How to burn a CD from data on hard disk?

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QUESTION :

I had copied a Windows XP CD on my hard disk. and I kept using the CD for installation purposes.

now, my CD is scratched and I need to create a new bootable Windows XP CD.

How can I create a bootable CD from the Windows XP files on hard disk ?

thanks.

ANSWER :

Here is a link to a nice tutorial:

How to Create a Bootable Windows XP Setup Disk on a Preinstalled / Preloaded Windows System

Before you can recreate a bootable
Windows installation disk, certain
things are required:

  1. A Windows XP System
  2. An I386 Directory (Folder) on your Hard Disk
  3. Windows License Key
  4. Device Drivers
  5. CD/DVD Burning Software
  6. Windows Setup CD Boot Sector

Or you can use nlite to create your bootable disk, you can also add service packs, patches, updates and tweaks. There is also a tutorial (guides)

In my experience I almost never need the install CD except during the initial install and as a bootdisk, so I just store the on-disk backup as an ISO rather than a logical copy of the files on the disk.

You can use any CD/DVD burning software to burn the ISO to a new disk. (You can use the same software to get the ISO in the first place, if necessary)

You could use daemontools or the like to mount the ISO directly if you need something from it without putting a physical disk in the drive.

I belive that the Windows License does allow you to burn an ISO copy of your single installtaion disk to be used only for backup purposes in place of using the disk you were provided with.