[lug] Buring an ISO and making it bootable

[Timothy C. Klein]

* Ken Nagorski (kenn at pcintelligent.com) wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> I have a stupid question. And I know I have done this before. But how do I
> burn and ISO and make sure it is bootable. I am scared cause I am dead broke
> and only have 2 cd's left.
> 
> I think I just say
> 
> cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,1,0  -data darwin.iso
> 
> yes/no?
> 
> There is an question on the FAQ about this at the linux cdr howto - but that
> is about rolling your own from a bootable floppy or whatever...
> 
> Thanks
> Ken
> 

You know, I forgot one other safety.  J Davis mentioned the -scanbus
option to check that your device is correct.  You can also use the
-dummy option.  So do 

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=0,1,0  -data darwin.iso -dummy

And it will go through all the steps, but not actually turn on the
laser.  You can make sure all is well with your burning procedure.

Also, you can check the ISO by doing

mount -o loop -t iso9660 ./darwin.iso /mnt/tmp 
 {or whatever mount point you want}

as root.  You can look and see what is on the ISO img that way, and make
sure everything looks OK.  Can't off the top of my head think of a way
to verify that it is bootable just by looking, though.  Is that
darwin.iso the open source *BSD?  If so, as long as it mounts that way,
I'm sure you would be fine if it was downloaded from some official site.
It is a good way to check and see that you didn't get a very obviously
corrupt image.

HTH,
Tim
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== Timothy Klein || teece at silverklein.net   ==
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