El Torito (CD-ROM standard)

The El Torito Bootable CD Specification is an extension to the ISO 9660 CD-ROM specification. It is designed to allow a computer to booting from a CD-ROM. It was first issued in January 1995 as a joint proposal by IBM and BIOS manufacturer Phoenix Technologies.

A IBM PC BIOS will not search for a boot sector on an ISO 9660 CD. The El Torito specification sets a CD to emulate a hard disk or floppy disk, the CD would contain one or more disk images - exact replicas - and emulate the INT 13 functions of such disks.

The standard is apparently named after El Torito (Spanish language: the little bull ) restaurants. The designers of the format were eating at an El Torito outlet when they came up with the format and wrote the first draft on a napkin.

=See also=

*bootfloppy *Boot disk *LiveCD

=External link=

*[http://www.phoenix.com/NR/rdonlyres/98D3219C-9CC9-4DF5-B496-A286D893E36A/0/specscdrom.pdf The El Torito Bootable CD-ROM Format Specification, Version 1.0] (Portable Document Format)