Bootable Floppy Image Works On CD But Not On DVD

[LoneCrusader]

Older 6.x version of Nero? Upgrade yourself to this version and see if that helps (last 6.x version). Pay attention that you are not installing everything (e.g. "extra toolbars"). It may have something to do with it (dunno).

Use instead v. 6.6.1.15a, which is the same Nero update but has less bundled things to avoid the installation of. You can download it here.

Thanks for the links, I had been wondering whether or not I had the last 6.x version of Nero. Ill try them out, but this problem exists in MagicISO as well, and I have the latest version of it.

[dencorso]

The other possibility is you have a partially broken hardware. The Lite-On DH-20A4P is a great burner, I happent to have one too, and mine burns all types of media from CD-R to DVD+R DL. Now, I had a LG GSA-4163B Super-Multi CD/DVD Burner which served me well for many years, burning numerous CD-R, CD-RW and DVD-R.

One day I decided I needed even bigger media and I bought a cake of Verbatin DVD+R DL (Singapore), the very best media of this type, and found out, much to my chagrin, that the burner was only able to make coasters of them. Intrigued, I then bought two DVD+R discs and it dully made coasters of them, too. Now, that was proof it had stopped working properly, because I had tested it, just after I bought the burner, with DVD+R discs, and at that time it worked OK. So it simply lost its ability to burn +R media at sometime in-between, but continues working OK with -R media up to now. I've replaced it by a LG GSA-H55N Super-Multi CD/DVD Burner, and now I'm able to burn DVD+R (both SL and DL) again. Of course, I did try various methods of cleaning the 4163B, to no avail, and updated its firmware, again to no avail, before throwing the towel and buying a new burner.

[LoneCrusader]

Nero appears to burn the entire disc, and then during the lead-out phase produces an "Invalid write state" error. I don't remember exactly what output MagicISO gave.

The discs then sometimes appear to have the files on them, but they are corrupted, or the disc appears blank, but is not, and cannot be "erased" with Nero.

I turned up a thread somewhere that advised making sure your DVD drive was in DMA mode, and gave some instructions for doing this. I looked into it, but I am using the Intel Application Accelerator and my settings are different than a system without it. The IAA software says my DVD drive is operating in UDMA-2 mode.

[LoneCrusader]

2. I need to run the command

mkisofs -R -b grldr -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -o grldr.iso iso_root

from the GRUB4DOS directory in a DOS box.

Yes and No.

Those are settings that could be allright for your present purpose, but that are by no means the "right" ones for a more "complete" grldr CD (like various NT based OS, PE's, etc.

A "better" example is in the given link.

jaclaz

.\ezTOOLS\mkisofs -v -iso-level 4 -l -D -d -J -joliet-long -R -volid "GRLDR" -A GRLDR/MKISOFS -sysid "Win32" -b grldr -no-emul-boot -boot-load-seg 0x1000 -allow-multidot -hide grldr -hide boot.catalog -o .\ezBuiltCD\ezG4DOS.iso ezROOT

jaclaz, I looked at your mkisofs command syntax. I'm pretty comfortable with command lines, but I was wondering, would you mind to explain what each one of these individual switches do, or give me a link that explains them? I understand things better if I know what's going on

Also, I assume there are several different versions of mkisofs. How do I know that I have the latest and/or best version?

BTW, I have now moved my project to a XP/NTFS partition so I can avoid the 4GB limit.

*** EDIT ***

Nevermind the switch info. I found it, just had to dig a little deeper.

Trying mkisofs with the following syntax:

mkisofs -v -iso-level 4 -l -D -d -J -joliet-long -R -V WIN9XDVD -b GRLDR -no-emul-boot -boot-load-seg 0x1000 -allow-multidot -hide grldr -hide boot.catalog -o WIN9XDVD.ISO ISO_Root

Edited February 3, 2010 by LoneCrusader

[dencorso]

BTW, I have now moved my project to a XP/NTFS partition so I can avoid the 4GB limit.

I really don't think it's worth the trouble, since you cannot avoid the 4.38 GiB DVD±R limit due to its maximum capacity. While CDFS (ISO 9660) Level 3 can go up to 8 TB, by using multi-extent files, even then you'd be limited by the lenght of the media to 4.38 GiB for DVD±R or, at most, 7.96 GiB for DVD±R DL. Or do you intend to explore the uncharted (and costly) world of Blu-Ray?

