I made a bootable CD about a year ago, and recorded the
steps. Hope these help:
Making a Bootable CD with Easy CD Creator 5.1 and XP
1. Get a Windows 98 (or 98SE) boot disk (floppy). If you
don't have one, try
www.bootdisk.com. Do not waste your
time trying to use a bootable floppy made by Windows XP.
That floppy seems to be a variation of Windows ME and Easy
CD Creator may give an error such as "the floppy could not
be read", even though you know that it is a good boot
floppy. Curiously, Easy CD Creator can read such a
floppy, if it is the source of files for a normal CD
writing session, but not to make a bootable CD.
2. Verify that the boot disk will actually boot your PC to
a DOS prompt.
3. If you want to use more than the first 1.44 Meg of the
bootable CD you are about to make, verify that the boot
floppy offers CDROM support. If it does not allow you to
see your CD drive (i.e., change directory to it with any
valid CD in the tray), go back and get a more advanced
boot floppy. (The variant you want will have an MSCDEX
command in AUTOEXEC.BAT and a matching DEVICE command in
CONFIG.SYS.)
4. if you want tools like FORMAT, FDISK, etc on the CD,
be sure to add them, if they are not already on the floppy.
5. Once you are happy with the floppy, remove it and boot
normally into the XP desktop.
6. Start Easy CD Creator (version 5.1). Request to make a
data CD (not Direct CD). On the main menu request File --
New CD Project --> Bootable CD. Choose Floppy Disk
Emulation (1.44 MB) and accept the associated defaults
(0x7c0 and 1).
7. Insert the boot floppy that you just tested and click
OK.
8. Easy CD Creator should spend some time (>>10
seconds) "reading the boot information", meaning the
entire floppy. If it seems to run in one second, that is
not right. Try it again. I have found this step to be
less than 100% reliable, but it either works or it fails
fast.
9. After the floppy stops making noise, you should see
that two files have been added to the CD project:
BOOTCAT.BIN and BOOTIMG.BIN
10. These are very important files. Leave them alone.
11. However, feel free to add as many other files and
directories as you like. But, remember that this CD will
boot into Windows 98, DOS mode, so most windows-mode
programs will not work. XP/2000/NT programs may also not
work. Most DOS progams and will work. For example, I run
Norton GHOST 2002 from such a CD.
12. If the hard drive is formated as NTFS, Windows 98 will
not see it. The Win9x family can only see FAT and FAT32
drives. You might want to try the NTFS drivers for DOS
available at
www.sysinternals.com. The read-only drivers
are free. With these you can copy files off an NTFS drive
to a FAT32 drive (or floppy or ZIP). They sell a
read/write version, with which you could make changes on
an NTFS disk.
12. Good luck.
