After recently reading several articles in some newspapers and magazines about making Chinese boot disks, I personally made one myself. At first it really worked: after booting from the floppy, I could use a Chinese-language platform in DOS, and the result was quite good. But after I upgraded the operating system to Windows
XP, the Chinese boot disk stopped working. After looking into the cause, I found that the Pdos.def file was missing from the root directory of drive C on the primary boot partition, and files such as Chs16.fon, Pbios.exe, Lx.tbl, Ctrlpan.exe, and Font16.exe were missing from the C:\windows\command directory. After some study I found that these files actually do not play a very big role on the boot disk; they only serve to provide referenced paths. Think about it: if the files supporting the Chinese platform are not on the boot disk, and you directly run the Pdos95.bat file in the C:\windows\command directory, wouldn’t the effect be the same as using the boot disk? The answer is yes. So, is there really a Chinese boot disk that can be used without relying on hard disk files? Yes. The universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support made by the following method can not only use universal CD-ROM support, but also a universal Chinese platform. The specific method is as follows:
Making a universal Pdos.def file
Because the Chinese platform run by Pdos95.bat needs to read the Pdos.def file in the root directory of drive C on the primary boot partition, and this file defines the paths of files such as Chs16.fon, Pbios.exe, Lx.tbl, Ctrlpan.exe, and Font16.exe, as well as some definitions for hotkeys, input methods, dictionaries, and so on.
First use Notepad (other file editors will also do) to open the Pdos.def file in the root directory of drive C on the primary boot partition of a system that already has Windows
9x installed, and replace C:\windows\command in the file with C:, then save it as Pdos.c (before modifying it, remove its read-only attribute). Then use the same method to replace C:\windows\command with D:, and save it as Pdos.d, and so on, finally producing a total of 24 files: Pdos.c, Pdos.d, Pdos.e
…… Pdos.z. These files are small (just a bit over 2KB), so they will not take up too much disk space.
Selecting the files used by the Chinese platform
Because a floppy disk has 1.44MB of space, we should reduce the files used as much as possible. First select the files absolutely required by the Chinese platform: Chs16.fon, Ctrlpan.exe, Font16.exe, Hzkbd.exe, Hzvio95.exe, Instdict.exe, Lx.tbl, Pbios.exe, and Pdos95.bat. For input method files, we select only the Pinyin input method, namely Pinyin.tbl, and finally Quit.exe. Put these files together with the 24 files generated above into a newly created folder named EBD for later use.
Editing the Pdos95.bat file
In order to make this Chinese boot disk truly “universal,” it is necessary to modify the Pdos95.bat file. The specific content after modification is as follows:
@ECHO OFF
IF EXIST C:\PDOS.DEF GOTO REN
ECHO.
（blank line）
:REN
REN C:\PDOS.DEF PDOS.BAK >NUL
ECHO.
（blank line）
COPY %RAMD%:\PDOS.%RAMD% C:\PDOS.DEF /Y >NUL
（blank line）
@ECHO ON
（blank line）
pbios
font16
hzvio95
hzkbd
instdict pinyin
ctrlpan
（blank line）
@ECHO OFF
IF EXIST C:\PDOS.BAK GOTO DISPLAY
ECHO.
（blank line）
ISPLAY
ECHO //When booting the system from the hard disk, please rename Pdos.bak to Pdos.def...
ECHO.
Making the EBD.cab archive
To make this boot disk have universal CD-ROM boot capability and be able to use some common DOS commands, you must make a Windows
98 boot disk. The specific method will not be described here in detail.
Insert the newly made Windows
98 boot disk into the floppy drive and open it with archive software, then extract EBD.cab into the EBD folder created above. To save space, delete the less useful Scandisk.exe and Scandisk.ini files. Finally use Cabinet
Manager to compress all files in the EBD folder into an EBD.cab file. To save floppy disk space, set the compression ratio in the Cabinet
Manager options to the highest level before compressing (do not compress the entire EBD folder together; just compress the files inside that directory). Cabinet
Manager can be downloaded from major software download websites.
Testing the universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support
Before testing, copy the newly generated Ebd.cab file onto the newly made Windows
98 boot disk (overwrite directly), then write-protect this universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support. After making it this way, the floppy space used is 1.34MB.
To verify the “universal” nature of this boot disk, let us first test it with no hard disk attached. Boot the computer successfully with this disk, run Pdos95.bat, and the Chinese platform under DOS appears. Use “Ctrl+Space” to open the input method. It can also be used successfully under the Windows
XP operating system. This “universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support” is suitable for all operating systems on FAT or FAT32 partitions, such as DOS, Windows
3.1/9x/2000/XP.
Windows 9x users should note: after using the Chinese platform on the boot disk (that is, after booting Windows
9x from the hard disk), you must manually rename C：\Pdos．bak to Pdos．def, and at the same time delete the original Pdos．def.
