Booting from a Floppy Disk with CDDVD Drive Support
Booting from a Floppy Disk with CD/DVD Drive SupportYou might need to boot from a floppy drive on a modern PC for many reasons. One reason is to install an operating system on a newly built system or one with a new or unformatted hard drive. In that case, because the system cannot boot from the hard drive, it must boot from a CD or floppy instead. For a CD or DVD drive to function in a floppy (or CD) boot environment, several drivers might be necessary:
If you need to start a PC from a bootable floppy, the floppy must contain not only a bootable OS, but also the previously mentioned drivers; otherwise, the CD-ROM will be inaccessible. Generic ATAPI and SCSI drivers can be found on the Windows 98 and newer startup disks. Rather than create custom CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files, the best advice I can give is to merely boot from a Windows 98 or Me startup floppy because each time you boot from these, the proper drivers load and autodetect the CD/DVD drives, after which the drives are accessible. You can generate a Windows 98/Me startup disk on any system running Windows 98 or Me. If you don't have access to a Windows 98 or Me system, you can download an equivelant bootable floppy from www.bootdisk.com. After you boot from a Win98/Me floppy, you see a menu that asks whether you want to boot with or without CD-ROM (and DVD) support. If you select yes, after the floppy finishes loading, you should be able to read any discs in the CD or DVD drives. One possible, and useful, task with this capability is to install any version of Windows in a situation where the installation CD is not bootable (such as with most versions of Windows 9x/Me) or where the system is older than 1998 and cannot boot from a CD. In such a case, all you need to install any version of Windows is the Windows CD and your bootable Windows 98/Me startup floppy. In addition, the fact that the startup floppy is from Windows 98 or Me does not matteryou can install any Windows OS using that floppy. For example, to install Windows 9x/Me onto a system, you could do the following:
To install Windows NT, 2000, or XP onto a system, do the following:
Another useful function you can perform with a Windows 98/Me startup floppy is to format a hard drive larger than 32GiB with FAT32 for use with Windows 2000 or XP. The Format program in Windows 2000 and XP is intentionally restricted by Microsoft from formatting volumes larger than 32GiB even though Windows 2000 and XP support FAT32 volumes up to 2TiB in size. In most cases it is recommended to use NTFS on Windows 2000 or XP systems, but if you are creating a dual-boot environment in which you want to run other operating systems that do not support NTFS, FAT32 is the best choice. The restriction on the Windows 2000/XP format command is a nuisance in such a situation, but the only way around it is to use the format from 98/Me. Although I've often used a Windows 98/Me startup floppy to install Windows XP, Microsoft does have official XP startup floppies available for downloading from its website. The file is an executable file that creates the startup floppies. To locate this file, visit the Microsoft Knowledge Base at support.microsoft.com and search for article number 310994. Using a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive that conforms to the ATAPI specification under Windows does not require you to do anything. All the driver support for these drives is built into Windows 9x and later versions, including the ATAPI driver and the CDFS VxD driver. If you are running a SCSI CD-ROM drive under Windows, you may still need the ASPI driver that goes with your drive. The ASPI driver for your drive usually comes from the drive manufacturer and is included with the drive in most cases. However, by arrangement with hardware manufacturers, Windows typically includes the ASPI driver for most SCSI host adapters and also automatically runs the CDFS VxD virtual device driver. In some rare cases, you might have to install an updated driver that you have obtained from the manufacturer. When you install a PnP SCSI host adapter in a Windows system, simply booting the computer should cause the operating system to detect, identify, and install drivers for the new device. When the driver for the host adapter is active, the system should detect the SCSI devices connected to the adapter and again load the appropriate drivers automatically. For DOS users, merely use the Windows 98 or Me startup disk, which includes the necessary DOS SCSI and CD-ROM drivers that support most SCSI cards and CD/DVD drives on the market. To learn more about the process of preparing to use a CD/DVD drive from a DOS prompt, see "DOS ATAPI CD-ROM Device Driver" in the Technical Reference portion of the disc packaged with this book. Bootable CDs and DVDsEl ToritoIf your system BIOS is a version dated from 1998 or later, most likely it has "El Torito" support, which means it supports booting from a bootable CD or DVD. The El Torito name comes from the Phoenix/IBM Bootable CD-ROM Format Specification, which was actually named after the El Torito restaurant located near the Phoenix Software offices where the two engineers who developed the standard ate lunch. What El Torito means for the PC is the capability to boot from CDs or DVDs, which opens up several new possibilities, including creating bootable CD/DVD rescue discs, booting from newer OS discs when installing to new systems, creating bootable diagnostics and test CDs, and more. To create a bootable CD, ideally you need a CD/DVD burning application that allows the creation of bootable discs. Additionally, in some cases you need a bootable floppy that contains the drivers to support your CD drive in DOS mode (sometimes called real-mode drivers). The best source for these drivers (if needed) is a Windows 98 or Me startup floppy, which can be generated by any Windows 98 or Me system. Windows 98/Me startup disks can be used because these have the DOS-level CD-ROM support already configured and installed. If you don't have access to such a system to generate the disk, you can download one from www.bootdisk.com. Before creating the bootable CD/DVD, test your boot floppy (with CD-ROM drivers) by first booting to the floppy. Then, with a CD or DVD containing files in the CD/DVD drive, see whether you can change to the CD/DVD drive and read a directory of the files (try the DIR command). The CD/DVD usually is the next drive letter after your last hard drive letter. For example, if your last hard drive letter is C:, the CD/DVD will be D:. If you can display a directory listing of the CD/DVD after booting from the floppy, your drivers are properly loaded. To create a bootable CD or DVD, simply follow the directions included with your CD/DVD burning application. Programs such as CD/DVD Creater by Roxio and Nero Burning ROM by Ahead Software make the creation of bootable discs a relatively easy procedure. Creating a Rescue CDSeveral programs on the market today allow you to make a compressed image file of the contents of any drive. These programs, such as the Ghost program sold by Symantec or PowerQuest's Drive Image, enable you to lock in the condition of any drive as of a particular time. This enables you to create an image file of your system when it's working and use the image-restore feature to reset your system when it fails. The perfect place to store a compressed image file is on a CD-R. At a minimum, your rescue disk should contain the compressed image file (a 737MB, 80-minute CD-R/RW could contain the equivalent of a nearly 1.5GB drive's normal contents if the maximum compression option is used). It's also desirable to place a copy of the image-restore program on the CD. Mastering this type of rescue CD is done exactly the same as a conventional CD mastering process. To use the rescue CD, you must boot your system with drivers that allow the CD-ROM drive to work, run the restore program to read the data from the CD, and overwrite the drive's existing contents. If you're looking for a single-CD solution to rescuing your system, one that won't require you to lug around a bootable floppy disk, you can burn a rescue CD that is bootable all by itself. Making a Bootable CD/DVD for EmergenciesA little-known capability to PC users is that they can create their own versions of what is standard with more and more new computers: a bootable CD/DVD that can be used to start up a system and restore it to a previously saved state. The minimum requirements for a bootable CD/DVD include
Because the procedures can vary for different burning software, you should follow the directions that come with your software for the exact procedure for creating a bootable CD or DVD. |
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 283