DOS Boot CD

Adeptus Titanicus

No, not the wartime submarine story...

In my infinite wisdom I built my new rig without a floppy drive :rolleyes:. Well, the work laptop doesn't have one and I get by so...

Anyway, I have been trying, unsuccessfully to create a boot CD. I tried Nero's boot CD option, but that kept crashing out on boot, so I made a boot floppy on another machine and used that as the basis for creating a boot CD, but it doesn't give me access to anything other that a virtual A drive, so I can't copy files to/from C: for example. I need this to flash my 9800, and I would like to back up the bios first...

I've googled for ages on this and can't seem to get anything that works and is free, Is there an easier way? Has anyone got an ISO image they could mail me? If all else fails I'm ripping the floppy out of the other machine temporarily, but a boot CD would be great to have.

Thanks All.

SouperComputer

a program called winimage may help you. It can be used to make image files of floppies, you can read on another machine and use the image in nero to make it bootable.

or, if you couldn't be arsed: www.ultimatebootcd.com

hope this helps

Adeptus Titanicus

I really am a lazy ****. I scanned over that Ultimate Boot CD site a while ago, but thought it looked like more than I needed. Downloading now. Just thought I should be able to get a simple DOS boot going. I had basically tried what you described first with no luck.

Thanks for the tip though!

SantaHoe

Originally posted by Adeptus
No, not the wartime submarine story...

Heheheahaha
Good one.

Adeptus Titanicus

Es freut mich, dass es Dir gefallen hat.

Well, I tried the Ultimate Boot CD (which looks really good; can boot into MemTest for example, handy), but I still can't get to the C drive. It creates a virtual A, a RAM disk at Q and boots into R.

I haven't been drinking (much), but I'm sure I'm missing something.

?

silverside

Look at this

http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/

simple dos boot disk creator

you may also need ntfsdos.exe if your windows partition is NTFS

Adeptus Titanicus

Yeah, I tried that too and couldn't access the C drive. But now that you mention it, they are NTFS drives, so it's probably not surprising the DOS session can't see them.

I just downloaded ntfsdos.exe, but from my reading of it, it only provides read-only access to NTFS partitions. If this is true, I may not be able to use it as I want to backup the existing BIOS on the chipset (although I could just go download it to be safe).

Will give it a go now... Thanks for that!

ozmo

Originally posted by Adeptus
Yeah, I tried that too and couldn't access the C drive. But now that you mention it, they are NTFS drives, so it's probably not surprising the DOS session can't see them.

I just downloaded ntfsdos.exe, but from my reading of it, it only provides read-only access to NTFS partitions. If this is true, I may not be able to use it as I want to backup the existing BIOS on the chipset (although I could just go download it to be safe).

Will give it a go now... Thanks for that!

Yeah - you have to pay for the Write version. I got it for fixing pcs and it works great.

I think you can also boot to a dos prompt from your WinXP or Win2K CD's. Boot the install cd and select "Manual Repair". You are dumped into a dos like shell with write access to the C drive. Dont know if you can run your flash tool in this -but worth a shot to try and get a backup at least.

A better, safer and easier option is to use a USB keyring type fob. You can boot off these in all modern bioses. IBM have a tool on their website to make it bootable.
You dont need access to the C drive then - should be nuf space on the keyfob
I got one from Komplet for 9 euros for a 32meg one last week.

sirlinux

a knoppix cd will let you get at your NTFS partitions

Civilian_Target

If I was using my own PC I could be of more use to you, but I'm not, so just try this.

Google for a windows 98 or windows ME boot floppy as a .img file.

Try http://www.drd.dyndns.org/fr_index.html?/disks.html I haven't read it but it looks promising. Also try www.madboot.com

Then get yourself a copy of Burn At Once from pricelessware.org install it, select master data CD and go to properties. Choose bootable and load up your .img file. Stick on any other files you want on the CD (no point in wasting it after all) and burn.

SantaHoe

This is why I always keep a FAT32 partition handy.

Adeptus Titanicus

Originally posted by SantaHoe
This is why I always keep a FAT32 partition handy.

I hear ya! I seem to remember giving the same advice to someone about a year ago. :rolleyes: Stupid brain doesn't work anymore!

Civ, I tried something similar where I used Nero to create a bootable CD based on a Boot Disk (in another machine), but again I ran into the problem of not being able to access the hard drive, and not being able to back up the BIOS as I wanted to. The main issue has been getting an NTFS capable boot CD so I can write to an NTFS partition.

I solved my problem by taking the floppy drive out of another machine temporarily, so I did what I needed to do, but it'd be nice to have a CD for future use. I'll have a browse around those sites you mentioned and see if there's anything like that there.

Thanks for the tips everyone!

Civilian_Target

Aha. Knoppix can read but not write, as you know. In fact, the only thing I know that can write to an ntfs partition is windows. So, erm.... thank god I have an ext3 and a fat32 partition on my PC as well

SouperComputer

Originally posted by Civilian_Target
Aha. Knoppix can read but not write, as you know. In fact, the only thing I know that can write to an ntfs partition is windows. So, erm.... thank god I have an ext3 and a fat32 partition on my PC as well

ive used knoppix to write to NFTS before. It just mounts all FS as read only be defualt. I think its still risky with NTFS, but I havnt have any problems yet.