CD Shell User Manual: Building a Disc Image

Building a Disc Image

Introduction

The following will describe what you need to do to make a CD or DVD disc image that will boot into CD Shell. First I will explain which files need to be added to your disc, and second I will briefly describe how to build your bootable disc image.

Directory Structure

In the CD Shell distribution archive, there is a folder called 'boot'. Basically all you will need to do is extract that folder to the root directory of your disk image, and then set loader.bin (also included in the archive) to be the disk's boot sector.

More specifically, here is what you will need to run CD Shell:


		/ (root)

		|

		+ BOOT

		|   |

		|   + FONTS

(folder for fonts, optional)



		|   |

		|   + GRAPHICS

(folder for images, optional)



		|   |   |

		|   |   > SPLASH.BMP

(low resolution splash image, optional)



		|   |   |

		|   |   > SPLASH.CSI

(high resolution splash image, optional)



		|   |

		|   + MODULES

(folder for modules, required)



		|   |   |

		|   |   > *.CSM

(all module files)



		|   |   |

		|   |   + ISOLINUX

		|   |   |   |

		|   |   |   > MEMDISK

(if you want to use the memdisk command)



		|   |   |   |

		|   |   |   > *.*

(Linux kernels, isolinux.cfg, or other isolinux-related files)



		|   |   |

		|   |   + MEMTEST

		|   |   |   |

		|   |   |   > MEMTEST.BIN

(if you want to use Memtest86+)



		|   |   |

		|   |   + RPM

		|   |        |

		|   |        > PART.EXE

(if you want to use Ranish Partition Manager)



		|   |

		|   > CDSH.BIN

(CD Shell program file, required)



		|   |

		|   > CDSHELL.INI

(startup script, optional)



		|   |

		|   > LOADER.BIN

(Loader program file, required)



		|

		> *.*

(the rest of the files you want on the disc)

Producing the Disc Image (ISO)

Once you have all the files in place, you can build the iso image. Most programs will ask for the following options to make the disc bootable:

Item	Setting
Boot image file	Make sure this points to loader.bin.
Emulation type	Set this to "no emulation" or "custom".
Load segment	0x07C0 (or just 07C0)
Number of sectors to load	4

For those using mkisofs, you can create the iso file by using the command:


		mkisofs -o output.iso -b boot/loader.bin -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 root-of-iso-tree

And it's as simple as that. You will have a disc that has whatever files you needed on it, plus one directory called "boot" that has all of the boot-related files in it. You can also completely hide the boot folder by using this method, but it is a somewhat lengthy procedure.

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