[RESOLVED] How do I create a bootable cd?

[Dhelms]

I have a Toshiba Tecra 8100 Laptop that only has a CD/DVD drive, no floppy. When I got it the hard drive had been repartitioned and formatted so there is no operating system on it. I have numerous boot disks but none on CD. I have tried to copy several boot disks from floppies to a CD-R using my HP CD Writer but with no success. Is there any way to make a boot disk on a CD? Right now I have a cool Toshiba paperweight on my desk where a cool Toshiba Laptop should be. Can anyone help? Thanks...

[pm4345]

Can you get into the bios of your toshiba? If so, do you have the option of setting the CDROM as the boot device?

If you don't have that, then you might be s.o.l. Otherwise if you have that, simply change it to boot from the CD ROM.

If you have a win98 SE disk laying around somewhere, try sticking that in as well... it is a bootable disk and allows you to get to a command prompt.

To make your own bootable CD, I would say just copy the contents of boot disk on to the CD and burn it, (never done it myself) but I think it should work?!?!?

Good luck

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Say what?

[NPaladin]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by pm4345:
To make your own bootable CD, I would say just copy the contents of boot disk on to the CD and burn it, (never done it myself) but I think it should work?!?!?

Good luck

</font>

Wrong. Wrong. WrongWrongWrong. A CD is made bootable by a disk image stored in a file called boot.img on a CD...and there is an enumerator called bootcat.bin. Scared yet? Good. Not the easy part...most current CD burning utils (Adaptev V4, WinOnCD 3.7, and Nero) do it automatically, making the img file from a floppy disk. You just need a bootable floppy (NOT, however, a Win98 floppy...they don't work right without being patched...do some searches). It's really easy, actually. Just be aware that that image file becomes your A: drive when you boot to the CD...the CD is your CD drive, and you still have to load drivers for it.

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Bryan Pizzuti
CompTIA A+, CNAP
[email protected]
ICQ # 8525092
Yahoo Messenger: npaladin_2000

[joey3k]

NPaladin is 100% right

However, make sure to load your CD-ROM drivers onto the disk and then making the BOOTCD using Nero or Adaptec. You'll have to edit your config.sys and autoexec.bat files and put the cd-rom information in them

if you need help doing that, just write back

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If the problem persists, please contact help desk.

[NPaladin]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by joey3k:
NPaladin is 100% right

However, make sure to load your CD-ROM drivers onto the disk and then making the BOOTCD using Nero or Adaptec. You'll have to edit your config.sys and autoexec.bat files and put the cd-rom information in them

if you need help doing that, just write back

</font>

That's what I said.

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Bryan Pizzuti
CompTIA A+, CNAP
[email protected]
ICQ # 8525092
Yahoo Messenger: npaladin_2000

[Dhelms]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. After I posted the question I got smart and took a stroll down through the archives of past questions and found the answer right away. Seems like I'm not the only one that has had this problem. In case someone alse needs to know how to get a Toshiba Tecra to boot up from the CD Drive this is how I did it. First I created a Win98 boot disk on another PC, copied it to a folder on that PC's hard drive, modified the autoexec.bat file to forget about checking for errors, viruses, and such and to just boot the darn thing and get my CD drive going. I added all of the drivers that I knew I would need for that particular CD drive to the folder, then I had Adaptec create a bootable CD using the contents of that folder to make the image file from. Voila...Worked the first time and everytime. I spent hours and hours trying to figure that out on my own before I discovered WinDrivers Forums. You guys are the best. During my search through the archives I stumbled on the answers to a bunch of problems I've encountered. Thanks again...(Sorry I was so long winded...I don't get out much.)