This way, we can use the “universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support” with confidence. These are some of my experiences in making a Chinese boot disk, and I hope they can be of some help to everyone.
XP, the Chinese boot disk stopped working. After looking into the cause, I found that the Pdos.def file was missing from the root directory of drive C on the primary boot partition, and files such as Chs16.fon, Pbios.exe, Lx.tbl, Ctrlpan.exe, and Font16.exe were missing from the C:\windows\command directory. After some study I found that these files actually do not play a very big role on the boot disk; they only serve to provide referenced paths. Think about it: if the files supporting the Chinese platform are not on the boot disk, and you directly run the Pdos95.bat file in the C:\windows\command directory, wouldn’t the effect be the same as using the boot disk? The answer is yes. So, is there really a Chinese boot disk that can be used without relying on hard disk files? Yes. The universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support made by the following method can not only use universal CD-ROM support, but also a universal Chinese platform. The specific method is as follows:
Making a universal Pdos.def file
Because the Chinese platform run by Pdos95.bat needs to read the Pdos.def file in the root directory of drive C on the primary boot partition, and this file defines the paths of files such as Chs16.fon, Pbios.exe, Lx.tbl, Ctrlpan.exe, and Font16.exe, as well as some definitions for hotkeys, input methods, dictionaries, and so on.
First use Notepad (other file editors will also do) to open the Pdos.def file in the root directory of drive C on the primary boot partition of a system that already has Windows
9x installed, and replace C:\windows\command in the file with C:, then save it as Pdos.c (before modifying it, remove its read-only attribute). Then use the same method to replace C:\windows\command with D:, and save it as Pdos.d, and so on, finally producing a total of 24 files: Pdos.c, Pdos.d, Pdos.e
…… Pdos.z. These files are small (just a bit over 2KB), so they will not take up too much disk space.
Selecting the files used by the Chinese platform
Because a floppy disk has 1.44MB of space, we should reduce the files used as much as possible. First select the files absolutely required by the Chinese platform: Chs16.fon, Ctrlpan.exe, Font16.exe, Hzkbd.exe, Hzvio95.exe, Instdict.exe, Lx.tbl, Pbios.exe, and Pdos95.bat. For input method files, we select only the Pinyin input method, namely Pinyin.tbl, and finally Quit.exe. Put these files together with the 24 files generated above into a newly created folder named EBD for later use.
Editing the Pdos95.bat file
In order to make this Chinese boot disk truly “universal,” it is necessary to modify the Pdos95.bat file. The specific content after modification is as follows:
@ECHO OFF
IF EXIST C:\PDOS.DEF GOTO REN
ECHO.
（blank line）
:REN
REN C:\PDOS.DEF PDOS.BAK >NUL
ECHO.
（blank line）
COPY %RAMD%:\PDOS.%RAMD% C:\PDOS.DEF /Y >NUL
（blank line）
@ECHO ON
（blank line）
pbios
font16
hzvio95
hzkbd
instdict pinyin
ctrlpan
（blank line）
@ECHO OFF
IF EXIST C:\PDOS.BAK GOTO DISPLAY
ECHO.
（blank line）
ISPLAYECHO //When booting the system from the hard disk, please rename Pdos.bak to Pdos.def...
ECHO.
Making the EBD.cab archive
To make this boot disk have universal CD-ROM boot capability and be able to use some common DOS commands, you must make a Windows
98 boot disk. The specific method will not be described here in detail.
Insert the newly made Windows
98 boot disk into the floppy drive and open it with archive software, then extract EBD.cab into the EBD folder created above. To save space, delete the less useful Scandisk.exe and Scandisk.ini files. Finally use Cabinet
Manager to compress all files in the EBD folder into an EBD.cab file. To save floppy disk space, set the compression ratio in the Cabinet
Manager options to the highest level before compressing (do not compress the entire EBD folder together; just compress the files inside that directory). Cabinet
Manager can be downloaded from major software download websites.
Testing the universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support
Before testing, copy the newly generated Ebd.cab file onto the newly made Windows
98 boot disk (overwrite directly), then write-protect this universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support. After making it this way, the floppy space used is 1.34MB.
To verify the “universal” nature of this boot disk, let us first test it with no hard disk attached. Boot the computer successfully with this disk, run Pdos95.bat, and the Chinese platform under DOS appears. Use “Ctrl+Space” to open the input method. It can also be used successfully under the Windows
XP operating system. This “universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support” is suitable for all operating systems on FAT or FAT32 partitions, such as DOS, Windows
3.1/9x/2000/XP.
Windows 9x users should note: after using the Chinese platform on the boot disk (that is, after booting Windows
9x from the hard disk), you must manually rename C：\Pdos．bak to Pdos．def, and at the same time delete the original Pdos．def.
This way, we can use the “universal Chinese boot disk with CD-ROM support” with confidence. These are some of my experiences in making a Chinese boot disk, and I hope they can be of some help to everyone.
