What makes a CD bootable?

[danielshoes]

Inside a hd we have the MBR with four primary partitions records, bootloaders and things like these. To boot a floppy you only need to do a "format a:/s", wich coppies the DOS system files to the floppy.

And the cd-rom bootable? How does it works?

 

[paruhd0x]

I know your CD-ROM has to be compatible with booting from it. And if it is... then there are burning programs that will do it.. I think Nero will do it.

 

[danielshoes]

I mean, for example:
1) Create a boot floppy
2) Copy (burn) a cd with these files from the floppy
3) Switch bios boot option to CD-ROM.

I ask you: Will the CD-ROM boot? Yes? No? If no, why?

 

[Escalade]

Here's a procedure I found on DejaNews...


First step is to make a diskette that can boot the machine with the CD
drivers if needed.

I will assume you intend to copy some files then exit. If you need to bring
up the full Windows you have to go through a more complicated procedure to create
a drive image and then modify some pointers. The Pheonix bios website has a white paper
that explains this.

I usually bring up DOS or a nonGUI version Win95 (DOS 7) to perform the
install of new data.

When booting from the CD: drive A is the CD the floppy moves to B. You need
to specify the drive letter when installing MSCDEX etc.

Use a CDRW to make your data portion and get everything to work using a
bootable diskette (write protect it) and this test CDRW.

Once everything is working:

If using Adaptec's EasyCD Creator
use File->CD Layout Properties->Data-Settings
File system is ISO9660 and click on bootable.

When you write the CD it will ask you to insert the bootable diskette.
Copy over all the data from the working CDRW.

Burn your CD.

 

[jkdude]

there are certain files on the cd which perform sort of an autorun/boot-up command... also, your cd-rom has to be able to be bootable too, in order for bootable cd's to work. almost all newer computers can handle them... some older pentiums can as well, but not all.

 

[SUOrangeman]

It's a bootstrap.

No, seriously. A bootable CD is made by copying the boot information (the bootstrap) from something that is already bootable (floppy, hard drive, Zip, etc.).

-SUO