[LoneCrusader]

I really don't think it's worth the trouble, since you cannot avoid the 4.38 GiB DVD±R limit due to its maximum capacity. While CDFS (ISO 9660) Level 3 can go up to 8 TB, by using multi-extent files, even then you'd be limited by the lenght of the media to 4.38 GiB for DVD±R or, at most, 7.96 GiB for DVD±R DL. Or do you intend to explore the uncharted (and costly) world of Blu-Ray?

Blu-Ray? Maybe someday, who knows? haha

Seriously though, it was maddening my DVD project is 4.33 GB in size, it will fit on the DVD but I can't build the ISO in 98.

And then it was all for nothing, it didn't work when I burned it to DVD. I'm going to have to set up some kind of reliable VM.

[dencorso]

But, if you're using GRUB4DOS, remember it understands GZipped ISOs! And I bet GZipping your ISOs may be enough to get your project back to under 4 GiB, so FAT-32 might be enough.

[LoneCrusader]

But, if you're using GRUB4DOS, remember it understands GZipped ISOs! And I bet GZipping your ISOs may be enough to get your project back to under 4 GiB, so FAT-32 might be enough.

I'm not using ISO's on the DVD itself, just making an ISO of the DVD to mount in a VM or burn. So mkisofs is really the issue, not GRUB4DOS.

I'm only using GRUB4DOS to chainload an image of a DOS floppy boot disk, then the floppy disk takes over. I actually would prefer not to have to use GRUB4DOS at all, and just use standard El Torito floppy emulation on the DVD, but as you saw above, it doesn't work for some reason.

I'm not knocking GRUB4DOS though, I see a lot of potential uses for it, and I'm not as opposed to it as I originally was when I started this project.

I'm very much beginning to detest mkisofs however.

Normally I prefer simple things, and usually the command line is about as simple as you can get, it either works or it doesn't. But I would pitch mkisofs into the proverbial trash can.

Several attempts at creating an ISO with it produced errors about filenames, and this idiotic "RR_MOVED" directory inside the ISO that should not have been there. I have created several ISO's with graphical tools and never had problems like that.

Then, after finally solving the filename and RR_MOVED issues,(see syntax above), the resulting ISO/DVD had the most bizarre errors. For example:

GRUB4DOS functioned properly, and chainloaded the floppy and mapped it to fd0, drive A:

In the root of that floppy is FDISK.EXE, (and PATH=A:\ in AUTOEXEC.BAT)

If I typed FDISK from the A:\> prompt, i get "Bad command or file name"

No matter how I entered it, FDISK, FDISK.EXE, fdisk, fdisk.exe, it would not work. The same went for TESTDISK and some other DOS tools I had included.

[jaclaz]

@Lonecrusader

1. I told you about mkisofs , but you are mixing the complexity of the choices you can make through it with the apparent simplicity of the choices you can make on a GUI app, if you want a GUI for mkisofs, there are several of them, most notably:
   http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=119378
   http://members.chello.at/bobby100/The_GUI.htm
   http://members.chello.at/bobby100/beta/index.htm
   Very simple one:
   http://mysite.verizon.net/hartsec/make.htm
   New kid on the block:
   http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9610
   
2. You cannot go on like this , post the EXACT mkisofs command line you used, the EXACT contents of your menu.lst, the EXACT contents of your floppy, the EXACT environment you are testing in (VM or real hardware), if you want help/advice, right now trying to assist you is like shooting in the dark.
   

jaclaz

[LoneCrusader]

You cannot go on like this , post the EXACT mkisofs command line you used, the EXACT contents of your menu.lst, the EXACT contents of your floppy, the EXACT environment you are testing in (VM or real hardware), if you want help/advice, right now trying to assist you is like shooting in the dark.

jaclaz

I already answered most of those questions above. I posted the exact mkisofs syntax that I used for the last test here:

