want to remove the floppy disk part of the equation. Just make the CD bootable and have all the files read off the CD like a WinXP install CD does.

Is that any clearer?

Probably not hehe

    Merick Dec 16, 2005 
It's been a long time since I've tried anything like this (dos 6/win3.1) but can't you have the bootdisc make the ramdisk at something like 700 megs then copy all files from the cd onto it?

*edit*

I re-read your post, are you saying the you use a floppy to boot up, then access the cd? And that you want to change it so that the cd istelf is bootable?

    it290 Dec 16, 2005 
Well, from what I understand, the standard El Torito way of doing things is exactly as you've described. Are you sure the Windows install CD doesn't do the same thing? You can see it loading all the drivers externally during the first part of the install.

As for the process you're doing with the floppy, on Linux you could mount the floppy image using the loopback device instead of using a physical floppy disk. There are similar tools for Windows that deal with CDs (Daemon Tools, for example), so perhaps there is a program that will allow you to just work with the floppy image? Should be a lot faster and more convenient.

    Curtis Dec 17, 2005 
This... is an older guide, but I've used it with success in the past.

    cgfm2 Dec 17, 2005 

  
Originally posted by RitualOfTheTrout@Fri, 2005-12-16 @ 04:36 PM

I want to create a boot CD, but without using floppy drive emulation. This method is fine, but it limits you to only 1.44mb, then if you want more data you need to load CD rom drivers and what not to read any extra data.

As an example winXP installs right off the CD and never uses any sort of CD rom drivers.


Not sure if this is what you want, but:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/...

UBCD takes bits and pieces from your Windows XP installation CD and makes an ISO you can burn to a CD-ROM. You can then boot on any computer with hardware that XP supports. I found it invaluable to work with computers where the hard drive was dead or had major virus problems. It's free, and worked well in my situation.

Plus you can throw on whatever extra data you want. I loaded up my boot CD with AdAware, AVG, Firefox, and some additional drivers.

    vbt Dec 17, 2005 
you can try also nlite :

http://www.nliteos.com/index.html...