Creating a bootable CD

[Muse]

Would seem to be easy but it's turning out not so easy. I have a utility I have to run from a DOS prompt, not a Windows DOS prompt. It's to run on a laptop, so I can't use one of my many bootable floppies, so I want to use one of my CD-RWs, write the EXE to it and have it bootable. I used Nero 6.x on an XP machine to create a bootable CD but when run on the laptop, it says it's opening Caldera DOS, but a prompt never shows up. I tried to boot my XP desktop to the same CD and it just ignored it and went straight to Windows. WTF.

So, what's a guy to do? What's a reasonably easy way to do this? I think one of my laptops might have RecordNow on it, and I suppose I could try using it. What do you think?

Edit: Wow, I'm looking at the contents of the CD-RW in XP's Windows Explorer and I see exactly nothing. It's as if there's no disc in the drive. Whoa...

 

[Muse]

Looks like I can format a floppy disk in XP and use that to create the Nero bootable CD. Well, I'll see if it works.

 

[Muse]

Goddamn, Nero reports "caching of files failed." Twice.

Edit: Failed four times. This just isn't working. Gotta try something else...

 

[Muse]

Finally! I used a brand new 1.4 floppy, moved the EXE to the HD from the USB and the burn worked. Phew! I hate floppies.

 

[bankster55]

Just exactly what are you trying to do with the bootable media?
First of all, floppy or USB or CD needs a boot image
Anytime you are making a boot CD/DVD you should use UltraIso - many more options
In Nero 6, when you make a boot CD there is an area that asks you for path of boot image (somewhere on you HDD that you saved previously - like boot.ima - that link is avail here if you look carefully:
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=297

You can also use Win 98 startup floppy - format with sys files

If you want to get fancy (I always use USB stick now for all this kind of thing) you can use Winsetup to USB
http://www.datafilehost.com/download-deec7fdd.html

Edit: I was posting while you were, so ignore

 

[Muse]

Edit: I was posting while you were, so ignore

Actually, lots of good ideas there. I tried to create a bootable USB a few years ago but it didn't work. Maybe I'll have a stab at this one. I just downloaded the file, winsetup something... Thanks!

Edit: What I was trying to do was run an Intel utility from a DOS prompt that would reprogram ROM on a used (for parts) Thinkpad I just received. My attempt failed because the instructions were wrong, but I can do it, it's a piece of cake. Meantime I worked around the problem by turning off boot from network in BIOS config options, probably not something I or anybody would ever need on the machine. I may do it the other way, but it returns the ROM to defaults and I'm not sure that's a good idea. You see, I'm in the dark here a bit... The machine looks great, actually, and I'm almost sure it will be a great laptop once I get an OS on it, one of my next projects.

 

[bankster55]

O.K. well dunno if this additional will help you, but UltraIso has very extensive boot image manipulation options. You can rip a boot image fom virtually anything already bootable and insert it to some other like media to make it bootable

".bif" is Win 7 boot image file in this case. I just rename it to Win 7 boot.bif (x64 and X86 same)

 

[Muse]

I finally got a bootable CD-RW that worked. The trick was to put the executable on the bootable floppy before using Nero to create the bootable CD-RW. If I asked Nero to use the executable that was on the HD, the resulting CD-RW would not work for the purpose. Don't know why, but the former method produced the disk that did work.

My problem now is that the restore disks I made with my same model machine 4 years ago are not installing on the machine. They are XP. I might just skip XP and install Windows 7 32 bit Home Premium. I have an upgrade disk from a laptop that died two months ago. It was an Acer, but maybe it will work for the Thinkpad T60. Not sure. It's got the CoA, so why not?

 

[bankster55]

IMHO using a CD-RW for anything today is old school. esp since CDR's are less than 10 cents, and is prob the cause of all your issues. CD-RW use brings out the whole formatting caveats that arise with that media. (even worse with DVD-RW and DVD+RW), whether or not to format, and burner compatibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-RW
==================================
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_format_a_CD-RW
"You must format a CDRW if you want to drag and drop files to it and be able to delete them. This is using "packet writing" software like Nero InCD. If you just want to use a CDRW disk to "burn" data to like a CDR disk then no, you don't need to format it, in fact doing so will make your burning software refuse to operate because the disk will not be empty. The formatting process will make the disk unburnable until you erase it."
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I remember in the old days I used DVDInfo Pro to do my formatting - this sw detects what media is loaded in your burner and makes the correct format - strange formats - and allows erasing. This is only app I know that does this still around.

As far as your using Win 7 OEM on dif branded PC's is whole nuther topic. That gets into the bios, certificate, SLIC vers. and proprietary serial issues. Trying cant hurt anyways - heh

 

[Muse]

Yeah, I'll try, I'm hesitant in part because I'm not sure I want to run Win7 on this lappy yet. If I decide to run on a different machine I may be on the phone to MS to do the switch. Not horrible, but I'd rather not.

I used to packet write but gave it up a long time ago. I just treat CD-RW's like regular CDs and when Nero asks if I want to erase the contents I say "OK." Don't normally have any issues, and I don't have to toss the plastic when I'm done. For music I don't do it, but for something I'm gonna want for a few minutes only, I figure "why not?" I've had the same cheapo CD-RWs for over 10 years, I think, 6-8 of them. I may have had to toss one, but the remaining ones work OK. I used to burn MP3s to them all the time and rewrite them at will, but now I have flash players.