Bootable CD doesn't show all files

[SJ2571]

Hi, I'm a newbie here, but I've done a lot of searching of these forums. No answer has worked for me yet.

 

I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to create a bootable CD with a selection of third-party apps (such as Ghost). Using the info in these forums, I've so far been able to create a bootable CD, but not with the third-party ancillary stuff showing up -- even though they are on the CD!

 

You should be adding the normal disc content in the 'Source' box on the left and then adding the *.ima file to the bootable disc tab

That's what I've done. Observe:

 

 

In the image above, the boot image I've selected is one I extracted from an XP boot floppy that I just formatted.

 

Now, you can see I've added my ancillary files into the source area, and created a bootable ISO called D:\Boot.iso, which is fine so far.

 

If I double-click that ISO file with WinRAR, it looks like this:

 

 

You can plainly see the ancillary files are there (eg. ghost.exe and so on).

 

But if I boot with that CD, I can only access the boot image files:

 

 

It's like the CD is just the image of the floppy and nothing else, but WinRAR proves that the other ancillary files ARE there.

 

So... what step am I missing so that I can access these ancillary files at bootup? Thanks.

[mmalves]

For the drive to be recognized in DOS mode you need to load the ATAPI.SYS driver and the MSCDEX.EXE extension. To do this you'll need to write/change files on the floppy disc image.

[SJ2571]

Hi mmalves, thanks for the info. I used a Win98se boot disk image instead, which invokes the necessary MSCDEX app, and it all works fine on my desktop PC. So, thanks for that!

 

However... I also have an Asus Eee PC, which doesn't have a native CD/DVD drive. For that, I use a portable USB drive, and MSCDEX doesn't work with that -- it says no CD drive could be detected. In fact, that's what the screenshots I posted are of. So, I'd still like to be able to access those ancillary programs from the portable USB drive somehow. Any ideas on how to overcome that problem?

[mmalves]

Not sure about pendrives as Windows doesn't like to partition them, but if you have an USB hard disk you can make a small partition on it, format it as bootable FAT16 (Windows calls it just FAT) and you'll be able to boot and read files from it

[SJ2571]

Nope, all I have is my portable USB-powered DVD drive, which I need to be able to boot a CD from. Maybe someone else here can help (fingers crossed).

[LIGHTNING UK!]

You'll have to do some Googling if you want access to a USB drive (that's not under BIOS control) in a DOS based environment.