Create a bootable CD or DVD with or without floppy

With the CD-ROM available on almost every computer nowaday, floppy drives become a history. However, for those who find computers a hobby, might run into a situation when they need to create a bootable CD that works just like the old floppy disk. Unfortunately, to do this, you still need a floppy drive to read your bootup floppy disk. Wait, the good news is, you can just down load a bootable ISO image and burn it to a CD. And even better, we have a copy of an ISO image right here. You can download this image and follow the instructions below, or you can do a web search for more options.
The information on this article will guide you step-by-step how to create a bootable CD/DVD, either using a bootup floppy disk or a boot image file. You will end up having a bootable CD or DVD, with CD-ROM driver supported, that could startup your PC and bring up the command prompt. This is going to be a good starting point, then you can run other utilities such as hard drive ghost, etc..
Many current CD/DVD burning software support the bootable feature. If you already have your favorite burning software, look around to find the bootable option. For this article, I will use the steps and sample screen-shots with the burning tool called Nero.
You will need a boot disk (floppy) or a bootable ISO image to start. If you don't have one, you can download an ISO image here. This boot image is Windows-98 based, which means it uses the Windows 98 bootup sequence, which should do what we need. You can also download different boot disk images from the internet. I've found bootdisk.com has a very good collection.
I assume that you already have Nero installed. Also, it is highly recommended to use a rewritable disc so you can redo the process if you have to.

1. Launch Nero Burning ROM
2. At the New Compilation Window, select "CD" from the drop-down menu and select "CD-ROM (Boot)" for CD, (or select "DVD" and "DVD-ROM (Boot)" for DVD)
   
   
   
   
   
3. If you use a bootup floppy disk, insert the floppy disk and select "Bootable logical drive..."
   
   
   
4. If you use an image file, select "Image File" then click "Browse" to browse to the image.
   
   At the "Open" Window, browse to the location where you saved the boot image and choose the image you wish to use and click "Open" (you might need to change the "Files of type" to "All Files" in order to see files with different extensions.)
   
   
   
5. Click "New" at the New Compilation Window.
6. Nero New Compilation Window disappears and Nero brings up its main screen where you can add more files to the CD/DVD if you wish. For example, adding a "ghost" folder with the file "ghost.exe" as follows.
   Once you're done adding all the files you wish to, click on the "Burn" icon.
   
   
   
   
7. At the "Burn Compilation" Window, select "Burn"!

Burn a CD on Windows XP without using software

Windows XP comes with a builtin CD-copy feature that not many people are aware of. Although almost everyone has his/her favorite CD-copy software to stick with, it is still good to know about this CDR feature from Windows XP. You will find it very useful when you come to another PC that doesn't have a CD-copy software, and you can't just install your favorite software to it. With this feature, you can write some data or MP3 files to a CD/DVD, or erase a re-writable CD/DVD.
If you're using a Re-Writable CD (CD-RW), make sure the disc is blank. You might need to erase (or "format") it before use. For information how to erase a CD-RW on Windows XP without using any other software, see this article.

Requirements: You need to enable the CD-R feature on Windows XP. If you haven't done so, see this article.

1. Insert a Formated-ReWritable CD or a Recordable (CD-R) disc into the CD drive.
2. From Desktop, double-click on "My Computer".
3. Navigate to the files/folders you want to copy to CD. Select them and press "Ctrl-c" to copy.
4. Browse back to the CD-ROM, and press "Ctrl-V" to paste. The files/folders will show up as temporary files/folders at this time.
   
   
   
   
5. On the left panel, select "Write these files to CD".
   
   
   
   
6. The window "CD Writing Wizard" appears with the default CD name. Change the CD name if you wish, then click "Next".
   
   
   
   
7. The "CD Writing Wizard" starts to write files/folders to the CD:
   
   
   
   
8. Once the writing process is complete, the wizard will disappear and the CD-Rom will be ejected.

Basic Shortcut Keys

Shortcut Keys	Supported Window Versions	Description
Alt + e	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Pull down the top Edit menu.
Alt + f	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Pull down the top File menu
Ctrl + a	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Select all text.
Ctrl + c	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Copy selected item(s) (to clipboard).
Ctrl + f	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Find.
Ctrl + v	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Paste copied item(s) from clipboard
Ctrl + x	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Cut.
Ctrl + Ins	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Same as Ctrl + c
Ctrl + (left arrow)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Move one word to the left at a time.
Ctrl + (right arrow)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Move one word to the right at a time.
Shift + Ins	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Same as Ctrl + v
Shift + Delelte (or Del)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Cut. Or permanently delete selected item(s) on Windows Explorer.
F1	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Help.
Home	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Jump to the beginning of the line or page.
Ctrl + Home	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Jump to the beginning of the document or page.
End	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Jump to the end of the line or page.
Ctrl + End	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	ump to the end of the document or page.
Shift + Home	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Set selection (highlight) from current position to beginning of the line or page.
Shift + End	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Set selection (highlight) from current position to end of the line or page.
Shift + (left arrow)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Set selection (highlight) from current position to the left, one character at a time.
Shift + (right arrow)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Set selection (highlight) from current position to the right, one character at a time.
Shift + (down arrow)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Set selection (highlight) from current position to the next line down.
Shift + (up arrow)	95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista	Set selection (highlight) from current position to the next line up.