Hi, this is probably going to be a noob question, but alas, here it is:

I have created a bootable Dos CD-Rom following Bart's instructions here, adding (dragging and dropping in XP) an .exe and a .txt file to the "cds\cdromsi\files\" folder. CD-Rom image successfully created, written to CD, all is well.

I can boot into DOS, but in DOS all I see are the DOS system files (6 files and 6 folders) and I can't find my own files in there. But the files are on the CD-Rom somewhere, because when I boot into XP, and then insert the disk, XP sees my .exe and my .txt files, along with the autorun.bat file, and nothing else (no DOS system files). So I can see these three files in XP, but no DOS system files, and in DOS I can see the DOS system files and not these 3.

Can someone explain this, and also, how do I run my .exe file off of the bootable DOS CD-Rom?

DOS requires a CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX.EXE loaded via config.sys.

I may add that what you made is an El-Torito Floppy Emulation image.

In this kind of .iso, the Floppy is copied verbatim in a "hidden" area and is used to boot.

You cannot normally see this floppy image unless you actually boot from the .iso.

The .iso effectively "emulates" a floppy drive (of course read only) that will get letter A: or B: when booted.
Rest of the filesystem (unhidden) is ONLY accessible from an operating system that can access a CD-ROM.

DOS is NOT among them unless the MSCDEX.EXE ( MS CD EXtension) are loaded.
http://www.felgall.com/doswin7.htm

AND, depending on the actual way you made the .iso, even MSCDEX.EXE may not be able to access the contents of the CD, since it is NOT compatible with later standards introduced, the so called ISO9660:1999 extensions.

In this case, you should use INSTEAD of MSCDEX, the newer SHSUCDX:
http://www.geocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/index.html
that is compatible with this new (ten years old ) standard.

jaclaz

why not add the files to the floppy-image itself ?