Introduction

A while ago I was trying to make a PC bootable CD ROM for work.
I found out that it wasn't that simple as I thought it would be.
There are a few things where you have to think about:

Emulation: Floppy,  Hard disk or none.

• Floppy Emulation: 1.2 MB, 1.44 MB or 2.88 MB.
• Hard disk: Disk Capacity with a maximum of 650 MB, SCSI (no E- IDE).
• No emulation.

In this page I will describe the steps and requirements for making such a disk.
So, if you're interested, please keep reading this page.

Requirements

For creating a PC Bootable CDROM you need at least the following requirements:

• CD Recorder
• Blank CDR-media
• Floppy disk or bootable (SCSI) partition < 650 MB
• CD Writer software capable of creating ISO files (e.g.. Adaptec Easy CD Pro)
• System BIOS which supports El Torito specification (booting from CD-ROM)
• E-IDE or SCSI CD-ROM supported by BIOS

EL-Torito Standard

The El-Torito standard describes the standard of the Bootable CD-ROM.
This standard it too detailed to describe it here on my page.
On the page of Phoenix Technologies you'll find an Adobe Acrobat file which describes the standard in full detail.
The file you need is called SPECS-CDROM.PDF (Look for the "El Torito"specification)

Also very helpful is the following document wpbootcd.pdf (Tip from H.Reeg)

Software Packages.

There are quite a few (good) software packages out which you can use to create a PC Bootable CD-ROM.

• Adaptec Easy CD Pro 2.0 / 2.11b (end of life) (Now integrated into Roxio Software)
• Adaptec Easy CD Creator (Deluxe) 4.xx / 5.xx (Now Roxio Software)
• CDR HyCD Publisher or at http://www.HyCD.com
• CeQuadrat's Win On CD to Go (now Roxio Software)
• Elektroson's Gear
• Nero Burning Rom by Ahead

I tried to create a PC Bootable CD-ROM only with the following package(s):

• Adaptec Easy CD Creator Deluxe 4.xx / 5.xx
• CDR HyCD Publisher
• CeQuadrat's Win On CD to Go 3.0
• Ahead Nero Burning Rom 5.5x and 6.xx

The creation of a PC Bootable CD-ROM.

There are five methods (or possibly more) of creating a PC Bootable CD-ROM:
I'll describe some methods here and since software developers have added a Wizard into the program, more help is not needed from me here anymore. 

1. The patch method
2. The HyCD Publisher method.
3. The WinOnCD to Go method.
4. The Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.xx / 5.xx method.
5. The Ahead Burning Rom (Nero) method.

The PC Bootable CD-ROM side-affects

If  you create a PC Bootable CD-ROM with an floppy image as boot, there are a couple of things where you have to think about:

• When the system has booted from the CD-ROM, Never remove/replace this CD with another if you still want to be able to read content of this disk otherwise the A:\  Drive (=CD-ROM) becomes inaccessible.

• If you read the A:\ drive (by using the DOS command DIR) you'll only see the floppy image.
  All other data on the CD-ROM is INACCESSIBLE. As the disk thinks it's a floppy drive
  Resolve this by loading the appropriate CD-ROM driver in your Config.sys and Autoexec.bat.
  This means that the CD-ROM drive has two (2) ! physical drive letter assignments.

• If you read the PC Bootable CD-ROM from an already booted OS, such as DOS, Windows 95, Windows NT or OS/2 you'll only see the 'Data' that's on the Disc.
  The Boot image (= floppy) is either:

1. invisible
2. displayed as BOOTCAT.BIN
3. displayed as BOOTCAT.BIN and BOOTIMG.BIN

Note: These 'side-affects' apply to all methods.

Relating web-links