Hi Eric:
The catalog file is created by mkisofs and you do not need a
pre-existing file if you are using the El Torito boot method
and a floppy disk image.
To create the CD this way, I BELIEVE the simplest possible
mkisofs command is:
mkisofs -b floppy.img -c catalog -o bootable.iso floppy.img
The file "floppy.img" must exist, in this case in the current
directory. You do not have to create the catalog file at all,
but a filename and the "-c" argument must (AFAIK) be present.
The floppy.img file must be a BOOTABLE floppy disk image.
I create these under Windows myself using a program called
VFD (Virtual Floppy Driver) because I find it easier.
The resulting CD's are bootable. Done this way, the CD
appears as "A:" when booted and is, of course, read-only.
Interestingly, on most computers, the floppy.img file can be
either 1.44MBytes or 2.88MBytes.
As Eric pointed out, if you have a problematic BIOS, the
ISOLINUX technique may work better for you. I use this
technique, and all I need is a bootable floppy disk image.
Hope this helps.
Mark
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi, I think the boot.cat file must NOT be empty. It is as needed
as a boot sector for a bootable diskette. Without proper boot.catalog,
the CD will not be bootable. You can find a 2048 byte boot.catalog
file in the root directory of the FreeDOS beta 9 sr 1 ISO image.
The ISO image has some more boot-related stuff in the isolinux directory.
The files in isolinux/data are probably the files which are actually
used during booting: Info texts, MEMDISK, a logo, and a 360k disk image.
Eric
...
mkisofs -b image/boot.img -c boot.cat -A FreeDOS \
-o /mnt/dos/mycdimag -P 'My DOS CD' \
-p C_Spitzer -r -V DOSCD -v .
cdrecord -v dev=/dev/hdc mycdimag
Note that I have left a lot of things that are specific to my system
like /dev/hdc is the CD burner and /dev/hda1 is my DOS partition.
...
I did figure out one trick there must be a file called boot.cat or
whatever after "-c". So I created a one byte file and mkisofs worked.
...
Perhaps the solution is a drive switch allowing me to choose between
cdrom, cdrw and both. Is there such a thing?
No, you can boot a bootable CD-R or CD-RW in any drive which can read
the disk (e.g. CD-ROM drive, CD writer, DVD drives...). But you have to
do follow the ISOLINUX install instructions, otherwise it will not boot.
Or, if you prefer, the "create bootable CD with plain diskette image
without ISOLINUX" instructions, but it is better to use ISOLINUX, as some
BIOSes have broken plain-diskette-image support.
The mkisofs parameters used to create the beta9sr1 ISO seem to have
been: -q -l -N -duplicates-once -boot-info-table -iso-level 4
-no-emul-boot -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -p Jeremy Davis -publisher
FreeDOS - www.freedos.org -A FreeDOS beta9 Distribution -V FDOS_BETA9
-o fdbootcd.iso C:\minicd4\
(note that there must be '' around multi-word things on the actual
command line, e.g. -p 'Jeremy Davis'...)
Note that using -c boot.cat means that you ARE using ElTorito boot
style and that you are NOT using plain-diskette-image boot style.
According to mkisofs (creates ISO images) help, the boot.cat file
is created by mkisofs itself, so you do not have to provide it??
On the other hand, the file at the -b option CAN, it seems, also be
a plain diskette image. It is the -no-emul-boot option which tells
mkisofs that the -b file is NOT a diskette image.
The -boot-info-table means that 56 bytes from offset 8 of the -b file
will be updated to match the layout of the particular ISO file which
you are creating.
The -l -N options are there to allow other filename style than 8.3 plus
version numbers, I wonder why they are used. For the BOOTABLE property,
only the -boot-info-table -no-emul-boot -b isolinux/isolinux.bin is
needed. You can get isolinux as part of the syslinux package, but if
you have Linux, you probably already have isolinux somewhere. The
isolinux.bin file will look for an isolinux.cfg file in the same directory.
For everything else, read the docs or look at the beta9sr1 iso image.
Eric
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