Re: What makes a CD-ROM bootable?
- From: "Jim Langston" <tazmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:15:34 -0800
Scottman wrote:
I am wondering what makes a CD bootable, and more specifically, if it
is possible to write some kind of boot sector that will load another
program (also on the CD-ROM) into memory and run it (all without an
OS).
I opened my master boot record in a HEX editor, but the task of
translating the hex into x86 assembly language seems daunting. Is
there a utility that would do this for me? I was thinking then I
could figure out how it loads an OS and alter it to load one of my
programs.
Does this seem feasible?
A CD rom to be bootable needs a boot sector. Googling for "format boot
sector cd-rom" gave a lot of hits, the first one seems rather promissing,
from IBM soem specidication for something they call "El Torito" bootable
CD-ROM format Specification.
A bootable device (floppy, CD-ROM, DVD, Hard Drive, USB drive, etc...) can
load anything arbitrary that you want. As to what you want it to load,
that's up to you. There are a number of utilities out there to write boot
sector (Linux has a few, etc...) if you just search for them, but you're
going to have to figure out what you want to load.
A bootable CD is great, but only if it boots something useful, such as an
operating system. If you have some program you wrote you wish to boot to,
that's fine, but be aware that your program won't have access to any OS
utilities unless you put include them somehow. Writing an OS is a daunting
task but writing something simpler may be more easily accomplished.
--
Jim Langston
tazmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
.
- References:
- What makes a CD-ROM bootable?
- From: Scottman
- What makes a CD-ROM bootable?
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