Recipe 11.9. Creating a Bootable CD
11.9.1 Problem
You need to burn a bootable CD.
You already have the boot image and data files.
11.9.2 Solution
The boot image needs to be rolled into the .iso
with mkisofs.
If the bootable image is on a floppy disk, first make a
boot/ directory in the file tree that is going
on the CD, and copy it there:
$ dd if=/dev/fd0 of=~/cd-files/boot/boot.img bs=10k count=144
Or copy it from another location on the hard drive:
$ cp boot.img ~/cd-files/boot/boot.img
Then package the .iso:
$ mkisofs -r -b boot/boot.img -c boot/boot.catalog -o bootable-cd.iso ~/cd-files
Now burn it to disc with cdrecord, in the usual
fashion, and you have a bootable CD.
11.9.3 Discussion
mkisofs uses the El Torito specification to
create a boot image that fools a PC into thinking
it's seeing a boot floppy. All you need is the boot
image, and mkisofs creates the boot catalog.
The options are:
- -r
-
Set the file ownership and modes so that anyone can read the files.
- -b boot/boot.img
-
Specify the path and filename of the boot image. The
boot/ directory is relative to the root
filesystem of the CD.
- -c boot/boot.catalog
-
Create and name the boot catalog file.
- -o bootable-cd.iso ~/cd-files
-
Name the new .iso, and give the path to the
files that go into it.
11.9.4 See Also
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