Please test this possibly-bootable CD image with your SCSI controller

[tesla]

I agree Roy, or just not zip it in the first place.

[roy bates]

the zip isent a problem mate,but the file extension is if your system recognises it as a file type.

[mark_k]

The zip file that Roy upload to The Zone contains the 32MB test CD image already renamed to .iso so just use that if you don't know how to rename files.

Or, to change filename extensions using Windows Explorer you need to disable the "Hide extensions for known file types" option first.

I have no idea what Microsoft were smoking when they thought it was a good idea to hide filename extensions by default. It's a good idea to disable that feature for security reasons anyway. (E.g. if someone sends you a malware program readme.txt.exe, Windows Explorer will show it as readme.txt so you think the file is safe when it isn't.)
How to show file extensions with XP
How to show file extensions with Vista

Once you've correctly burned the CD image, note that Windows will not understand the disc format because it doesn't contain an ISO 9660 filesystem. So you can't view the files on the CD using Windows Explorer. But it should be bootable on your real Amiga. Just because you can't browse files on the disc in Windows, doesn't mean the disc is a coaster.

[videofx]

Or just go to a DOS prompt in windows and go to the directory where the file is and type REN *.BIN *.ISO and you will be set

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by videofx

Or just go to a DOS prompt in windows and go to the directory where the file is and type REN *.BIN *.ISO and you will be set

What is the big deal about changing a file extension? From the posts here it seems like you need to have a IT degree to do this.
Select file on explorer->F2->change from .bin to .iso Done!

[desiv]

Originally Posted by xpect

What is the big deal about changing a file extension? From the posts here it seems like you need to have a IT degree to do this.
Select file on explorer->F2->change from .bin to .iso Done!

Actually..
No, that won't work if you haven't changed the above option to show extensions for known filetypes..
You'll end up with filename.iso.bin
Just change that option. As mentioned, it's a good idea anyway.
And use DOS (Command Prompt) to make sure. ;-)

desiv

[AmigaFriend]

Originally Posted by desiv

Actually..
No, that won't work if you haven't changed the above option to show extensions for known filetypes..
You'll end up with filename.iso.bin
Just change that option. As mentioned, it's a good idea anyway.
And use DOS (Command Prompt) to make sure. ;-)

desiv

Well as this is the first thing I do as soon I fire explorer for the first time in an new install, mea culpa. Force of habit.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by xpect

Well as this is the first thing I do as soon I fire explorer for the first time in an new install, mea culpa. Force of habit.

Me too..
I had to double check.. ;-)

I never understood that setting....
When is it ever a bad thing to see the extension?
And it's frequently bad to not see it...

Oh well.. Back on topic.. ;-)

This is awesome...Now a CD can get some of these Amigas going rather than floppies, a PC SCSI card, or a SCSI/<something> adapter.
(all of those can work and some are awesome, but I can imagine it being much easier to write a blank CD for a lot of people.)

desiv

[mark_k]

Originally Posted by desiv

This is awesome...Now a CD can get some of these Amigas going rather than floppies, a PC SCSI card, or a SCSI/<something> adapter.
(all of those can work and some are awesome, but I can imagine it being much easier to write a blank CD for a lot of people.)

Yeah, I put together an "A4000T rescue CD" for someone. It auto-boots to Workbench, you can mount all six A4000T OS 3.1 ADFs at once by clicking an icon (uses diskimage.device) and install the OS without needing any floppies. You can also use tsgui on the CD to write the ADFs to real floppy disks if needed. It look a while but shows the possibilities.

It should be possible to build a CD that can install pretty much any OS version. I'm going to upload an archive with various sizes of blank/empty bootable CD images shortly then hopefully people can go to town making all manner of bootable goodies.

[emufan]

i had the same in mind, when creating the rescue-cd for "someone"
its the best and fastest solution in such troublesome situation.

thanks for this nice find, much appreciated

[mark_k]

Okay, here's the archive I promised. The text of Read_Me.txt in the archive is below. It contains some basic instructions to get you started creating your own custom bootable CDs.

