Windows Server 2008 – Creating Bootable ISO from CD contents

I recently downloaded Windows 2008 and I ended up with 1.76 GB worth of files you would typically see when you load the ISO or CD.  See screenshot below.  Unfortunately, burning a CD or ISO from the files shown below will not result in a bootable OS media.

I needed to convert this folder with files into a bootable ISO so that I can easily boot from it when installing Windows.  After some searching, I found that this can easily be done with CDImage.   I used the following command:

Command
D:\Downloads>CDIMAGE.EXE -m -u2 -b”d:\Downloads\X86 VL\boot\etfsboot.com” “d:\Do
wnloads\X86 VL” d:\Downloads\Windows2008_X68_VL.iso

Options
      -u2 encode “UDF” file system without a mirror ISO-9660 file system
            (requires a UDF capable operating system to read the files)
      -m  ignore maximum image size of 681,984,000 bytes
       -b  “El Torito” boot sector file, no spaces
             (e.g. -bc:\location\cdboot.bin)

If you have specified the correct set of options, then you should see a ISO file generated in about 30 minutes.

Now off to configure my shiny new Win2k8 VPC….