How To Create an El Torito Bootable CD-ROM
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Creating a Bootable CD-ROM has its own tricks, Here even from Microsoft they have its own advice how perform this task.
How to from Microsoft
What is El Torito (CD-ROM)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The El Torito Bootable CD Specification is an extension to the ISO 9660 CD-ROM specification. It is designed to allow a computer to boot from a CD-ROM. It was first issued in January 1995 as a joint proposal by IBM and BIOS manufacturer Phoenix Technologies.
A PC BIOS will not search for a boot sector on an ISO 9660 CD. The El Torito specification sets a CD to emulate a hard disk or floppy disk, the CD would contain one or more disk images - exact replicas - and emulate the INT 13 functions of such disks.
The standard is apparently named after El Torito (Spanish: the little bull) restaurants. The designers of the format were eating at an El Torito when they came up with the format and wrote the first draft on a napkin.
The "El Torito" Bootable CD-ROM Format Specification, Version 1.0
Creating A Bootable CD
The In order to create a botable CD you might have a bootable OS image that can work on any Floppy. The most Important thing is that the bootloader (could be ISOLINUX MS DOS or Free DOS ) is contained on the image.
Most of the bootables CDs are intended for Live Distributions of Operating Sistems (The most popular are Linux based) others are for Games or presentations or stand alone software applications like servers and so on.
Once you have selected your prefered Bootloader, you can use burning software like NERO, prepare your software image to load with CD support.
If you are using a MS-DOS type you might need to edit your autoexec.bat and config sys. FREE DOS and windows 95 provide utilities to make floppy bootables with CD support ready .
If LINUX type you might need to configure some scripts to load os the Bootloader to a virtual RAMDISK to be capable to mount the CD after the booloader loaded the OS kernel.
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