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Need help making bootable CDs
System: I8200, XPH, CD-RW/DVD, no floppy, BIOS A07
Problem: Can't update video or system BIOS via floppy method and don't trust hard drive method
Solution: Want to make bootable CD from downloaded floppy image
New Problem: Attempts so far have produced a handful of coasters
In Easy CD Creator, there are numerous options for making a bootable CD. I have tried floppy emulation and no emulation. I have tried sector count 1 and 4. I have made sure the file system is ISO and so forth. I have tried track-at-once and disk-at-once. But all the CDs choke and won't boot. The downloaded floppy images create two files in the bootable CD project: BOOTIMG.BIN and BOOTCAT.BIN, and I can see both of these files on the burned CD. I have verified that the system can boot from pre-established bootable CDs. I have also verified that the CD burn process itself is working fine.
What the heck am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help!
Charles Sawyer
67 Posts
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Posted March 9th, 2003 20:00
Just put a blank cd in and go to somms link and click the bios version you need. It should burn automaticly. follow the instructions. If you are worried, contact somms.
Charlietoo
Thanks for the replies. This is the same advice I got in the CD-DVD forum. But I don't see why I should need other people to make CD images for me. According to Easy CD Creator, if I have a bootable floppy image, it should be able to make a bootable CD. I can't get that to happen.
Besides, although people like somms are nice to post these images, it's a subset of what I'm looking to do. For example, I haven't found a CD image for the video BIOS upgrade for my Go 400. And if Dell ever actually fixes the write speed problem with the CDRW-DVD drive in my laptop as has been promised, that will be a firmware update via bootable floppy, too.
Hasn't anyone else tried making bootable CDs from the floppy downloads?
I downloaded the I8000 A21 ISO file and took a look inside it. What I found there is a WinImage file of the BIOS. It contained the following files:
autoexec.bat
command.com
i80a21a.exe
io.sys
The autoexec.bat file had this structure:
@echo off
I80A21A /nvramMessage Edited by Bay Wolf on 03-10-2003 10:12 PM
johnallg - I more or less end up with the same problem using Easy CD Creator.
CRH8100 - Thanks for the link. I checked it out. Looks awfully complicated, though, just to flash a BIOS!
Bay Wolf - Are you saying the WinImage file you checked out wouldn't work? Is that one of the files somms posted? Other people around here swear by those files.
This whole thing is giving me a headache. I think, despite preferring not to, that I'm going to try updating without a floppy. Not using Dell's hard drive method, of course, which is from within Windows and definitely risky. But booting into a primitive DOS-level environment and then executing the flash may be no riskier than the floppy method. I'm just tired of messing around trying to make a bootable CD with the Easy CD Creator software, which implies it should be a straightforward task.
I posted a partial solution to this problem in another forum. It's long, so I don't want to cross-post. If you're interested see the following:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_cdrom&message.id=24108
gibbonsl
5 Posts
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Posted March 9th, 2003 15:00
here is a link for iso image for the latest bios
the link is from somms sig.
http://images.lunarpages.com/uxga/dos/bios/