Boot CDROM through GRUB at Black God

Boot CDROM through GRUB

All latest computers can boot from CD when there is a bootable CDROM in the drive. It is the ability of the BIOS. But legacy PCs does not have that feature. Many operating systems provide bootable floppy for this purpose. But it is pain to prepare boot floppy for different operating systems. So we need a solution to address this issue.

Recently I tried install Slackware 11.0 with first CD, which is bootable. But my PC does not boot through CDROM, it skips CDROM goes to grub installed in first harddisk (Primary Master). But other bootable CDs works fine in my PC. This happens to only Slackware 11.0 CD-1 only (I have to check whether the culprit is Slackware CD or GnomeBaker, that is different story..). So my PC is not CD bootable atleast for this Slackware CD. Then I found the following method to solve this issue and it works like charm. This method is applicable for all legacy PCs which can’t boot from CDROM drive.

Step 1: Download the memdisk.bin from here or if you have syslinux installation, you can use the installed memdisk.bin.

Step 2: Download the sbootmgr.dsk from here or here or if you have any version of Slackware CD-1, /isolinux/sbootmgr/sbootmgr.dsk file you can use.

Step 3: Copy both memdisk.bin and sbootmgr.dsk in your grub existing grub installation path, /boot/grub.

Step 4: Add the following entry in your existing grub menu. Note: root(hd0,0) should be according to your configuration.

title CDROM

root(hd0,0)

kernel /boot/grub/memdisk.bin

initrd /boot/grub/sbootmgr.dsk

Step 5: I hope you need not to run grub-install again. If necessary you can do.

Step 6: Reboot the machine.

Step 7: You can see an entry called CDROM in grub menu list. Select the entry. You will be shown boot device selection screen showing all your harddisk and CDROM drives. Insert your bootable CDROM in the CD Drive and select that drive from menu. Waavv..!! your machine is booted from that CD.

Yesterday I had a wonderful time in getting this done. Hope you too!

13 Comments. Posted by Black God on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 at 11:13 am.

Filed under HOW-TOs, GRUB, HOWTO, Linux.

Subscribe to Comments on this post

13 Comments on “Boot CDROM through GRUB”

You can track this conversation through its atom feed.

Simmel says:

Hi there,

on this page might be an explanation why it didn’t work out. Could it be that your Pc is a little bit older?

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/Making-a-GRUB-bootable-CD_002dROM.html

Just at the bottom it says:

Note that the -boot-load-size 4 bit is required for compatibility with the BIOS on many older machines.

Maybe you should try it out…

C ya,
Simmel

Posted on June 14, 2007 at 4:50 am. (Reply)
jameswillisisthebest says:

This is my first post
just saying HI

Posted on September 9, 2007 at 1:39 am. (Reply)
ms-trex says:

Well man this is superb

Posted on September 22, 2007 at 5:41 pm. (Reply)
kar says:

hi i installed grub and booted in windows xp. i then decided to partion my harddisk using manage harddisk option in mycomputer, when i re booted i got a err17. i can not even boot from my cd drive . (i tried to re install windows/linux). i am locked out… help

Posted on October 25, 2007 at 8:35 am. (Reply)
Neil says:

Note sure what to do here:
“Note: root(hd0,0) should be according to your configuration.”

How do I work out what this should be?

Otherwise a great walkthrough, and much appreciated.

Posted on November 8, 2007 at 3:50 pm. (Reply)
Neil says:

Ok, just me being a bit dense. Must point to grub folder (hd0,4 for me).

Posted on November 8, 2007 at 4:06 pm. (Reply)
civiXier says:

You’ve just saved the life on one of my lappys. This worked like a charm, thanx

Posted on December 7, 2007 at 8:23 pm. (Reply)
Valentino says:

tried this on a macbook and …

booted from cd but canceled grub’s disk mapping…

Posted on January 2, 2008 at 9:44 pm. (Reply)
Password BIOS dimenticata su notebook - PcTuner Forum says:

[...] GRUB installer for windows questo ti installa grub da win (occhio, non l’ho mai provato ) Boot CDROM through GRUB « myself and my computer qui spiega come bootare un cdrom da grub non è certo il migliore dei modi, ma è l’unico che mi [...]

Posted on February 16, 2008 at 10:54 pm. (Reply)
Rene says:

thanks this help me a lot

Posted on March 2, 2008 at 1:58 am. (Reply)
Name says:

How come there are other bootloaders that allow booting to a CD-ROM with no extra files? Is it that the functionality isn’t built into GRUB?

Posted on March 23, 2008 at 6:57 pm. (Reply)
how to install a floppy drive says:

i had to boot to a floppy a few days back, i forgot how slow they are !!!

Posted on July 17, 2008 at 1:43 am. (Reply)
pat5star says:

Awesome. I was looking for a way to do this and this worked perfectly. Thanks very much for posting it and keeping it up!

-Pat

Posted on May 3, 2009 at 5:21 am. (Reply)

Subscribe to Comments on this post

Well said!

If you have to gain all these other "soft skills" or business skills in order to just be a regular software engineer, then why keep working for someone else? One of the main reasons for being an employee is because it's (supposed to be) both easier and safer than striking out on your own. Instead of long hours and having to wear many hats, you can just concentrate on your own skill, and leave the business stuff to the people who specialize in that. Anyone familiar with the idea of specialized labor should understand this. The downside is (supposed to be) your pay is lower than it could potentially be by owning and operating your own business. If today's corporations want their regular rank-and-file employees to wear many hats, be multi-talented, and have a lot of business skills, then they're simply not doing their own jobs correctly. - Grishnakh (Slashdot user)

Popular Posts

Recent Posts