burning 5.3-RELEASE CDs

[Danny MacMillan]

On Tue, Jan 04, 2005 at 10:13:56PM -0600, Scott Bennett wrote:
>      On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 17:21:06 -0500 Parv <parv at pair.com> wrote:
> 
> >in message <200501030936.j039arAx022411 at mp.cs.niu.edu>,
> >wrote Scott Bennett thusly...
> >>
> >> I've downloaded the following ISO image files:
> >> 
> >> 	5.3-RELEASE-i386-bootonly.iso
> >> 	5.3-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso
> >> 	5.3-RELEASE-i386-disc2.iso
> >> 
> >> I've also tried burning the first file to CD-Rs using Windows XP
> >> Home's own facilities and using Sonic RecordNow! under said
> >> system, but did not get bootable CDs either way.
> >
> >First time i tried the software of same name unknown version (IBM
> >ThinkPad T42, Windows XP Professional), i selected "Data Disc" and
> >chose the ISO image.  Well, it did do its job: i got the ISO image
> >/file/ on the CD.
> >
> >After more poking around in the software interface, "Burn Image" or
> >some such option was revealed under the heading of "Data Disc" or
> >some such.  And, that too did its job: i got the mini install ISO
> >image on CD to boot with.
> >
>      Thanks for the suggestion.  I've now gone back and found the
> little green button in Sonic RecordNow! for making a bootable CD.  I
> then tried it with each of the first two files noted above.  The CDs
> written via the green button do get a little farther than before.
> In the earlier case, the machine barely glanced at the CD before
> deciding to boot from the hard drive after all.  The green button
> CDs, instead, run far enough to display a message in the upper left
> corner of the screen that says, "Missing operating system", and then
> hang.

This is not intuitive, but you do not want to use the "make a bootable
CD" function of Sonic RecordNow! to make a bootable CD.  The ISO files
you downloaded are disc images that are already bootable.  If you burn
a faithful reproduction of the image onto a CD, the CD will be
bootable.  The way to do that is to burn the image to disc as an
image, not as a file.  Most CD burning software have an option like
"burn image to disc".  For example, Nero Burning ROM SE has this
functionality in the Recorder menu under "Burn Image...".  I haven't
ever used Sonic RecordNow! so I don't know where the option is (or
even if it has one, though Parv's comments above would suggest that it
does).  If it doesn't, you are going to need to use some other
software because burning the image to disc is the only way you will
get the outcome you want.

-- 
Danny