Bootable CD -- how to make one?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Blaustein
  • Start date Start date
J

John Blaustein

namniar, Daniel, David and D.Currie,

Thanks so much.

I now see my problem. I did not understand that when the CD boots, it is
drive A:, and will only show what was on my floppy when I type DIR.
Furthermore, I didn't know that I needed a CD driver in order to boot and
then have CD access.

Looking at bootdisk.com -- http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm -- it looks
like I can use DOS 6.22 Alt1. (Perhaps W98SE OEM Alt1 would work too.)

One last question, then I think I've got it -- will I need to create an
autoexec.bat file to load the CD driver, or will bootdisk do that on it's
own?

I should note that I the laptop does not have a floppy drive. Also the Dell
diag files that I want to run exceed 1.4MB, so I can't just copy them to the
floppy that I use in Creator 6 to make the bootimg.bin file.

You are all very kind to help, and I much appreciate it.

John
 
Hi,

I'm trying to make a bootable CD that contains Dell Diagnostic software on
it. I want to be able to boot a Dell laptop from the CD and then run the
Dell Diagnostic programs. The diagnostics do not need to run automatically,
but they need to be visible when I type DIR at the DOS prompt.

I'm using XP Home, SP2 with all updates applied. Also, I'm using Roxio Easy
CD & DVD Creator 6, Basic Edition, Disk Creator Classic.

I have all the Dell Diag files in a folder on my HD. In Creator 6, I select
File>New>Bootable Disk. I then insert a bootable floppy and Disk Creator
makes an image file which it copies to the list of files to burn to the CD.
(I'm selecting "Floppy disk emulation" from the disk-type pulldown.) Then, I
drag all of the Dell Diag files from the HD to the CD, and burn the CD.

When I look at the CD in Windows Explorer, I see all the Dell files and
bootcat.bin and bootimg.bin. The laptop will boot from the CD, but when I
type DIR at the A: prompt, I only see the DOS files from the DOS image. I do
not see any of the Dell files.

Can anyone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?

I've looked at bootdisk.com and I'm sure the answer is there, but frankly
I'm not sure which of their solutions is right for me.

John
 
namniar,

Thank you. I've looked at bootdisk.com, but I'm not sure exactly which of
their solutions is right for my purposes.

John
 
John Blaustein said:
Hi,

I'm trying to make a bootable CD that contains Dell Diagnostic software on
it. I want to be able to boot a Dell laptop from the CD and then run the
Dell Diagnostic programs. The diagnostics do not need to run
automatically, but they need to be visible when I type DIR at the DOS
prompt.

I'm using XP Home, SP2 with all updates applied. Also, I'm using Roxio
Easy CD & DVD Creator 6, Basic Edition, Disk Creator Classic.

I have all the Dell Diag files in a folder on my HD. In Creator 6, I
select File>New>Bootable Disk. I then insert a bootable floppy and Disk
Creator makes an image file which it copies to the list of files to burn
to the CD. (I'm selecting "Floppy disk emulation" from the disk-type
pulldown.) Then, I drag all of the Dell Diag files from the HD to the CD,
and burn the CD.

When I look at the CD in Windows Explorer, I see all the Dell files and
bootcat.bin and bootimg.bin. The laptop will boot from the CD, but when I
type DIR at the A: prompt, I only see the DOS files from the DOS image. I
do not see any of the Dell files.

Can anyone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?
Click to expand...

Not trying to rain on your parade, but are you sure those Dell utilities
will run from DOS? You may be going through all of this bother for nothing
if the Dell diagnostics are Windows programs or if your drive is formatted
with NTFS and you need to access the drive. Unless, of course, the
diagnostics are just a hardware check which don't require access to the hard
drive or file system.

You might want to look at something like BartPE which will boot you into a
WIndows-like environment and which has full access to the files on the hard
drive. At that point, you could run your utilities from the hard drive, or
from the CD if you had them installed there.
 
D.Currie,

Thank you for the reply. And don't worry about rain on my parade! I'm just
trying to solve this thing.

The Dell utilities are made to run from DOS. My HD is NTFS, but the
utilities do not need to access the HD. As you suggested, the utilities are
to check hardware.

I've downloaded the utilities from Dell and unzipped them into a folder on
my HD. Then, in Creator 6, I've selected the option to make a bootable disk
and provided a bootable floppy. Then, I drag the Dell files to the CD
layout and burn the disk. The disk boots, but when I type DIR, I don't see
any of the diagnostic files. Clearly, I'm missing something here.

John
 
By bet is something with the burning software. Are you finalizing the CD or
leaving it open?
 
If you didn't put the utilities on the bootdisk, they won't show up after
typing "dir". Directly after boot, you see the virtual floppy (a:) and will
have to change drive to the CD. (c: if you only have NTFS-paritions)

Wich means.. You have to load drivers for your CD unit. You can download a
bootdisk containing CD-drivers from http://www.bootdisk.com
 
You need to include the DOS mode drivers for the CD rom or in isnt really accessable even though you
botted with it. The easiest way to do this is if you have a Win 98 Emergency Boot Disk (EBD), use
this to create the bootable CD when it asks for a floppy to copy from, this has the cd drivers on
it. It will allow you to boot with CDROM support and assign a drive letter to it.
 
John, if the diagnostic files you want to run fit on the floppy disk (with
the boot disk files) then simply copy the files to A: from your hdd/cdrom
while still in windows. Verify that they did copy while still in windows by
opening A:. Then reboot with the floppy in the drive and make sure your
BIOS is set to boot from A: before your hdd with the O/S.

If the diagnostic files do not fit on the floppy then follow Daniel's
suggestion (RE: cdrom driver bootdisk) and make sure the diagnostic files
are on a cdrom.

I generally pick the DOS 6.22 version of bootdisk as I believe it is the
latest version of DOS.

hth,

r.
 
The clock on my PC somehow got changed. I want to be sure you guys see this
message, so I'm reposting it.

John

-----------

namniar, Daniel, David and D.Currie,

Thanks so much.

I now see my problem. I did not understand that when the CD boots, it is
drive A:, and will only show what was on my floppy when I type DIR.
Furthermore, I didn't know that I needed a CD driver in order to boot and
then have CD access.

Looking at bootdisk.com -- http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm -- it looks
like I can use DOS 6.22 Alt1. (Perhaps W98SE OEM Alt1 would work too.)

One last question, then I think I've got it -- will I need to create an
autoexec.bat file to load the CD driver, or will bootdisk do that on it's
own?

I should note that I the laptop does not have a floppy drive. Also the Dell
diag files that I want to run exceed 1.4MB, so I can't just copy them to the
floppy that I use in Creator 6 to make the bootimg.bin file.

You are all very kind to help, and I much appreciate it.

John
 
SUCCESS!

Thanks to all the help here, I got it to work. (It's so easy when you do it
right!) I used the Windows 98SE Startup Disk (EBD) when EZCD6 asked for a
bootable floppy. Then, I dragged all my Dell files to the CD and burned it.
The CD booted perfectly in the Dell laptop, asked if I wanted CD support, I
said "yes," it booted to A:, I changed to D: and there were all my Dell
files. The diags run with no problems. I did not need to edit or create an
autoexec.bat or config.sys file -- both were in the EBD files.

Again... thanks to all...

John (original poster)
 
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