BOOTISO by Jason Livingston (jasonliv@erols.com) - Version 1.00 Legal Information BOOTISO, this document, and all included files are (C) Copyright 1997 Jason Livingston. You may not modify or distribute these files without express written permission from the author. By using BOOTISO, you agree that you understand and acknowledge the terms of this agreement. Jason Livingston WILL NOT be held responsible for any losses or damage due to use of this software or the instructions contained in it. BOOTISO should not be used in the creation or modification of commercially made CDs, CDs sold for profit, CDs used in a public exhibition or demostration, or CDs to be mass duplicated or distributed. BOOTISO may not be redistributed, referenced, or altered in any way or form without express written permission from the author. If you wish to use BOOTISO for these purposes, please contact Jason Livingston at jasonliv@erols.com. PLEASE READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE ATTEMPTING THESE PROCEDURES! BOOTISO now has a web page at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/2996/ It will be updated more frequently than this file, and it contains an HTML version of README with formatting and graphics to help you. Overview of Bootable CD Creation 1. Create a bootable floppy disk or partition 2. Make an image file 3. Make an ISO file containing the image and a boot catalog 4. Patch the ISO file with BOOTISO 5. Burn the ISO file on the first track of a CD Requirements CD Recorder Blank CD-R Disk Floppy disk or bootable partition <650MB CD Writer software capable of creating ISO files System BIOS that supports El Torito Specification EIDE or SCSI CD-ROM supported by BIOS Included Files BOOTISO.EXE - Patches ISO file to be bootable BOOTCAT.BIN - Boot Catalog to be included in ISO file README.TXT - This file DISKIMG.ZIP - Contains utility to create an image file from a floppy or hard disk partition I DID NOT MAKE THIS FILE, AND I DO NOT SUPPORT IT! Detailed Instructions STEP 1 - Create a bootable floppy disk or partition If you already have a bootable floppy disk or hard disk partition that you'd like to use, you can skip this step. However, you may want to read it just in case. Start by formating the disk or partition with FORMAT /S. This will put the operating system on the disk. Then, copy any useful files or utilities to this disk. The most important files are FORMAT.COM, FDISK.EXE, and SYS.COM. Here is a list of what's on my boot floppy: MOUSE.INI CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.W40 AUTOEXEC.BAT HELP.COM AUTOEXEC.W40 MSD.COM MSDOS.W40 MORE.COM DOSKEY.COM PKZIPFIX.EXE TEAC_CDI.SYS ATTRIB.EXE CHKDSK.EXE SYS.COM DEBUG.EXE FORMAT.COM MODE.COM MSCDEX.EXE UNDELETE.EXE FDISK.EXE PKUNZIP.EXE MEM.EXE HIMEM.SYS PKZIP.EXE COMMAND.COM ZAPIT.EXE MOUSE.COM EDIT.COM COMMAND.W40 MEMMAKER.EXE EMM386.EXE SCANDISK.EXE WINBOOT.SYS Now, you probably don't need all these files, so use your judgement and put anything useful or important that will fit. Next, run ATTRIB +R *.* so that all of the files on disk are read-only, then write protect the floppy and boot from it. If at any time you get an error message (especially a Write Protected error), you need to resolve this before making the image. The CD WILL NOT boot at all if the system tries to write to it! Make sure that you can access the CD's drive letter and any other important system resources. STEP 2 - Make an image file Unzip the package DISKIMG.ZIP. Now, you could be a good boy and read all the documentation, experiment around, and ruin a couple of CD blanks. Luckily, the work has been done for you. Just execute the command: SAVEDSKF A: C:\OSBOOT.IMG /D /A This will create an image of the floppy in A: and save it to a file called OSBOOT.IMG in the root directory of your HD. To make an image of a HD partition, replace A: with the drive's letter. Remember, the image will take up sligtly more space than the entire capacity of the drive you are imaging, so take that into account when choosing the directory to save to. If you used a 1.44 MB floppy, this image should be exactly 1,474,560 bytes. STEP 3 - Make an ISO file containing the image and a boot catalog To do this, I used Easy CD-Pro 2.0. However, you can use any program you want that saves and burns raw ISO files. Make sure that BOOTCAT.BIN, included with this file, is the first file to be saved into the ISO, and that OSBOOT.IMG, your image file, is the second file in the ISO image. If you're using Easy CD-Pro, make SURE that these two files end up in the root directory of the ISO, NOT in some sub-directory. That definately won't work. The ISO file should be CD-ROM MODE 1, Multisession, with ISO-9660 compliant file names. You shouldn't use Joliet or anything else wierd in this file. If you wish to add other files to this CD, place them directly after OSBOOT.IMG. In this case, it may be necessary to use Joliet or some other convention to obtain long file names. BOOTISO has been reported to work in these cases, but its correct functioning is not guaranteed. ** NOTE: The operation of BOOTISO is dependant on the correct naming and placement of the files BOOTCAT.BIN and OSBOOT.IMG. Do not rename or misplace these files, or else BOOTISO will not run correctly. Once you've placed BOOTCAT.BIN and OSBOOT.IMG into the file, go ahead and write the ISO file to disk. Call it something like BOOTCD.ISO. If you used a 1.44MB floppy disk as your image, this ISO file should be exactly 1,835,008 bytes long (unless additional files were included). If not, you did probably did something wrong. STEP 4 - Patch the ISO file with BOOTISO This step is easy, thanks to my program. Just run the program like this: BOOTISO BOOT.ISO That is, assuming that you called the ISO file from step 3 BOOT.ISO. The program will first ask you what type of image file you used in the ISO. Just press the corresponding number. After that, things should proceed fairly quickly. If you get the message "ISO Patch Successful", then you're done. If you get an error message or the program seems to take forever, there may be something wrong with the ISO file from step 3. If you are SURE that you made the ISO file correctly, and ONLY IF YOU ARE SURE, e-mail me the error message and data you got. STEP 5 - Burn the ISO file on the first track of a CD For this step, you should use the same program that you used to create the ISO file in step 3. This is because some programs may have slightly different ISO formats that are incompatible with another's. When you burn the ISO file, make sure you do NOT close the disk or write in "Disk-At-Once" mode, or else you won't be able to add more data to the disk. Again, make sure you burn the ISO as CD-ROM Mode 1, Multisession, with ISO-9660 8+3 file names. When the CD has finished burning, put it in your first CD drive and reboot your computer. Check your BIOS to make sure your system will boot from CD-ROM before the floppy or HD. Then just let it boot. If it works, you'll end up in whatever OS the floppy booted to. When you access the A drive, you'll see a duplicate of the boot floppy you made, even though no floppy is present! If you access the CD drive containing the boot CD, you'll see only two files, BOOTCAT.BIN and OSBOOT.IMG. ** WARNING! I have received problem reports from some users trying to add a second session containing Windows 95 or Windows NT files. The CD boots correctly before the additional session is added, but will not boot afterwards. I am looking into this. For now, if you want to risk it, let me know your results. However, it probably won't work. Revision History Unnumbered - A few people received a very early version of BOOTISO with no 4/18/97 version number and missing some important information. You should NOT be using this version! 0.9 BETA - Additional error handling and information. New BETA instructions 5/5/97 and requirements. Interface improvements. Better README.TXT. 0.91 BETA - Better error reporting. Minor changes in README.TXT to correct 6/5/97 most of the problems users have been reporting. 1.0 Final - Major changes in README.TXT to reflect second session and long 11/9/97 file name problems. Some legal updates. End of BETA test restrictions. That's all, folks!