How to Install BartPE to Another Partition, Here's a simple guide I put together for all Options

[spacesurfer]

I'm no expert but here's something I put together from my experience. I couldn't find anything complete on this forum; there is a lot of information here but it's in bits and pieces. I used much of jaclaz and Ed_P's posts to figure out how to install BartPE to a partition other than Windows XP. Thanks jaclaz and Ed_P.

You won't have to use any MBR writing program or HEX edit anything.

The partition must be a primary partition.

Requirements: Bart’s PE Builder 3.1.1.0a and grldr, which is a Grub4Dos file. Do a search to download Grub.

This is a general guide. Depending on your needs, you may change your setup.

1) Build BartPE

First, build your BartPE the way you want. It works with Sherya’s XPE plugin flawlessly.

I don’t think the size matters since we are not going to load the actual ISO. You actually don’t have to build the ISO since peinst does not use the ISO to copy the files to [Part].

Next, format your partition. I used Windows XP format to format it as NTFS. The size is roughly that of a CD – 700 mb. I’m not sure if FAT32 works. I’m also not sure if formatting using peinst.cmd or HP utility works either. (Note that although I formatted my BartPE partition as NTFS from Windows XP, it is actually seen as a FAT partition when I load BartPE. It's strange.)

Use the peinst plugin to install you BartPE to the partition you want – referred to as [Part]. Mine is E:\ so my [Part] is E:\.

Do not rewrite the boot.ini file. We are only using peinst.cmd to copy the files to [Part]. Peinst.cmd will, of course, change I386 to minnt. That is OK. Let it do what it wants to do.

We’re done with peinst now.


2) Configuring Grub

You should have downloaded grldr. Rename your existing ntldr as ntldrxp. We are going to use ntldrxp to load Windows XP. Rename grldr to ntldr and copy that to your system partition, usually C:\ for most people. Having done this, system will load Grub (the grldr renamed as ntldr) instead of XP's ntldr. The advantage of this is you don’t have to load ntldr, then use ntldr to load grldr, then choose to load BartPE. Renaming grldr to ntldr allows you to load grldr on startup, then you can choose what you want to load. It saves an extra step. Of course, you don’t have to do this. You may try the setup you want to use. Since we are not modifying any files, this will work flawlessly.

Now, grldr uses menu.lst to display the boot options. If you followed my steps, here is what you need in your menu.lst:

CODE

color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout 10
default 0

title Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Pro (Find and Load)
find --set-root /ntldrxp
chainloader /ntldrxp

title BartPE with Sherpya XPE 1.0.4 (Find and Load)
find --set-root /minint/setupldr.bin
chainloader /minint/setupldr.bin

title Boot Floppy on (fd0)
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify (fd0)

The line chainloader (hd0,0)/ntldrxp loads Windows XP using the renamed ntldrxp.
We are done!

Next time you boot, you should get a Grub screen with options to boot Windows XP, BartPE, or a Floppy.

I’m not expert on this so if you have any questions, mess around and you might find the light at the end of the tunnel or post here and someone else may be able to answer.

Limitations: does not work with USB connected HDD's for me. I'm trying.

I want to be able to load CD's from this. I'm not sure if this can be done yet or not.

Good luck.

[jaclaz]

Nice work, spacesurfer!

Pretty clever idea renaming GRLDR to NTLDR!

If I may, I would change:

title Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Pro (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)/ntldrxp
rootnoverify (hd0)

to

title Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Pro
find --set-root /ntldrxp
chainloader /ntldrxp

and

title BartPE with Sherpya XPE 1.0.4
root (hd0,2)
chainloader +1

to

title BartPE with Sherpya XPE 1.0.4
find --set-root /minint/setupldr.bin
chainloader /minint/setupldr.bin

This way you can omit the step:

Otherwise, copy [Part]\minnt\setupldr.bin to [Part]\ntldr.

and the menu should work even if partitions are differently set up/numbered.

jaclaz

[Ed_P]

Wow!!

