10: Removable Media in Software

Encoder QR Code in Software 10: Removable Media

Step 5 Restart your system Typically, the boot screen will prompt you with the message Press any key to boot from the CD If there is a bootable CD in the drive, the system will boot from that disc Leave this boot order in place for the next lab exercise, in which you ll learn to create bootable CDs Step 6 Re-enter the CMOS setup utility, and note whether your system will allow you to boot from a USB device, such as a USB thumb drive If your machine is capable, you can substitute a USB thumb drive for the optical drive in the next lab exercise and create a live USB of the GParted partition editor For now, leave the optical drive as the rst device in the boot order and shut down the machine

PCs today are used more than ever for storage of digital photographs, music, and video, in addition to more traditional types of data Even a modest collection of MP3 les, family photos, and home video clips requires many gigabytes of space! Hard drives do have space limits, and at some point they tend to fail, so wise PC users turn to recordable CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray drives These discs provide an affordable large-capacity portable storage option; you can put your important data onto a disc, or make multiple copies of that disc to store in two or more secure locations This lab will introduce you to the process of recording, or burning, optical discs Rather than burning a disc full of your favorite tunes or photos, you ll be making the type of disc that a technician would have in his toolkit when troubleshooting a machine that won t boot

If your systems have Blu-ray drives, you will be burning your disc the same way However, be aware that Blu-ray Discs are better armed than current DVDs They come equipped with a secure encryption system a unique ID that protects against video piracy and copyright infringement

In this lab, you ll use a third-party burning program to create bootable ISO images on recordable optical discs At the end of this lab, you ll be able to Work with optical discs and burning tools Create a bootable optical disc

The materials you need for this lab are A working computer system with a CD-RW or DVD-RW drive installed Internet access (preferably a high-speed connection) for downloading An optical disc burning application such as ISO Recorder, Nero Burning ROM, or freeware CDBurnerXP Blank optical discs (more than one if possible)

GParted is a Gnome Linux live CD with the Gnome Partition Editor application installed In this lab you will burn the ISO image of the open source, bootable live CD of Gnome Linux and the utility GParted Step 1 Ensure that you have optical disc burning software that will allow you to burn ISO images An ISO image is a complete copy of a disc, including all of the boot information in the boot record Popular third-party products include the freeware ISO Recorder for Windows XP or Vista (http://isorecorder alexfeinmancom/isorecorderhtm) and the commercial Nero Burning ROM (wwwnerocom) You can also try CDBurnerXP, an excellent freeware burning tool that supports the burning of ISO images; it s available at wwwcdburnerxpse Just go to the CDBurnerXP Web site, follow the instructions, and run the installation After you ve successfully installed the program, you should have all the tools necessary to burn ISO images (see Figure 10-8)

Microsoft is constantly updating operating systems and applications such as Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so don t forget to check occasionally to see if they have updated the built-in burning application with the ability to handle ISO images

Step 2 Now visit the GParted Web site at http://gpartedsourceforgenet Click Downloads and follow the instructions You can download the full ISO, or download the zip le to improve transfer times (remember you will have to expand the zip le after it s on your system) Step 3 Once you have the ISO image, open the tray on your optical drive and insert a blank optical disc Close the tray and launch your optical disc burning software Navigate to the GParted ISO le and follow the instructions to burn the ISO image onto the optical media Most programs will eject the tray with the disc once the writing process is complete