CompuServe Thread

#Boot from CD ROM

3 messages in this thread
#49082From: Daniel K DurickMay 24, 1993 11:44 AM
Can anyone tell me if it's possible to boot from CD Rom, WORM? Let's say you have a worm drive as scsi device 0, and the command "format c: /s" works. Does that make the worm drive a bootable disk? If not how might a person do this? -dkd
#49165From: David Dillard [MDI]May 25, 1993 8:23 AM
To boot from either CD-ROM or WORM would take major reworking of the BIOS code of an adapter. "FORMAT C: /S" won't make a WORM bootable. When writing to a WORM cartridge the device driver is told to write data to sectors which have been previously written. The device driver can't do this because of the nature of WORM media. Therefore it writes the data to new (unwritten) sector and keeps track of where the latest data is. To be able to boot from such a system, all of this code would have to be incorporated into the adapter's BIOS. David
#49218From: Rich Bowers/OPAMay 25, 1993 11:56 PM
Daniel: I understand that Tandy's Sensation machine boots from the CDROM drive. I've not heard of anybody trying to boot from a WORM disk (different technology). Best – Rich Bowers