IsoCobbler: a tool to make bootable ISO images

by david 19. May 2011 22:46

What with all this fiddling around with boot disks and ISO files, I found that there were not many tools around to do *exactly* what I wanted ... namely edit a 2.88Mb bootable floppy image and turn that into a bootable ISO.  So I've written IsoCobbler.  It doesn't have a GUI, it is command driven, but it suits my purposes.  Even though it looks very retro, this is a C# application running on .Net 4.  Here is a screenshot of it in action, on Windows 7:

IsoCobbler

It comes with a default boot image included, and makes it simple for anybody to edit it.  You can insert your own zip file called "content.zip" containing a batch file called "start.bat" along with any DOS applications you want.  Anything inside "content.zip" will be extracted into a RAM Disk and "start.bat" will be executed when the boot disk runs.

I guess that it might also be useful for creating some sort of emergency boot disk, you could load the zip file with all kinds of tools.

So here is the application (you'll need .Net framework v4 installed and it's best to run it as an administrator) and the source code (Visual Studio 2010).  Please drop me a line if you find it useful.  If I get time I may fiddle with it some more...

About the author

David

I'm a C# developer having worked with .Net since it was in beta.  Before that I mainly worked in C and C++.  I have been developing commercial software for more than 20 years.  I also mess around with microprocesors, but that's just for fun.  I live near Cambridge, England and at the moment I'm contracted to one of the departments at Cambridge University.

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