I have uploaded the archive in two formats, 7-Zip and bzip2-compressed tar. The .tar.bz2 archive is much smaller, unpacks much faster and the unpacked files use much less disk space than when you unpack the .7z archive. So unless you're a clueless noob I suggest you use that!

Bootable_CD_images.tar.bz2 is 33488 bytes long. Bootable_CD_images.7z is 505577 bytes long.

4!s!h!a!r!e!d, .tar.bz2: hxxp://www.4!s!h!a!r!e!d.com/file/HehJ5SgC/Bootable_CD_imagestar.html
4!s!h!a!r!e!d, .7z: hxxp://www.4!s!h!a!r!e!d.com/archive/oTJzsyus/Bootable_CD_images.html

Due to the EAB admins not allowing direct links to many file-hosting sites including 4!s!h!a!r!e!d (they even remove all mention of the site name, so I added ! to get around that!), copy and paste the URLs above: change hxxp to http and remove the ! symbols.

Empty/blank/template bootable Amiga CD images prepared by mark_k
================================================================

This is a set of empty bootable CD images. They should auto-boot most Amigas
which have a SCSI controller, SCSI CD/DVD drive and Kickstart 1.3 or later.

Currently, known-working SCSI controllers are:
  Commodore A2091, ROM version 7.0
  Commodore A3000 built-in, Kickstart 2.04 and 3.1
  GVP 68030 combo accelerator, ROM version 4.13
  MacroSystem WarpEngine

They won't auto-boot in an ATAPI CD/DVD drive connected to the A600/A1200/A4000
IDE port. ATAPI drives are accessed differently from IDE hard disks and
Kickstart doesn't contain code to access ATAPI drives.

They also won't auto-boot a CDTV or CD32. Those consoles can only boot from ISO
9660 format CDs. (It would in theory be possible to create a combined image
which contains an FFS partition and ISO 9660 partition, allowing booting on CDTV/
CD32 as well as SCSI-based Amigas.)

To check whether your system is capable of booting from CD, burn the
Test_booting_CD.iso image file to a CD and try to boot your Amiga with it. If
successful a short message should be printed.

Each image file contains an RDB, FastFileSystem 40.1 (the last version compatible
with Kickstart 1.3) and a single FFS partition which is formatted but empty. So
if you burn one of the images to a CD-R as-is, booting it will just give you a
CLI window and command prompt.

Since the discs don't contain an ISO 9660 filesystem, files on them are not
directly readable in other operating systems. But you can mount the files
manually if you use Linux or similar.

It would in theory be possible to build disc images which contain a small ISO
9660 partition which just contains a text file explaining why the rest of the
disc is not accessible, in case someone using a PC tries to access the disc.

There are four images which are intended to fill different types of CD-R:
   8cm / 18 mins
   8cm / 21 mins
  12cm / 74 mins
  12cm / 80 mins

There are also some smaller images which may be useful if you don't need to put a
lot of data on the disc: 8MB, 16MB, 32MB, 64MB and 128MB.

It makes sense to use the smallest image that will hold all your data, because
burning the finished image will take less time. On the other hand, modern CD
drives read data nearer the outside of the disc more quickly. So there might be a
speed benefit in starting with the largest image file. (Of course, if you'll be
burning a 74 minute CD-R you can't use the 80 minute image file.)


How to add your files to an image
---------------------------------
You can mount the images as hardfiles with the WinUAE Amiga emulator. At the time
of writing the latest official beta version is 2.6.0 beta 7, but the latest
unofficial version has some changes and bug fixes which make using or testing the
CD images easier. The unofficial version can be downloaded from
http://www.winuae.net/files/b/winuae.zip

When you add an image as a hardfile, make sure the Read/write option is enabled
and Bootable is disabled. Then boot your emulated system and copy whatever files
you want to the image. You should create the S directory and S/Startup-Sequence
file so the CD does something when you boot it. When you've finished making
changes exit WinUAE and burn the modified image to a blank CD.

