[StilllLearning]

I wasn't sure where this post should go, but I thought the readers here would be interested..

Tonight on my Linux Mint computer I, among other things, burned an audio CD using said computer while my USB floppy drive was plugged in all the while. Inside the drive was the diskette I had been using as the Windows 98 Startup disk (which install insists on creating) in my failed attempt at installing Win98 on another computer. Before I called it a night I wanted to test the Reinstall CD (unrelated) for my emachines comp to see if that indeed was what it was (the labelling was vague as were the files on disc). So I rebooted, entered BIOS, set boot to CDROM and popped in the cd. I was fairly surprised when I saw the Windows 98 boot disk option menu (considering normally I would need to set boot to Removable) but didn't think much of it, as a floppy inside an A: drive would commonly boot first. I unplugged the USB floppy drive, and restarted the computer...

To my amazement again I was greeted with the options for CD-ROM support, nonCDROM, or README.txt familiar to the Windows 98 Boot Disk. I thought perhaps the small 1440k diskette had somehow lodged itself somewhere in RAM so I set boot device to HD, performed some mundane task, and again attempted to use CDROM to boot. Same scene..

I could not understand why it was acting this way. It being an hour ago, 4AM, I decided to goto bed. But not before trying the same CD in my room (from where I'm typing) on my Ubuntu box. AGAIN THE WINDOWS 98 BOOT DISK SCREEN! This coming from a computer with no A: drive, 1 ext4 partition (and swap) and nothing to do whatsoever with windows.

So I pose the question... Is it possible the Windows 98 Startup Boot Disk somehow used my CD burner to add something to an emachines proprietary CD? The audio CD I burned earlier was a CD-RW but it seems absolutely ridiculous. Now when I boot from my reinstall CD I'm asked if I want CDROM support..
.....

has anybody ever encountered anything like this? ?

[JohnWill]

Most of those disks are factory pressed disks, so it seems pretty impossible for a burner to do anything to those.

Keep in mind that many manufacturers still use MS-DOS 7 (aka Win98 boot) to build their recovery disks.

[bp936]

Welcome to TSG.
that is for sure is bizarre, I also have no explanation for it.

[avisitor]

Are you sure that that CD doesn't run off a Windows 98 startup disk? I know some restore CDs run Ghost off a Windows 98 startup disk. That is, are you sure that disk didn't always do that?