creating bootdisk (gparted) cant get it to work ?

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello all, and thanks for your time. i have decided to give myself a little project, but cant get off first base.trying to make a bootable disk with gparted, partition my disk and put a linux distro on it. but as the heading says, just cant seem to create bootable disk. its my first time trying, have read so many tutorials, and help files,but so far have only managed to create a few coasters lol. have downloaded gparted file, and tried both with roxio and deepburner to make bootable disk. can any one out there give me a quick (plain english) rundown of steps needed after download.

p.s. original project is not important. but creating bootable disks would be the main priority. thanks again, techdunce Smile

User: inactive Posts:

G'morning TD,

Making a bootable CD is no big deal.
Nero does it quite nicely.

If you have a bootable floppy disk, Nero will copy it to the boot sector on a CD making it boot up just like the floppy did.

Now as for "gparted" ..... that's a program with which I'm not familiar.

What are you actually wanting to do with it?
Knowing that might help, us to understand your post a bit better.

Cheers mate!
Shadow Cool

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello again shadow, hope youve been well, and thanks for getting back to me.(again). to answer the first question, i dont have a floppy drive. what i was trying to do is to make a bootable disc with gparted. it is a partitioning tool built for linux, but when burned to bootable disc, it can be used with windows xp. my plan was to use it to partition my drive, and then think about putting a linux distro on my system. i havent all of a sudden become a super tech since last we chatted (smiles). ive been reading up some A+ study material and thought i would give this a go. but nothing seems to work. the download of gparted that im using is already in iso format. but i just cant make bootable disc from it. also i can see the value in putting some tools on bootable disc and would really like to learn the procedure. as i have no one else to ask i thought i would post my queries here as LG has been good to me in the past (yourself and others). hope this clarifies things.thanks again, tehcdunce Smile

brat · Joined: Jun 05, 2003 Posts: 2326

I don't know if this is what you need.

http://www.poweriso.com/

http://www.magiciso.com/

mrs12brat

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 924

Do you have a burning program that supports ISO's?

You have to take that ISO & burn it to the CD using the ISO burning function. If you just try to burn the ISO as you would a data or music file, it WON'T work & you end up with a coster. If you have a burner that does ISO's there should be a place that says "burn ISO to CD" or something like that. That is what you want to use.

BTW: Are you using linux or windows to burn? If linux, what distro?
What burner, (either way) - A little more info & I may be able to lead you through it.

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello again mrs brat. thanks for the links. am just going to check them out. i think the first one is for linux, but am about to read support files on magiciso. thanks again, techdunce Smile

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello babytux, missed your post, apologies. to answer your questions, on deepburner there is a burn iso function, also on roxio, but nothing seems to work out. am i missing a conversion process or something like that. your other question, am i using linux, no, just xp home. i was going to tool around with linux after partitioning just for the hell of it, but as you read, havent got off first base yet. all part of the (frustration) learning curve. thanks again, all help welcome, techdunce Smile

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2636

oops, I posted a response in the other thread - can someone please move it here.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 924

OK, I use Roxio EZ CD & DVD creator 6 so may be able to help you out.

Go into the Creator Classics & click on file - mouse down to where is says "record disk from image" click on this - select your file (ISO) to burn & burn.

If this doesn't get it, you may have a bad download. Try downloading the ISO again & burn.

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello zlim, i dont know how that happened, obviously recreating threads (somehow) is a hidden talent of mine lol. got the download sorted, thanks for that, techdunce Smile

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello again babytux, and thanks for getting back to me. the method you describe is exactly what i had been doing,(or almost, as my version is slightly different) and had already redownloaded iso file. and as stated earlier, made a couple of coasters in the process. but at least by what you posted i have been doing it right, and if nothing else you have just saved my sanity lol. thanks for that, techdunce Smile

User: inactive Posts:

Of all the things that we computer fanatics do from time to time, burning ISO's seems to be at the top of the list of "Help, I screwed up!"

Nero, the only program I've used for years and the only one I own, will burn an ISO to CD with NO problems what-so-ever.