You should also be able to copy the image files to your real Amiga hard disk, use
some file-mounting program to mount the FFS partition, and copy files to it that
way.


Further notes
-------------
The DOS device name for the partition is CDBOOT:, the boot priority is 100 and it
uses 30 filesystem buffers (60KB). You can change those and other parameters such
as Mask and MaxTransfer using a program like HDToolBox. Some systems may require
that Mask be changed to 0x00FFFFFE.

When building your bootable disc, remember that you can not write to the CD! It's
a good idea to test the image file when write-protected in WinUAE before burning
it, to catch any accidental attempted writes. You could also put a
  Lock CDBOOT: ON
command early in the startup-sequence.

If you have spent a lot of time copying files to and from the image file, some
files may become fragmented. I recommend you use the ReOrg disk optimiser to
defragment the partition before you finally burn it to CD. Select the option to
clear unused areas, then your image file will be much more compressible if there
is a lot of free space. If you have put a lot of Workbench icons on the image,
optimising it using ReOrg's Workbench setting will be a good idea.



Good luck!


-- Mark
2013-02-17

[videofx]

Mark,

you can also add the 4000T internal SCSI controller with Kickstart 3.1 as also working to boot the CD

[mark_k]

Thanks for that!

Here's a little more info which could help avoid getting write error requesters when you boot your custom CDs.

It seems that Workbench(?) sometimes/often tries to write to disk when it loads, if the disk is not write-protected. I'm not sure why that is, but it can be a problem. Depending on your SCSI controller and CD drive, FFS might think the CD is write-enabled. So you get some write error requesters when Workbench loads. I've been thinking of making a patched version of FFS which is read-only to work around that problem, but doing that will create problems of its own.

Instead, you can use the command Lock >NIL: SYS: ON in your Startup-Sequence or S:User-Startup.

However, if booted on a system which does see the CD as write-protected, running the Lock command like that brings up a "Volume CDBOOT: is write protected" requester; harmless but annoying. To prevent the requester appearing you can use the NoReq command before the Lock command. So something like this:

NoReq
Lock >NIL: SYS: ON
NoReq        ;Optional. You can run NoReq again to re-enable requesters

[videofx]

For me its no big deal. I just click ok 3 or 4 times until all the icons are on the desktop. I can live with ti just the way it is Cheers!

[tesla]

I finally got a chance to try the auto-boot with my Blizarrd 2060.

Didn't work.

I think it might have worked if I had a mouse to select the boot source.

[mark_k]

Could you try using the boot menu? When I created the original test CD image, I set the boot priority to 0. If your hard disk has any bootable partitions at priority 0 or higher, the system will probably boot from that instead.

In the archive of empty image files I uploaded, all except the test image have the boot priority set to 100 so hopefully a not-high-enough boot priority will be less of a problem if using those.

[tesla]

Here is the problem,

I have a 2000 but no kb or mouse. Doesn't that mean I cannot accesss the boot menu? (yes, I am looking for a miggy mouse and KB, but wow, KB's and miggy mice are expensive). The old HD died, and the new/old HD I installed is probably formatted PC or Mac.

In the meantime, I'm going to assume the Blizzard's 2060's boot priority is HD first (or only). However, I will look in my Blizzard docs to see if I can set it to be the CD drive.

BTW, the CD drive activity light does come on when the Amiga is turned on, and I have your bootdisk CD installed, OR, my OS3.9 CD, and I can hear the HD and CD drive being accesssed, but nothing happens.

[mark_k]

Here's a modified version of the test CD image with the boot priority set to 127. Edit: see the first posting in this thread for the file.

[tesla]

I will try that, and let you know.

Originally Posted by mark_k

Here's a modified version of the test CD image with the boot priority set to 127.

[Bamiga2002]

Download-links have expired/removed. Can you upload again, please?