From: Ron Lowe (ron'DOT'lowe'AT'bakeratlas'DOT'com)
 Subject: Re: Making a bootable CD 
 Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsme.general,
 microsoft.public.windowsme.new-user
 Date: 2001-03-19 02:26:11 PST 



In response to the original request "How to make a bootable CD-ROM"
The instructions below are for Adaptec EZ-CD creator V4.x

Creating a Bootable CD
======================
A bootable CD is a CD from which a computer
can be started up because it contains all the
operating system software the computer needs to run.
A bootable CD contains a bootable image,
a file that is an exact representation of a
bootable floppy disk or hard disk.

Easy CD Creator creates a bootable CD by copying the
contents of a bootable floppy disk to a CD.
When you boot to the CD, the exact contents of your
floppy disk are now seen on your CD-ROM drive.
Under most configurations, the CD-ROM drive is
accessible as drive A: while your floppy drive
automatically moves from drive A: to B:.

Note: Creating a Bootable CD-ROM is intended for the advanced user.
It requires an understanding of how to create bootable
floppy disks and how to create and edit DOS CONFIG.SYS
and AUTOEXEC.BAT files.

To create and use a bootable CD, follow the steps in each of the following
sections:

1) Verify that your System Supports Bootable CD

2) Create a Bootable Floppy Disk

3) Create a Bootable CD with Easy CD Creator

In detail:
==========

1) Verify that your System Supports Bootable CD:

Easy CD Creator allows you to create a bootable CD;
however, not all systems support booting from a bootable CD.
Here is what you need to check:

If your computer has a built-in CD-ROM drive,
you should check your system BIOS settings and see if
you can enable Bootable CD-ROM support.
Most Pentium class systems (or higher) support this feature.

If your CD-ROM drive is connected to a SCSI host adapter,
and if the SCSI host adapter has a BIOS on-board,
you should check your host adapter's documentation
and see if it supports booting from a CD-ROM.

2) Create a Bootable Floppy Disk:

The floppy disk you need to create is dependent on the
system you are planning to boot from.
The floppy disk needs to be formatted with the
DOS FORMAT command (FORMAT A: /S) and also contain a
CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file.

The CONFIG.SYS file typically contains the instructions
to load your DOS CD-ROM driver while the AUTOEXEC.BAT
file contains the instructions to load Microsoft's
DOS CD-ROM Extensions (i.e. MSCDEX.EXE).

Please consult your system's documentation for the proper
way to load your DOS CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX.EXE.
You should test this configuration with your bootable floppy disk
before you create a bootable CD.
If your target system boots properly with the floppy disk,
and assigns a drive letter for the CD-ROM drive on that system,
you are ready to create a bootable CD-ROM.

TIP: When you add the command lines to the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT,
do not use fixed paths. For example:

Recommended Entry: device=aspicd.sys /d:aspicd0

Not Recommended: device=a:\aspicd.sys /d:aspicd0


3) To create a Bootable CD:

Insert a blank CD into your CD-Recorder (the destination drive).

Click the small arrow next to the New button on the toolbar
and then select Bootable CD from the drop-down list.

A dialog box appears that asks you to insert a bootable floppy disk in drive
A.
Insert your bootable floppy disk into your floppy drive and click OK.

The contents of the floppy disk are copied to your system and stored in your
CD Layout.
You can see that two special read-only files have been added to the root
directory
of your CD Layout: BOOTCAT.BIN and BOOTIMG.BIN.
From this point, use Easy CD Creator as you normally would for creating a
Data CD.
Note: When the CD has been created, take it to the system you wish
to boot from. Make sure it has bootable CD-ROM support enabled,
insert the bootable CD in your CD-ROM drive, and reboot the system.
If everything worked well, you can see the contents of your
bootable floppy disk as drive A: and the contents of your
CD Layout as Drive X:
(where X: is determined by how you configure MSCDEX.EXE in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT)

Best Regards,
Ron