Trying mkisofs with the following syntax:

mkisofs -v -iso-level 4 -l -D -d -J -joliet-long -R -V WIN9XDVD -b GRLDR -no-emul-boot -boot-load-seg 0x1000 -allow-multidot -hide grldr -hide boot.catalog -o WIN9XDVD.ISO ISO_Root

I had not posted my MENU.LST, however, I did not have a problem with it, or GRUB4DOS, just with mkisofs. Here it is:

color blue/black blue/white

timeout 0

default 0

title WIN9XDVD

find --set-root /BootDVD.ima

map --mem /BootDVD.ima (fd0)

map --hook

chainloader (fd0)+1

rootnoverify (fd0)

map --floppies=1

As for the floppy, it is customized version of a standard Windows 98SE Boot Disk from Microsoft. Not one created in 98 that uses a ramdisk, or one from BootDisk.com, but a factory one. I added JO.SYS from the bootable 98SE CD, some files from the WINDOWS\COMMAND folder, and DOSKEY to it, along with customizing the AUTOEXEC.BAT/CONFIG.SYS menu. It works perfectly on a floppy, and also works perfectly when imaged and written to a CD using El Torito emulation. Here is a snapshot of the contents:

All of this testing is being done in a real environment. I said above:

I don't have any VM software installed (Yet)

and then later (after these errors Im referring to) I said to dencorso:

I'm going to have to set up some kind of reliable VM.

Edited March 6, 2011 by LoneCrusader

[jaclaz]

Try pressing C for command line access (remember that you can use [TAB] autocompletion of lines).

find --set-root /BootDVD.ima

[ENTER]

map --mem /BootDVD.ima (fd0)

[ENTER]

map --hook

[ENTER]

root (fd0)

[ENTER]

chainloader /io.sys

[ENTER]

boot

[ENTER]

Report what happens.

jaclaz

[cdob]

Nero appears to burn the entire disc, and then during the lead-out phase produces an "Invalid write state" error.

Broken media or broken writer. Use high quality media.

The floppy disk that I have used for the image boots properly every time, and if I write the image to a CD it boots properly. However, if I write the SAME bootable image to a DVD, it does not boot when the computer starts up.

This indicates hardware too. Try another hardware.

[dencorso]

I agree with cdob. You should try another burner. And since Nero 6 will work OK with USB burners, consider getting a PATA/SATA-2-USB adapter and testing the new burner without opening the case. If all goes well, then you can replace the burner at a convenient time and keep the adapter, which is great also for (re)formatting and (re)partitioning HDD's without having to mount them physically inside the case.

[cdob]

@LoneCrusader

To verify hardware again:

read the existing boot CD to a single image file

write this image file to a DVD

Does the DVD boot?

[LoneCrusader]

Try pressing C for command line access (remember that you can use [TAB] autocompletion of lines).

...

Report what happens.

jaclaz

This sequence of commands made the files/tools on the Floppy Image (Drive A:) work, but the same "Bad command or file name" error still exists for DOS tools on the DVD (Drive D:). It also bypassed JO.SYS, which allows choosing to boot from the DVD or from the HDD. (I tried "chainloader /jo.sys", but it produced an error, said the kernel must be loaded first.)

"Invalid write state" error.

Broken media or broken writer. Use high quality media.

It's possible that the burner may have a problem, however if so the problem exists only for DVD±RW's. It burns all other media properly. I have been using Maxell (Nero Info Tool lists manufacturer as RITEKW01) DVD-RW and Memorex (Nero Info Tool lists manufacturer as CMC MAG W02) DVD+RW discs.

The floppy disk that I have used for the image boots properly every time, and if I write the image to a CD it boots properly. However, if I write the SAME bootable image to a DVD, it does not boot when the computer starts up.

This indicates hardware too. Try another hardware.

*It should be noted that this problem was encountered prior to using GRUB4DOS, and is not related to the GRUB4DOS/mkisofs problems.*

I have tested that particular disc in 4 different computers. I know that I do not have 4 computers all with faulty DVD drives. It may be possible, as jaclaz said, that the BIOS of these computers has trouble with Floppy Emulation on DVD's but not CD's however.

I agree with cdob. You should try another burner.....

read the existing boot CD to a single image file

write this image file to a DVD

I will attempt this (with a DVD RW) on another machine. I'm getting tired of wasting discs, haha.