problem creating bootable image

[murwood]

I have a bootable 1.44M floppy disk and a blank CD-R. Please lead me through the steps to make the bootable image so I can burn the CD.

 

When I try (using V 2.3.2), the "create boot image" spot on the bootable disk tab is greyed out.

 

I have been searching the forums and all the images of the GUI show this area as active.

 

Mine never is!!!

 

Thank you for any help.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Are you running an old OS? It only works on newer ones due to the commands used to read the discs.

[murwood]

The system is a 2GHz P4 running W98SE.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Ah that'll be why then.

 

When you run 10 year old operating systems you don't get to use the cool new stuff!

 

Ever thought about updating?!

[murwood]

I am a hardware designer. Many of the programs I work with require direct access to the hardware, rather anying to do with XP.

 

W98SE machine is the one with a 3 1/2" floppy left in it.....

 

Any recomendations for another program that will make a bootable image from a floppy?

 

I do not have Nero, and Easy CD Creator 4 installed on another machine insists on trying to write to the floppy first. Virus scans on it show nothing so far.

 

What command are you using to locate the disk?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It uses 'CreateFile' to obtain a handle to the physical device... the msdn documentation has been updated (to just cater for win2k and newer) but I'm sure the old version said that kind of access wasn't possible under non NT OS's.

 

Have you considered getting a USB floppy drive? At least that would then work on your XP machine(s).

 

Winimage can be used for floppy related stuff, no idea if it works with 98 though. You might also find 'rawread.exe' can do the job.

[murwood]

Am I correct then in assuming that by just selecting all the files on the A: drive and creating a regular ISO image, there is no way to then make that image a bootable image?

 

It seems rather odd to me that I can see the drive in the source section, but I can not see the drive in the bootable disk section.

 

BTW: is this the way you are using CreateFile?

 

HANDLE hDevice;

hDevice = CreateFile( \\\\.\\vwin32, 0, 0, NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_FLAG_DELETE_ON_CLOSE, NULL);

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Correct, you can't just copy files from the disc and hope that it's bootable.

 

What do you mean 'source selection' ?

 

The dialog boxes are just the standard windows ones (GetOpenFileName) and the drop down list for grabbing bootable images is my own code. I simply wasn't interested in making it work for old OS's, hence no code is run at all unless you're on an NT based OS.

 

It's one thing opening a file on the A: drive...

 

CreateFile("A:\\somefile.txt"....

 

and another opening the physical device for raw access.

 

CreateFile("\\\\.\\A:"...