Welcome to this edition of The Computer Builder! The weather in June and July gets really hot here in Singapore. I find myself drinking more and more iced water these 2 weeks!

Ok, on to our feature article this week. Let's say you're building a computer and something goes wrong. Your PC suddenly fails to boot up. What do you do? Well, the first thing I do is to whip out a bootable CD-ROM and boot up the PC from there. This is one very useful trick and can be a life saver if you just cannot get back into your operating system to copy out your data from the affected PC.

This week, we'll discuss look at a quick way to create a bootable CD-ROM. Once you do this, you'll be protected (somewhat) from potential PC disasters like the inability to boot into Windows. So read on - I hope you like the guide.

On another note, I've been wondering what kind of topics you guys would like to read about in this newsletter. This newsletter has gone one for quite some time, and I think it's pretty much time for me to relook at the content I'm providing. So feel free to drop me a note and tell me what of articles you'd see! Thanks for your support so far.

How To Create A Bootable CD-ROM

Floppy boot disks used to be very popular for troubleshooting PC boot problems, but these days, with the ability of computers to boot from the CD-ROM drive, CD-ROM boot discs are becoming more popular. They not only can store more programs, they work faster than a floppy disk too.

Let's get started right away and see how you can easily create a bootable CD-ROM.

1. Get a Good CD Burner Software
The first thing to do when creating a bootable CD-ROM is to get a good CD-Burner software. There are many available in the market, but a good one to use is Roxio Easy CD Creator. This software is easy and straightforward to use and retails at a cheap price given its extensive functionalities.

2. Choose To Create A Boot CD
The next step in your bid to create a bootable CD-ROM? Its to access your CD burner software and select the ‘Create Bootable CD’ option. In Easy CD Creator, you can do this by going to File => New CD Layout => Bootable CD. The software then prompts you for a floppy disk that contains the boot CD image.

This is important because the CD-ROM needs to contain an image of a bootable floppy disk. Only then can the PC boot from the CD-ROM and treat it as though it were a ‘bootable floppy’ as such.

3. Copy A Floppy Image to The Boot CD
How do you create this bootable floppy? Well, they way we used to do it, of course. What you do is to apply the following commands at the DOS prompt of an old machine with Windows 98:

Format a:/s
Copy c:windowscommandebdoakcdrom.sys a:
Copy c:windowscommandmscdex.exe a:

Next, you have to manually create a config.sys file via command

edit a:config.sys

The config.sys in the bootable floppy should contain the following command:

device=a:oakcdrom.sys /d:mscd001

Then create an Autoexec.bat file, using the command

edit a:autoexec.bat

You also need to ensure the following command is in the file:

a:mscdex.exe /d:mscd001

And that’s all you need to do. Now simply point the CD burner software to the location of this floppy disk and it can begin to burn your bootable CD-ROM. As you can see, its not so hard to create a bootable CD-ROM after all, right?

Conclusion
I hope this article has taught you how to easily create a bootable CD-ROM. A bootable CD-ROM can be a life-saver in PC trouble situations. Make sure you have one handy. If you liked this this article on how to create a bootable CD-ROM, then be sure to sign up for my newsletter for more computer tips.

If you always have problems with PCs, one way to get around it is though education. I always believe in that. Read, learn and explore. Computers are not hard to understand. You just need to invest time and experience them.

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