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Can't boot dos cd image on pentium

K

kb2syd

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I've tried several DOS images on CD.

For some reason I can't get my P120 with Award BIOS to boot from a CD. No matter what image I use, it scans once real quick and then dumps to a no OS error message.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Kelly
 
Do the images on the CD boot other systems? If so, it may just be that you would need to find a BIOS update to support booting off CD. The El Torito standard wasn't common in BIOSes until 1996 but the Pentium 120 is from 1995.
 
It was not uncommon to find early P1 systems with non-CD-booting BIOSes. Usually, the alternative was to boot from a floppy with the appropriate drivers installed, log onto the CD and install from there. Warp, for example, initially shipped with a CD with floppy images of the "Kicker 1" and "Kicker 2" boot floppies, that had to be written to diskette first.
 
Yeah, I'm thinking that even though the option is in the BIOS it isn't fully supported. Got a chicken and egg thing going on. I'll try a USB floppy and a dos 6.22 image to get started.
 
Could you describe the system in a bit more detail?

I remember USB floppy boot as being fairly late to market as in after 2000.
 
One other thought, I have encountered some CD burning programs (later versions of ImgBurn) that have broken boot CD creation support. I have no idea what the absolute current versions of the various programs are like, but I use ImgBurn 2.4.4.0 without trouble.

But yea, I would be surprised if that Pentium machine could actually boot CDs. If it claims to support bootable CDs, it might only support a different, older, method. Floppies are the way.

(I assume you mean you will create the floppy with a USB floppy drive, and then boot it on the Pentium's real floppy)
 
Back in 2000, I had a Laptop that wouldn't read any CD that was burned. Factory discs worked fine. Or maybe it would only read +R and not -R, or vice versa. Silly compatibility wars.

You may be experiencing the same issue, try booting with a factory CD (such as Win98, if you have one). If you need one, check goodwill, there's usually 4-5 of them at each one I've seen.

You could also just have a bum CD drive.
 
zombienerd said:
Back in 2000, I had a Laptop that wouldn't read any CD that was burned. Factory discs worked fine. Or maybe it would only read +R and not -R, or vice versa. Silly compatibility wars.

You may be experiencing the same issue, try booting with a factory CD (such as Win98, if you have one). If you need one, check goodwill, there's usually 4-5 of them at each one I've seen.

You could also just have a bum CD drive.
Click to expand...
Tried that. This machine only wants to boot from floppy even though the ROM says different.

Nice machine otherwise.
 
You'll need to try another CD drive in that machine in order to determine whether the CD is hosed or the machine is the actual problem.
 
Finally got the machine running. Had to download a boot disk that supported CD-ROM. Now, have the little machine running 6.22. Now back to creating TRS-80 disks.
 
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