Thread: Boot Disks

I am interesting im writting applications that can run off of a boot floppy but I am really not sure how to go about doing so. I have searched for "Writing Boot Floppies" and things like that but have come up empty handed. I was wondering someone could point me in the right direction. I am trying to write an application in C or C++ and making it into a floppy image (*.img) or just put it directly onto a floppy and then start a computer and boot directly from that floppy. I would like to beable to use my own administrative tools...

A link to a tutorial or something of that nature would be wonderful.

By the way... I am running Linux and would prefer doing everything with Linux but if you only know of a way I can do it with Windows I would still like to read about it.

Thanks for your help.

ygfperson's second idea was probably best, using a dos boot disk. If you wanted the boot floppy to hold your application only:
* It would have to be written in ASM for the first sector of the disk (this is the boot sector).
* The first sector would then probably load the second sector, which jumps from real mode (which is 16 bit and needs to be in ASM) to protected mode (for 32bit C/C++ code). This is normally a pretty big sector and ususally isn't done in the first sector.
* The second sector then (in protected mode) would run your program. Unfortunately, because at this stage Windows/Linux hasn't even started, your application CANNOT use any external header files. You will have to create everything yourself, such as iostream and string.h.

At least, thats how I understand the boot process. Using a windows/dos boot disk will still let dos/windows start and then run your application, so you dont need to go through all the steps I outlined above.

~ Paul