[syslinux] Booting from CD.

H. Peter Anvin hpa at zytor.com
Sun Jun 8 19:26:39 PDT 2003


James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> I know that some BIOSes can boot from CD, and some cannot.
> I was wondering if it would be possible to create a single Boot floppy 
> that would cause the CD to boot just as if the BIOS had tried to boot it.
> So, for example, I have a Bootable CD. I put it in a computer and it 
> boots fine.
> I then take that same Bootable CD to another computer, but it fails to 
> boot because the BIOS does not support booting from CD. I would like to 
> have a single floppy disk that I could put in this computer to cause the 
> computer to boot from the CD.
> 
> So, in summary, a boot floppy that would add El Torito support to any BIOS.
> 
> Can any of the SYSLINUX etc. tools provide this.
> 

No.  Writing such a floppy would be possible, at least as long as you 
only worry about ATAPI CD-ROMs (otherwise you need drivers for each.)

	-hpa





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