Converting Bootable Floppy Disks to Bootable CD ROM

[Shane]

Here are the step by step instructions to convert single as well as double diskette bootable floppies into bootable CD.

Softwares required:

1. WinISO [Shareware]
2. WinImage [Shareware]
3. burnatonce [Freeware]
4. UBCD [Ultimate Boot CD] [Freeware]
5. PowerQuest Partition Magic or PowerQuest Drive Image.

STEPS:

1. Get the latest version of Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD). This file will be in ".iso" format. ISO formats are standardized formats used for direct CD burning.
   
   UBCD is basically a set of useful tools that can be started while booting your computer. This document will describe how to include your bootable floppy disk image into "UBCD.iso" so that the CD boots in the same manner as a regular floppy disk would.
   
   To accomplish this I will take examples of 1-disk bootable floppy (MS-DOS Startup disk) and 2-disk bootable floppy (PowerQuest Partition Magic)
2. To create MS-DOS Startup Disk (Windows XP):
   
   • Insert 1.44" floppy into floppy disk drive.
   • Right-Click on floppy drive in Windows Explorer and select format.
     

     

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   • A dialog box will appear. Select "Create an MS-DOS Startup Disk" checkbox and click "Start". Bootable MS-DOS startup Disk will get created.
     

     

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     To create Powerquest Partition Magic (PQPM) 2-Disk Rescue diskettes:
   • Install Powerquest Partition Magic and when instructed insert blank floppy disks into floppy disk drives to create 2-Set bootable disks.
3. To create image of Floppy Disks:
   
   • Insert bootable floppy into floppy disk drive.
   • Use WinImage to read contents of the floppy.
     
     (Note: All files residing into floppy disks are not read by Windows Explorer. That's why we have to use WinImage which is capable of reading boot information of the floppy disk as well).
     

     

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     [Take a look at the snapshot below to see the difference between normal read through Explorer and floppy content read through Winimage. To create bootable CD's from bootable floppies we need every information from floppy. That's why we take the help of WinImage software]
     

     

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   • Save copy of this image in ".IMA" format. Even if the content of floppy is not exactly of 1.44 MB size, the size of this image file will always be 1.44 MB. This format is readable by UBCD's boot file.
     

     

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     To create image of Two-Disk Floppy:
   • Use same method explained above to create individual images of both the floppy disks.
   • Now we need to extract contents of image of second floppy into local / hard disk.
     
     You can either open floppy drive through Windows Explorer and copy its contents to local disk, then compare the WinImage contents with Windows Explorer contents and whichever files are missing, extract them to the required folder using the procedure below. Or you can extract all the files including folder using the procedure below.
     
     P.S: Make sure that absolutely no file is missed while extraction.
     

     

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     This version of Winimage cannot extract files and folders at same time. So we need to extract files and folders separately.
     
     Firstly select all files.
     

     

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     Now extract these files in whichever folder you want in your local disk.
     

     

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     Create a folder name (same name as in image file) where the files have been extracted and extract contents of folder into that folder.
     

     

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     Now you have all the contents of second floppy disk into local disk.
     
     So we now have to inject all the contents of second floppy into image of first floppy.
   • Open image of the first floppy disk using Winimage.
   • Change the format of the image file from 1.44 MB to 2.88 MB
     

     

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   • Copy data of second floppy diskette into the image of first using inject files/directory (see snapshot below). If you need to insert an entire directory then you need to create a directory inside the image first, double click on that directory and then inject all files within that directory.
     
     [NOTE : If you have common file names in both the images (Like "autoexec.bat", "command.com", any one file from the two images would work well.]
     

     

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     You can select more than one file while injecting multiple files into first floppy's image.
     

     

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   • Save this image file in ".IMA" format. It's size would be 2.88 MB.
4. Use ISO reader/writer like WinISO to open UBCD.iso. We need to always ensure that this ISO file is a bootable one. WinISO shows this by displaying "Bootable CD" in the bottom left side which means that the CD burnt will be bootable as shown in the snapshot below. I spotted this after wasting 5 odd CDR's L. Always ensure that the ISO file remains bootable. Best way to do it is to not extract all the files and build iso again. Modify changes from WinISO itself as explained in steps below.
   

   

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5. Navigate to "images" folder in WinISO and add the image file(s) which were saved in ".IMA" format in that folder.
   

   

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6. Navigate to "boot" -> "menus" (see snapshot below) and edit custom.scn with something like this (it worked 100 % for me). (Note custom.scn can be opened and edited with any text editor like Notepad/Textpad etc). "custom.scn" basically creates menu through which we can start PowerQuest Partition Magic after booting.
   
   At times file does not overwrite the existing file. Best way to do it is to delete the file present in ISO and add the edited file. For best results view the added file to ensure that it is indeed the required one.
   

   

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7. Save UBCD.iso now with our added image file(s) and updated "custom.scn" file. Ensure that "Bootable CD" is still displayed in bottom left of WinISO window.
8. Insert a blank CD in the CD-Writer and use software "burnatonce" to burn this ISO file.
   

   

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9. Once the CD gets ejected after successfully being burnt, you can try booting your PC with this CD and see if it works. Ensure in BIOS that first boot device priority is CD-ROM. Also as hinted in UBCD – FAQ enable floppy too. In the main screen after booting UBCD hit [F5] to start user defined applications.