But, you can't just burn the ISO to a CD like a data file, which is IS NOT!!!

It's a compressed Image File of a CD and must be burned in a very specific way. Like I said, Nero does it very well. However, its not in the standard burning menu. If you have Nero I can walk you through the process.

If you're using any other program, you're on your own.

I've sent ISO's to many people world wide and I have one hell of a time getting them to burn the ISO correctly. Why it should be such a big problem is beyond me. Sometimes (actually most of the time) it would be better for me to just mail them the CD and be done with it.
If everyone would just use Nero, it wouldn't be such a problem.

I dunno, I dunno, I dunno!!!

Shadow Confused

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello again shadow. thanks for the reply, but just to compound your frustrations a little more, no, i dont use nero.but on lighter note, if you can see babytuxs last post, i have pretty much been on the right track. so i suppose i am another one of those people who just have an inherent problem burning iso files lol. but the fact im not the only one does make me feel much better, so, much obliged, from a smiling techdunce Smile

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

as stated earlier another thread seems to have magically manifested itself on this issue (i claim no responsibility hee hee) but got this from shadow on "the other one" and moved it here.

I've gone to several web sites that claim to have "GParted" for download. None of them worked satisfactorily for me.

It appears to be a HD partitioning program for Linux.

I'd just partition the HD and then install linux.

For years I've used nothing but "Partition Magic 8" and still do.

Everything else I've ever tried has let me down......even the one I paid $69 for. Crying or Very sad

I can put any HD on my own system and use PM8 to partition it.
I just did it again this evening with a HD from a mini Dell.

Only one partition, NTFS and Windows XP Home.....it don't get much worse than that. Wink Laughing Laughing Laughing

Shadow Cool
thanks again shadow, if your having problems with this also, then that, along with babytux`s posts here, all serve to make "the dunce" feel so much better. as i am not the only one who cant make this work. i am checking out zlims suggested download, imageburn, for future reference. i had originally thought i was just messing it up, but babytux confirmed for me my method in roxio was correct, and if the shadow is also not happy with his experimentation, then who can blame "the dunce" for this small failure Smile

at least you have all confirmed (to me at least) that i am not crazy after all. so a hearty thanks to all contributors, techdunce Smile

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 924

Since your MAIN goal is to learn how to make bootable CD's & you want to play with linux, try downloading a distro of linux & burning the ISO. Kill two birds... That will confirm if you are doing it right (or wrong).

A good distro is digipup - HAM RADIO based but can be used for a LOT of other stuff such as diag/repairs. (there are other "puppy" versions) Works pretty good "out of the box" & I believe it to be easy to understand it's Graphical User Interface.
Some of the Slax stuff is pretty good but I have ran into some with issues (rare) - Knoppix is another good one but might be a bit more advanced. Search around, when you get the ISO buring issue solved, you can "collect" a few & see what you like. Personally, my main one is fedora 7 but I use Digipup & some Knoppix & Slax.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 924

I got curious about this & thought I'd download it & burn it to see if there is anything "screwy" about it. I assume that you are using the liveCD ISO & NOT the tarball. (the compressed files with the "tar" extension) Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'll post my findings when I get it done.

BTW: if you ARE using the tarball, do you understand what they are about?

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

thanks again babytux,

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

thanks again babytux, and yes i have been using the live cd. by your comments i also have a bit to learn about linux distros, but that was the intention. thanks a lot for the distro suggestions, as with those you have pre-empted some questions i had, as i never used linux before. but here is a quick one. will iso distro, burned to disc, operate from the cd-dvd drive itself, thus eliminating the need to partition. thats just a thought , and am wondering if this is what you meant. thanks again for the info, techdunce Smile

p.s. just to clarify, tarball means nothing to me. Smile

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 924

techdunce · Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Posts: 145

hello again babytux, i have just downloaded a distro (slax) and am just doing some reading up on its use and commands. havent burned it yet, only have one cd right now, and am quite used to failure (as anyone following this will know lol) but i really like the principal of live cd, and am looking forward to giving it a go. thanks again, techdunce Smile