How to get a boot menu before loading BartPE? Options

[jaclaz]

I wanted to mess with the boot.ini again real quick. I found that if I copy the ntldr from my XP box to the root of the USB flash then I can get it to give me a menu. However I can't get it to load the BartPE regardless of how I try to edit the boot.ini file.

Right now my USB flash has these files and folders...
\minint
\minint\ntdetect.com
\minint\setupldr.bin
\minint\ntldr, etc
\Programs

boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com, etc

Depending on how I change the boot.ini file around it will either lock up the pc, reboot it, or give me an error message when I select a menu option.

Raceit,
you are missing a logical step:
1) The BOOTSECTOR (i.e. first sector of the Active Primary Partition) contains CODE that boots (under NT/2K/XP/2003) the NTLDR
2) The NTLDR has the capacity to boot (through the selection in BOOT.INI and using NTDETECT.COM) only the windows NT/2K/XP/2003 System partition, (i.e. \Winnt or \Windows) through an arcpath sintax, (i.e. something like multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT)
3) To keep compatibility with elder MS operating systems, the NTLDR has also the option to load ANOTHER bootsector; this bootsector MUST have the same geometry (dynamic data) of the main one, but can have different CODE, i.e. can load something different like the DOS files IO.SYS SDOS.SYS COMMAND.COM or another OS, or even another bootloader
4) BartPE normally boots by using a copy of SETUPLDR.BIN renamed as NTLDR or PELDR.
5) SETUPLDR.BIN behaves differently from NTLDR:
a.) It DOES NOT use the BOOT.INI settings file
b.) Searches for needed files in the \I386 directory (this is fixed, hardcoded INSIDE SETUPLDR.BIN, needs hexediting to be changed) or in the \minint one if on hard disk
c.) Reads the textsetup.SIF, or WINNT.SIF (or any other .sif file)

The way to have a BartPE selection in boot.ini is to have an alternate BOOTSECTOR, peboot.bin, that loads PELDR (i.e. a renamed SETUPLDR.BIN) INSTEAD of NTLDR.

So the booting goes like this:
1) REAL BOOTSECTOR loads NTLDR
2) NTLDR loads BOOT.INI
3) If the line invoking the ALTERNATE bootsector peboot.bin is chosen, peboot.bin loads PELDR

You cannot load anything else but an ARCPATH or a BOOTSECTOR from NTLDR/BOOT.INI!

See these threads here:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=2316
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=11213
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=11226
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=13930
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14684

and this post from cdob:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14164&st=20

Using GRLDR or GRUB.EXE makes it possible to load DIRECTLY (i.e. chainload) NTLDR or SETUPLDR.BIN without need for renaming the latter to NTLDR or PELDR.


jaclaz

[cdob]

@Raceit

jaclaz wrote a fine manual already. Thanks.

A working example, use peinst tools:
USB drive letter h: at running windows. Not BartPE.
Of course, use your USB drive letter.

Extract boot sector, write boot sector file

D:\pebuilder\plugin\peinst>mkbt -c -x h: h:\peboot.bin
* Copy bootsector mode (-c)
* Expert mode (-x)
Reading source boot sector from "\\.\H:"
Writing boot sector back to "h:\peboot.bin"

Edit boot sector file

D:\pebuilder\plugin\peinst>nt2peldr.exe h:\peboot.bin
File "h:\peboot.bin" has been read
1 replacements done
Changes written back to "h:\peboot.bin"

copy h:\minint\setupldr.bin h:\PELDR

Edit h:\boot.ini, load bootsector file

[operating systems]C:\PEBOOT.BIN="BartPE"

C:\ is importand.
But that is not the drive letter from running windows or running PE.
That's the drive letter builded by ntldr, most likely BIOS device 0x80.
If you boot from USB, your USB device get 0x80.
This works in my case, a different BIOS may require another solution.

[cdob]

Update:
A nice multiboot manual: http://multiboot.solaris-x86.org

(C: in BIOS boot sequence)

Next step: Add recocery console.

Install recocery console at internal hard disk.
Copy \cmdcons h:\CMDCONS
Case is importand at FAT16.

Edit USB drive h:\boot.ini

CODE

[operating systems]
C:\PEBOOT.BIN="BartPE"
C:\PEBOOT.BIN="Recocery Console" /cmdcons

Boot USB drive, select BartPE or Recocery Console.

updated update:
Same USB hardware.
One machine boot BartPE and recovery console.
Another machine boot BartPE only Recovery console dosn't find txtsetup.sif.
As known, different hardware (BIOS) may get different USB results.

