Create Bootable CD from a Bootable Floppy using Nero

[Gaula13]

No floppy/diskette drive on your target PC but you have access to a PC that has one and has a CD writer? Then I offer this as a solution to a problem that I found difficult to resolve.
It is very frustrating to find a vital piece of DOS–based software or, indeed, a critical software update (such as a Thinkpad BIOS and/or Embedded Controller update) that is only offered in Diskette or Windows Based formats. Often a floppy drive is not a part of the target PC being upgraded or, for safety reasons, you may simply want to run the update or utility outside the Windows environment.

The pre-requisites for this method are as follows:

• Any PC with a floppy drive, a CD Writer, Nero 5 (or above) and a blank CD compatible with both the burner and the CD drive on the target PC.

• The target ThinkPad with a CD drive and its BIOS settings set to boot from CD before the hard drive.

The method is as follows:

1 Insert a blank formatted diskette into the A: drive and a blank CD into the CD burner.

2 Download/create/write the bootable diskette as instructed by the Lenovo site and/or installation instructions for the update. Note: If you are updating both the BIOS and the Embedded Controller, then you will need to go through this entire routine twice to create separate bootable CD's for each. Once each CD has been created, it is a simple matter to boot from each CD in turn and then, finally, start the target PC as normal. To be safe(st), please ensure that you update the BIOS first.

3 Open Nero Burning ROM. The “New Compilation” Screen will be displayed. In the left-hand panel, scroll down and select the icon labelled “CD-ROM (Boot) – the tab headed “Boot” will open with a top sub-heading of “Source of boot image data”.

4 Select “Bootable logical drive” and A:\ 1.44 MB. If your floppy drive is not A: then select the appropriate one.

5 Under “Advanced”, select “Enable expert settings”, Floppy Emulation and Nero Boot-Loader.

6 Now select the “New” button on the bottom row.

7 A new screen headed ISO1 – Nero Burning ROM will appear. This has 2 basic sections – “ISO1” and “Browsers”.

8 Under “Browsers” and “Devices with Removable Storage”, double click “3½ Floppy” – usually “A:” – and the files on the diskette will be displayed. Since this is already a bootable floppy, it can be assumed that all of the file names are DOS compatible. Select all of these files and drag them to the pane headed “Name” under the “ISO1” sub-heading.

9 When the files have finished transferring, right-click anywhere in the blank pan headed “New” and select “Create Folder” from the drop-down menu. Rename the folder as you see fit but do remember the DOS file naming restrictions. If in doubt leave well alone and write a more meaningful description on the physical CD once the burn operation has been completed.

10 Now you are ready to burn the bootable CD. Select “Burn” and the “Burn Compilation” screen will be displayed. Ensure that at least “Write”, “Finalise disc” and “Buffer underrun protection” are selected. Personally, I also prefer to select a write speed lower than the maximum available since this usually helps to avoid possible errors during the burn process.

11 Now select “Burn” at the bottom of the screen and the bootable CD will be created. When the burn progress screen is displayed, remember to ensure that the “Verification” box is ticked. If not, select this but beware that the CD will eject after the actual burn and then close again automatically to start verification.

12 Once verification has completed, check the status display carefully – it may well say something to the effect that verification has completed successfully but with errors – a mutually exclusive statement in my eyes!! If this happens, try burning another copy immediately since often a second burn is successful.


I hope that this is helpful to someone!!!!!!!

[poshgeordie]

Many thanks for this - I'll try it tomorrow

As you say, burning at a very slow speed is a very good idea.

Does this work for CD-RW's OK?

Moderators - may I suggest this is stickied?

[rkawakami]

Good write-up. I too may also give this a try for some diagnostic programs I would like to have on CD instead of a floppy disk.

However, a word of warning: if the utility / diagnostic / program that is being written onto the CD-R or CD-RW needs to write back to the media it's booting off of, then it will fail to operate properly.