how do you make a bootable CD?

[smp]

I need to make one, how can I do this? Thanks.

 

[RyDogg1]

Just take a typical floppy disk, format it and make it a system disk. Open up your CD burning software, copy the floppy to a folder on your HD and burn the contents of that folder to the CD. You need to make sure you have at least Command.com on the CD.

Some CD burning software will make one for you. I know Nero Burning Rom has an option to make a bootable CD.

Ryan

 

[smp]

Really?!! It's that easy? My friend saw some stuff on the web that made it appear as if you needed to do some stuff in hex and what not.. something about the tortilla?

 

[RyDogg1]

yeah it's that easy as long as the motherboard supports boot to CD. My suggestion is to download Nero and use the boot CD option first. See what goes into it and then you can fancy it up with stuff like adding diag tools to the CD and all kinds of stuff.

Ryan

 

[Tuan]

I don't think it works like that RyDogg1. If you just copy the command.com to the root of the CD directory it won't look for that when the computer boots up. You need to have the boot files start at a specific sector on the CD disk. Nero does this by reading the image of a bootable floppy disk and placing it at the right location on the CD. After you burn your CD, you cannot even see this boot sector normally.

So smp, it is not as easy as copying the files like that, but it is still easy. Just have a boot disk in your drive and use Nero to make a bootable CD using the disk image.

 

[Razorbacks]

Here is a good site that is talking specifically about W2K, but should give you the general idea:
http://www.thetechguide.com/win2kbootcd/

 

[smp]

Thanks all. I didn't think you could do that, because you can't do that with a floppy (copy boot floppy to folder, copy to empty floopy doesn't work). Unfortunately, I'm at school, and we need it here for admin purposes. We have adaptec software that doesn't do the boot CD thing and warezing NERO is a no no in this place. We are using NT4 too. Thanks.

 

[smp]

Razorbacks: that link is amazing. I'm gonna be doing that for my own win2k. Nice.