This post has been edited by cdob: May 11 2006, 08:47 AM

[Ed_P]

title Win98SE (Win98SE.ima)
# This image has been set to boot using directly the GRUB bootloader
# You might also want to experiment with compressed images and memdisk
# The image is first mapped to memory as first floppy
# then Int13h is hooked
# finally the 1st sector of floppy is chainloaded and booted
map --mem /IMAGES/Win98SE.ima (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify (fd0)

title Win98SE (Win98SE.ima.gz)
# This image has been set to boot using directly the GRUB bootloader
# This example uses a compressed image (gzipped)
# The image is first mapped to memory as first floppy
# then Int13h is hooked
# finally the 1st sector of floppy is chainloaded and booted
map --mem /IMAGES/Win98SE.ima.gz (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify (fd0)

title Win98SE (Win98SE.imz) memdisk
# This image has been set to boot using memdisk
# Using memdisk instead of direct GRUB booting
# If the compressed image does not boot through memdisk you can always
# try to uncompress it and use it with direct GRUB booting
kernel /IMAGES/memdisk.gz
initrd /IMAGES/Win98SE.imz
Boot

The above are just examples, another way is using simply a Floppy image for the DOS booting, in this
case you need an entry in menu.lst along these lines:
Instead of the floppy image one can use a partition image, there are so many possibilities that it's impossible to list them all.

If on the stick there is also GRUB.EXE it is possible to re-start GRUB from the DOS command line without rebooting.

Please NOTE that GRUB paths/filenames are CaSe SeNsItIvE!

jaclaz

If the images are not on the c:\ drive how are they referenced?

initrd (hd0,2)/FLOPPIES/Win98.imz


root (hd0,2)
initrd /FLOPPIES/Win98.imz


map (hd0,2)
initrd /FLOPPIES/Win98.imz

??

I end up with GRUB ERROR 1 and ERROR 12s.

[jaclaz]

Why you use the initrd without memdisk?

map --mem (hd0,2)/FLOPPIES/Win98.imz (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify (fd0)

or

kernel (hd0,2)/FLOPPIES/memdisk.gz
initrd (hd0,2)/FLOPPIES/Win98SE.imz
Boot

should both work

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

Why you use the initrd without memdisk?

Because I don't know any better.

should both work

jaclaz

Unfortunately, neither worked.

The 2nd one failed with Error 21: Linux kernel must be loaded before initrd.
Most likely because I don't have a memdisk.gz file and thus couldn't use the"kernel" operand.

The 1st one failed with Error 21: No such partition. I got the same error when I used (hd0,3) but I got Error 17: File not found when I used (hd0,4). The image file is on my E: drive, in the FLOPPIES folder and is named MODBOOT.imz and that is exactly what I specified in my GRUB map command:
map --mem (hd0,4)/FLOPPIES/MODBOOT.imz (fd0)

I also tried (hd0,5) with the same result.

If under GRUB I do a find /NTLDR it comes back with only (hd0,1) not (hd0,0) which is what I would expect.

[jaclaz]

It seems like you have TWO problems:
1) the hard disk partition(hd0,x) is somehow wrong, easier would be making multiple entries with x=1,2,3,4,5,6, etc. I cannot say more without knowing exactly how your hard disk is set
2)

Most likely because I don't have a memdisk.gz file and thus couldn't use the"kernel" operand.

Get it from homepage:
http://syslinux.zytor.com/memdisk.php
http://syslinux.zytor.com/download.php
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot...slinux-3.11.zip

You can use the file memdisk (no extension) directly or use 7zip to Gzip it to memdisk.gz

If under GRUB I do a find /NTLDR it comes back with only (hd0,1) not (hd0,0) which is what I would expect.

It is possible that your C : partition is not first partition as seen by grub
http://djack.com.pl/Suse9hlp/ch08s04.html#sec:grub.devices

You can check the sorting order of partitions with beeblebrox and/or sort them with mbrwizard, be careful though.
Since MBRwizard does not deal with Extended Partitions and its Logical Volumes, checking them can be tricky, right now I cannot remember an easy to do way to check them (I would do it manually with an Hex/Disk Editor).

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

Ok, figured out the partition numbering. GRUB allocates 0-3 to the Primaries then 4-x to the Logicals. D'ol! I knew that. My E: is my 2nd Logical and should thus be (hd0,5) to GRUB. root (hd0, plus Tab shows partitions 1,4,5,6,etc. Why my primary is 1 rather than 0 I have no idea but since everything works with it as 1 I'm not going to change it. I put a dummy file in the root of E: and find /dummy found it at (hd0,5).

