Create a bootable CD or DVD with or without floppy

Create  a  bootable  CD  or  DVD  with  or  without  floppy


With  the  CD-ROM  available  on  almost  every  computer  nowaday,  floppy  drives  become  a  history.  However,  for  those  who  find  computers  a  hobby,  might  run  into  a  situation  when  they  need  to  create  a  bootable  CD  that  works  just  like  the  old  floppy  disk.  Unfortunately,  to  do  this,  you  still  need  a  floppy  drive  to  read  your  bootup  floppy  disk.  Wait,  the  good  news  is,  you  can  just  down  load  a  bootable  ISO  image  and  burn  it  to  a  CD.  And  even  better,  we  have  a  copy  of  an  ISO  image  right  here.  You  can  download  this  image  and  follow  the  instructions  below,  or  you  can  do  a  web  search  for  more  options.

The  information  on  this  article  will  guide  you  step-by-step  how  to  create  a  bootable  CD/DVD,  either  using  a  bootup  floppy  disk  or  a  boot  image  file.  You  will  end  up  having  a  bootable  CD  or  DVD,  with  CD-ROM  driver  supported,  that  could  startup  your  PC  and  bring  up  the  command  prompt.  This  is  going  to  be  a  good  starting  point,  then  you  can  run  other  utilities  such  as  hard  drive  ghost,  etc..

Many  current  CD/DVD  burning  software  support  the  bootable  feature.  If  you  already  have  your  favorite  burning  software,  look  around  to  find  the  bootable  option.  For  this  article,  I  will  use  the  steps  and  sample  screen-shots  with  the  burning  tool  called  Nero.

You  will  need  a  boot  disk  (floppy)  or  a  bootable  ISO  image  to  start.  If  you  don't  have  one,  you  can  download  an  ISO  image  here.  This  boot  image  is  Windows-98  based,  which  means  it  uses  the  Windows  98  bootup  sequence,  which  should  do  what  we  need.  You  can  also  download  different  boot  disk  images  from  the  internet.  I've  found  bootdisk.com  has  a  very  good  collection.

I  assume  that  you  already  have  Nero  installed.  Also,  it  is  highly  recommended  to  use  a  rewritable  disc  so  you  can  redo  the  process  if  you  have  to.


Launch  Nero  Burning  ROM

At  the  New  Compilation  Window,  select  "CD"  from  the  drop-down  menu  and  select  "CD-ROM  (Boot)"  for  CD,  (or  select  "DVD"  and  "DVD-ROM  (Boot)"  for












If you use a bootup floppy disk, insert the floppy disk and select "Bootable logical drive..."


If you use an image file, select "Image File" then click "Browse" to browse to the image.


At the "Open" Window, browse to the location where you saved the boot image and choose the image you wish to use and click "Open" (you might need to change the "Files of type" to "All Files" in order to see files with different extensions.)

















Click "New" at the New Compilation Window.
Nero New Compilation Window disappears and Nero brings up its main screen where you can add more files to the CD/DVD if you wish. For example, adding a "ghost" folder with the file "ghost.exe" as follows.
Once you're done adding all the files you wish to, click on the "Burn" icon.














At  the  "Burn  Compilation"  Window,  select  "Burn"!

No comments:

Post a Comment