REQ: Changing/Making a Boot CD?

[wee]

I have an 'installation CD' that will boot automatically when it is in
the drive at boot up.

My BIOS scans for a bootable CD disk first, and because a CD disk is
present, the system boots to the CD and the software thereon installs.

That is good, but I would like to leave the disk in the drive after
installation, so the installed program can access other things on the
disk. But as long as the disk is in the drive at boot up, the system
insists on booting to the CD.

I have seen and used other 'installation CDs' that start with a menu
(at boot) whereby I can choose whether to boot from the CD or boot
from the HD (W98 and/or WXP).

What can I change, or what can I do, to make/get a choice menu like
that?

Thanks

Wee

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

That choice is a menu function on the CD itself. Unless the CD already has
it, you will not be able to add it.

Instead, why not simply copy the CD to hard drive if you wish for files on
it to be accessible from the system? The seek and retrieve time will be
greatly increased.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Lil' Dave]

The option to boot from CD is strictly a bios option.

If in the past, you had an screen option to boot or not boot from CD, its
part of the bios options.

I have mine set to wait five seconds for me to hit the "return" / "enter"
key if I want to boot from CD. If there's no bootable CD present, I never
see this screen.

 

[wee]

Hi,

That choice is a menu function on the CD itself. Unless the CD already has
it, you will not be able to add it.

Instead, why not simply copy the CD to hard drive if you wish for files on
it to be accessible from the system? The seek and retrieve time will be
greatly increased.

I was thinking that the choice was a CD menu function also. So, I was
hoping maybe I could copy the CD contents to HD, modify a menu, make a
new boot CD and go from there. Question is how?

Wee

 

[wee]

The option to boot from CD is strictly a bios option.

If in the past, you had an screen option to boot or not boot from CD, its
part of the bios options.

I have mine set to wait five seconds for me to hit the "return" / "enter"
key if I want to boot from CD. If there's no bootable CD present, I never
see this screen.

I have other 'boot CDs' for different apps that will give me a choice
with the same BIOS, so I figure the choice must come from a menu or
some such on the CD itself.

Wee

 

[Lil' Dave]

Did you test your past observations to see if they're still true for all
these bootable CDs you have?

Making a boot CD is rather simple. But, don't understand your current
condition if true.

 

[wee]

Did you test your past observations to see if they're still true for all
these bootable CDs you have?

Making a boot CD is rather simple. But, don't understand your current
condition if true.

Yes that is still true. See my just posted post in
microsoft.public.win98.performance about using so-called Bart's way to
make a boot cd. I am still trying.

Thanks

 

[Jeff Richards]

The BIOS is pretty much out of the picture by the tie that the CD has
presented the user with a menu. There are a number of ways in which a
startup menu can be constructed - see the standard Windows 98 startup disk
for an example of one menu system. Allowing selection of the boot device is
a much more complex task than a simple menu, since by the time the menu
appears the boot process is already underway. I think that process would
require access to the BIOS in order to change the device setting and then do
a hard restart. An alternative is to actually load a new version of the boot
code into the bootloader region of RAM and then jump to it, or to run the
equivalent of the BIOS boot code from RAM. However it's done, it's a complex
procedure that will be unique (or nearly so) to any CD that implements it,
and I doubt that you could simply edit some sort of configuration file to
make it work with a different disk. Close examination of those other CDs
might reveal how they do it.