I downloaded the 1.6MB syslinux file and extracted the 20KB memdisk. I originally mistook the file name to be the utility that tests RAM.

Unfortunately both approaches to booting an image still don't work. They both give the Error 17: File not found for the 1st file referenced. find /FLOPPIES and find /FLOPPIES/ returned no hits. Too bad GRUB doesn't have a DIR command or a *.* option.

[jaclaz]

find /FLOPPIES and find /FLOPPIES/

I don't think that grub can find directories.

Try the following:
find /FLOPPIES/MODBOOT.imz

Then try copying, just for the sake of it,
MODBOOT.imz to the root of your e: drive
and try
find /MODBOOT.imz

Then try copying, again just for the sake of it,
MODBOOT.imz to the root of your c: drive
and try
find /MODBOOT.imz

Are you really positive about the CaSe AlSo ?
I don't want to seem petulant, but try issuing a dir /s command on the e: drive from command prompt, or try renaming the floppy image to "image.imz".

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

Try the following:
find /FLOPPIES/MODBOOT.imz

Didn't find it.

Then try copying, just for the sake of it,
MODBOOT.imz to the root of your e: drive
and try
find /MODBOOT.imz

Didn't find it.

Then try copying, again just for the sake of it,
MODBOOT.imz to the root of your c: drive
and try
find /MODBOOT.imz

Didn't find it.

Are you really positive about the CaSe AlSo ?

Yes.

When I renamed it to modboot.imz and put it and memdisk on the c: drive GRUB found it.

However....

With map I get Error 14: Invalid or unsupport executable format.

With initrd GRUB pukes!! The screen fills with hex code and MEMDISK: Image has fractional end sector and MEMDISK: Image seems to have fractional end cylinder. followed by Loading boot sector... booting... and then the machine hangs. Apparently GRUB doesn't like .imz files created by Floppy Image 1.5.2.

I'll have to try some RAWrite .img files.

[jaclaz]

Well, the "right " way for an image is to have it as .ima or .img, in the case of a 1.44 floppy image, the size has to be 1,474,560 bytes.
Than you use your favorite compression program and you compress it either as Gzip or Zip.

Stll there is something strange, since

I put a dummy file in the root of E: and find /dummy found it at (hd0,5).

it should have found as well /MODBOOT.imz

Try with another "generic" image, like this one:
http://weller.ws/toshiba/ghost/WIN98SE.IMG

I just tested it, and it works with BOTH methods.

Then try Gzipping or Zipping it as above.

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

Update:

I tried an .img image that I had created with RawWrite for Windows. The image was located on my e: drive as e:\MY UTILS\RAWrite\Win98SE.img and I made a copy to my c:\ drive. c:\Win98SE.img.

GRUB could not find the file on my e: drive, map --mem (hd0,5)/MY UTILS/RAWrite/Win98SE.img (fd0) , even when I put quotes around the folder name. However, both approaches worked when I redirected them to the c:\ drive file.

I've used GRUB to boot CDs, hds and USB keys but never an image before. Very interesting range of possibilities open up. Thanks.

BTW The GRUB CD interface, bcdf.bin, only works if run from a floppy, is there a version that runs from USB keys or hds?


hmmmmm or GRUB boots an image of a GRUB floppy which then boots a CD. hmmmm off to play.

[Ed_P]

hmmmmm or GRUB boots an image of a GRUB floppy which then boots a CD. hmmmm off to play.

Nope, that didn't work.

chainloader (fd0)/bcdf.bin

in the .img floppy started:

Starting BCDL...

IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM Device Driver version 1.11
CD-ROM drive #0 found on 1F0h port slave device
CD-ROM drive #1 found on 170h port slave device

flashes a line that I believe says Booting followed by a line with a white background that I couldn't read quickly enough then hangs with a black/blank screen.

BTW initrd (hd0,1)/GRUB.img didn't work, File not found. It worked when I renamed the file to be grub2.img.
initrd (hd0,1)/grub2.img

The original floppy when booted allowed me to boot the BartPE CD.

[jaclaz]

GRUB could not find the file on my e: drive, map --mem (hd0,5)/MY UTILS/RAWrite/Win98SE.img (fd0) , even when I put quotes around the folder name. However, both approaches worked when I redirected them to the c:\ drive file.

I don't think that names with spaces are supported.

But there must be something, cannot say what, with your drive or with the way it is formatted/partitions are listed in the MBR.

