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I'm trying to make an iso file which will boot without any key-press from the user. In Windows iso files, when booting from a cd, there is a message "press any key to boot from cd" which will wait for 5-10 seconds and then, if there is no key-press, it will boot from HD.

I searched the web for how to remove this message, and do not press any key and all the answers were "delete bootfix.bin" from the iso.

I edited the iso (I've tried several iso files) to remove the bootfix.bin, but now the iso is not correct.

Do you have any suggestions?

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As Jim B says below, the option to choose what device to boot from is not down to the iso, but the System's BIOS. – tombull89 Jan 26 at 12:15
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4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

I've always used nlite to make my unattended isos and it has an option to disable that prompt.

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Here is a link to their site if you're interested. nliteos.com – SonoIT Jan 26 at 17:23
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up vote 0 down vote

I think BIOS display this message, and BIOS select the boot device. Because when I use a bootable disc, no matter Windows,Linux or FreeDOS disc, my computer always displayed " press any key to boot from an CD".

Sorry, I did a web search. This message isn't come from BIOS, but Bootloader I think.

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up vote -1 down vote

It's related to the iso and the bootfix.bin. It's a optinaol saftey feature as I understand. To remove it ou should read this article, it could help. I found this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744321(WS.10).aspx you should try is out.

Else I will try creating a iso later this night and see if i can get it working. I guess you are trying to make a bootale windows 7 cd right? and just want it to boot when it's in the pc. If you feel like waiting?

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:I'll wait. I need any windows OS boot image. thanks! – gln Jan 26 at 13:05
this article is for efi PCs – Jim B Jan 26 at 14:23
@Jim B yeah sorry! a bit to fast posting that link, I'm gonna post back when i figured out something – alex Jan 26 at 20:56
@gln I made it work. What I did was. first. I took a original xp cd, then with nlite - I ripped the files to a folder - opend the folder and removed the bootfix.bin 3. used poweriso to create a image and burn to cd. now I turn on the pc, with the cd ofc, It just runs the install, also, with the unattended feature it can run all the way through with just turning the pc on. – alex Jan 27 at 11:42
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up vote -1 down vote

That message isn't from windows, that's the PC bios asking which device to boot from when there are multiple bootable devices. You can't remove that without removing the option to boot to the hard drive

EDIT: So technically speaking the message is not in the BIOS. But the message is called by the BIOS via INT 19H. (I mistakeinely thought that it was an in13 message which gets called later) The el torito bootable spec (which is used to emulate one of the boot devices supported by bios) requires that the CD run in emulation or no emulation mode. In order to remove the message you'd have to run a custom no emulation boot loader (eg write your own OS) since none of the devices would be there for an OS to use. See section 5.2 of the bootable cdrom spec. In order to remove the message you would have to remove bootfix.bin entirely. You can't do that because the bios has been told to load it. You could try removing bootfix.bin before creating your ISO.

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you can see this message in bootfix.bin in the iso files. it is related to the iso, not to the BIOS – gln Jan 26 at 12:13
Ok let's say the message does come from whatever bootloader you have (I don't believe so but let's go there). Its still the bios calling that message with whatever interrupt calls it, you can't get rid of it. – Jim B Jan 26 at 12:21
@JimB I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I suspect gln is correct here. I've always thought it was part of the Windows boot image, as I've never seen it on a Linux install/live CD. – Bryan Jan 26 at 12:51
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It is not the BIOS - it is the cd. Basically the cd starts,a nd the program started then asks. – TomTom Jan 26 at 13:04
Then why do you get that when the cd fails to boot? Why is the message always the same? (I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm not sure if that's a cd boot spec but I'm real familar with x86 bios interrupts, and am 100% positive that the bios polls the drives) – Jim B Jan 26 at 14:21
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