China DOS Union

Using the improved version you made to burn a boot CD, it actually won't boot!

I can't stand it. I don't dare use it recklessly anymore.

Burning a boot CD is not an easy thing.
There can be many possible reasons why it won't boot. Are you sure it was caused by using our boot disk?
If you're sure it is, can you explain in detail how you did it? Maybe we can find something that needs improvement from that.

Last time wglwx mentioned this kind of problem on the forum, and the conclusion was that the method of operation was wrong, not that there was a problem with the boot disk itself.

If you first write the image file to a floppy and then make it, the success rate is basically 100%. If you burn directly from the image file, there will be problems. Most image files are made with HD-COPY and can't just be used directly as boot image files.
Also, only standard 1.44M floppies and image files can be used to make a bootable CD.
Don't give up after one failure. A CD doesn't cost much anyway.

Yeah, I think it's best to first make it into a bootable .iso image, test it with a virtual machine or something like that, and then it's best to have a CDRW. After burning, test it on an actual machine, and only after confirming it's correct burn it again. After all, boot CDs are very delicate, and even a tiny mistake can lead to total failure...

I used WINISO to make the ISO. Added the MINIWINDOWS image, and it shows as a boot CD. After saving, I reopened it with WINISO and there was no problem. It also tested fine with VIRTUAL PC. But after burning it with DISK JUGGLER, it shows invalid boot information.

Also, why can't the enhanced DOS7.1 read NTFS? My own NTFSDOS PRO can do it. Is it related to the version of SERVICE PACK? Or is it related to the version of the NTFSDOS software? I'm using 4.03PRO

The DOS7.1 boot disk can read NTFS with NTFSDOS... I do this often...

Let me share some experience here about burning boot CDs:
1. It's best to make it into an ISO image and then burn it, but for making images it's best to use ULTRAISO, not WINISO. If you modify too much with WINISO, errors will appear. You can also use activeiso; it's a graphical interface program based on CDIMAGE, and the ISOs made with it are basically fine for burning too. It can also optimize and trim identical files. It's generally used to make all-in-one discs. It just has to run under WIN2000.
2. If you want to use an IMG file directly as the boot image file, it's best to use WINIMAGE. Don't use other IMG-making tools.
3. Any burning software is fine, but I think the best is still AHEAD NERO. You could say it's the king of burning software. But everyone, don't use cracked ones. It's best to use a registered version.
4. When burning, shut down everything running in the background. For example antivirus, scheduled tasks, intelligent power management, screen savers, etc. The system must be clean. And it's best to defragment the disk partition where the files you want to burn are located. While burning, it's best not to do anything else.
5. If overburning, don't overdo it. At most it must not exceed 20M.
6. Anything that can boot in a virtual machine can boot normally on a real machine as long as you didn't make a burning mistake.
7. Please don't use poor-quality CDRs to burn boot disks. Those poor-quality CDRs may be okay for ordinary data discs, but for boot disks they generally won't boot. But good and bad aren't necessarily judged entirely by price. I've been using 1.2-yuan CDRs and have never wasted a single one. But with some no-name 2-yuan CDRs, the discs I burned couldn't boot. (Though, I overburned all of them.)

disk juggler is powerful, absolutely no worse than NERO. It especially supports network shared burning, which is very convenient.

NTFSDOS PRO works best by using the existing system's DLLs and core programs. So this is related to the SP version. There's a similar note somewhere in the help. So it isn't necessarily universal on every machine.

I'm also using WINISO to make boot CDs, and so far I haven't run into any problems. Can you describe your method in detail?
After using WINISO to make the ISO, did you do any other operations on that ISO? Before, I found that after deleting/modifying some OEM information in that ISO, WINISO would become unable to open it.

The following is quoted from nre's post on 2003-7-2 20:23:24:
I'm also using WINISO to make boot CDs, and so far I haven't run into any problems. Before, I found that after deleting/modifying some OEM information in that ISO, WINISO would become unable to open it.

What I mean is that WINISO can't be repeatedly modified like ULATRIO; if you modify it too many times, errors will appear.

Also! The most important thing is that everyone's boot disks use hd-copy too much! Current burning software doesn't support *.img files made by hd very well! It's best to use winimage to make floppy images!

HD-COPY by default either uses compression or can be set to use compression, saving sectors that contain data, while sectors without data are not stored or are compressed. But a boot disk image must map every sector of the original device exactly as-is (and it cannot be compressed either), so image files made by HD sometimes can't be made into boot CDs.
Checking the file size is a rule of thumb. If it is 1，474，560 bytes, there should be no problem. If the IMG is smaller than this, it may be compressed or may be an IMG that didn't save sectors without data. In that case you need to store it again with HD, or convert it with WIMIMAGE.

The following is quoted from annabel's post on 2003-7-2 17:09:06:
disk juggler is powerful, absolutely no worse than NERO. It especially supports network shared burning, which is very convenient.

NTFSDOS PRO works best by using the existing system's DLLs and core programs. So this is related to the SP version. There's a similar note somewhere in the help. So it isn't necessarily universal on every machine.

disk juggler is too professional; some people may not be very used to using it, but it really is a very good burning program.