I have found something similar, (but that actually did not give normally any problem) in some occasions when using non-standard setup with Partition Magic or Acronis, but I would not try to fix it, unless you are going to reformat from scratch and restore.

hmmmmm or GRUB boots an image of a GRUB floppy which then boots a CD. hmmmm off to play.

It seems like newest builds of GRUB4DOS have also the (cd) syntax, but cannot say if it works for booting off it or what happens if you have more than one CD drive.

Smart boot manager can be effectively chained by grub/grub4dos, and it works at least for el-torito CDs:
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~bernhard/grub-chain-cd.html


jaclaz

[Ed_P]

I don't think that names with spaces are supported.

I wonder if GRUB uses the DOS 8.3 names.

But there must be something, cannot say what, with your drive or with the way it is formatted/partitions are listed in the MBR.

Well, the drive hasn't been formated and installed fresh in a couple of years now at least. Whenever something needs to be added or moved I use Partition Magic. GRUB finds files in the root of the various drives just not in folders on drives other than C: . The file name case situation I don't understand since GRUB finds configfile /boot/EdsLsts/menuXtended.lst just fine. I use mixed case names the majority of the time.

Smart boot manager can be effectively chained by grub/grub4dos, and it works at least for el-torito CDs:
http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~bernhard/grub-chain-cd.html
jaclaz

I've heard that. There was a posting here last fall I think about it. I've no real need to boot a CD from a non-floppy machine but since I had a backup image of my GRUB floppy and the new found means of booting it I thought I'd try it.

[Former_freelancer_post]

I'm having some problems here... I have a 2gb harddrive with DOS 7.10 installed. It boots fine, no problem. Then I wanted to add GRUB, so I used bootpart to dump the DOS bootsector to C:\bootsector.dat. Then I used bootpart to install NTLDR, and added these lines to boot.ini:
C:\bootsector.dat="MS-DOS 7.10"
C:\GRLDR="GRUB"
(I copied GRLDR to the root of the drive, with a menu.lst file)

So far, so good, right? No. When I boot, NTLDR seems to work properly, it gives me this list:
MS-DOS 7.10
GRUB

But, when I select to boot DOS, it just shows some text and jumps back to the menu. Why? GRUB seems to work, but I can't boot to DOS with it. I'm using a line to boot the MBR at hd0,0 but that just throws me back to the NTLDR menu.

This is pretty annoying, help is much appriciated!

*edit* God I'm stupid, sorry. Of course GRUB puts me back at NTLDR, since that's the bootloader installer to the MBR at hd0,0. That still doesn't explain NTLDR not booting to DOS, though.

[jaclaz]

freelancer,
double-check your bootpart syntax, read these:
http://forum.winimage.com/viewtopic.php?t=278
http://forum.winimage.com/viewtopic.php?t=631

The syntax you should have used is:

BOOTPART WIN98 C:\BOOTSECT.DAT "Dos 7.1"

I used bootpart to dump the DOS bootsector to C:\bootsector.dat.

Bootpart does not "dump" a bootsector, it "creates" a NEW one with existing harddrive geometry.
If you use the wrong parameter, result will be a wrong bootsector, check this also:
http://forum.winimage.com/viewtopic.php?t=276

Moreover, you appear to have used a filename that is NOT 8.3 compatible, that WON'T WORK ANYWAY.

Also, you should also be able to boot Dos 7.1 from Grub, using this entry in menu.lst:

title Dos 7.1 from Windows 98
chainloader (hd0,0)/io.sys
boot

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

C:\bootsector.dat="MS-DOS 7.10"
C:\GRLDR="GRUB"

Try just

CODE

C:\="MS-DOS 7.10"
C:\GRLDR="GRUB"

[jaclaz]

Try just

CODE

C:\="MS-DOS 7.10"
C:\GRLDR="GRUB"

Ed_P,
boot.ini syntax NEEDS a filename or an arcpath, but even if it would work with C:\, since the bootsector of C:\ is the one that loads NTLDR, it won't work.

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

You're probably right. I remember the initial posting stating the the drive had DOS 7.1 on it and I have a Win2K/Win98 machine that has this for it's .ini

CODE

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Bkup"
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98SE"

And it does work for booting Windows 98, with no filename or an arcpath.

Since the drive doesn't have Windows on it I thought it would boot to NTLDR which would activate the boot.ini and would give the option to select DOS rather than Windows 98. I'm not that familiar with bootpart and the boot .bin/.dat files so I don't know what impact they would play. They may cause the boot process to loop.

(BTW The machine's 1st partition on the 1st hd is a recovery partition. The 2nd hd doesn't have it.)