Very nice spacesurfer.

I'm impressed with your GRLDR/NTLDR XP concept. Very clever.

And I like your approach to the menu.lst, by using the basic commands it doesn't require any particular version of GRLDR.

And thank you for the mention.

I want to be able to load CD's from this. I'm not sure if this can be done yet or not.

The current beta GRUB4DOS supports that, at least from the floppy I tested with.

[spacesurfer]

Thanks, guys. Thanks for the tips, jaclaz. I will change my menu.lst as you mentioned for autodetection.

Ed_P, I think you mentioned loading a floppy image and then loading a CD from that floppy image. Can you provide a place to start to get me and the rest started? Thanks.


FYI: This is strange but although I formatted my BartPE partition as NTFS, when I load BartPE, it says it's FAT. Not sure why.

Also, trying to load from a USB HDD gives me a "txtsetup.sif is missing or corrupted...." error. System seems to detect the ntldr on that USB drive but I'm not sure what problem is preventing it from loading.

[Ed_P]

Ed_P, I think you mentioned loading a floppy image and then loading a CD from that floppy image. Can you provide a place to start to get me and the rest started? Thanks.

Within the GRUB4DOS download I used the fat12grldr.img file to make the floppy. And I vaguely recall replacing the grldr on the floppy with the grldr from the zip for some reason.

FYI: This is strange but although I formatted my BartPE partition as NTFS, when I load BartPE, it says it's FAT. Not sure why.

What does your normal XP show the partition as?

For loading your USB device look at CodeBeetle's PEtoUSB utility. I use it for USB sticks and someone recently said it works for USB hds also but I haven't tried that, yet.

[jaclaz]

Ed_P, I think you mentioned loading a floppy image and then loading a CD from that floppy image

Latest builds of GRUB4DOS/GRLDR support CD's.

Thread is here:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...16980&st=49

Latest build here:
http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome

There are a couple additions to the readme file:

******************************************************************************
*** The New `cdrom' Command Syntax ***
******************************************************************************

1. Initialize the ATAPI CDROM devices:

grub> cdrom --init

This will display the number of atapi cdroms found: atapi_dev_count

2. Stop the ATAPI CDROM devices:

grub> cdrom --stop

This will set atapi_dev_count to 0.

3. Add IO ports for searching the atapi cdrom devices. For example:

grub> cdrom --add-io-ports=0x03F601F0

After running `cdrom --init' and `map --hook', the cdroms can be accessed
through devices (cd0), (cd1), ...

Note 1: If the system does not fully support the ATAPI CD-ROM specifications,
you will encounter failure when trying to access the (cdX) devices.

Note 2: After doing a `cdrom --stop', you should do a `map --unhook'. Of
course you may `map --hook' again if there are mapped drives.

Note 3: After adding IO ports, you should do a `map --unhook' followed by a
`cdrom --init' and then followed by a `map --hook'.

By default, these ports are used for searching cdroms(so they needn't
be added):

0x03F601F0, 0x03760170, 0x03860180, 0x6F006B00, 0x77007300.

Note 4: The BIOS might have offered a cdrom interface. It would be (cd). After
`cdrom --init' and `map --hook', we might have our (cd0), (cd1), ...
available. It is likely that one of them could access the same media
as the BIOS-offered (cd).

Note 5: You may access the (cd) and (cdX)'s in the blocklist way. Example:

cat --hex (cd0)16+2

The cdrom sectors are big sectors with a size of 2048 bytes.

jaclaz

[Former_hooovahh_post]

Wow this works really well, I've always had a tough time getting peinst to work, it would always die half way through. But this time when it died it I just finished coping over the needed folders and files, then used your instructions and it worked, even with windows xp and X-PE on the same partition.

AND using this method I was also able to install XPE with an SDI image that gets loaded into ram. And since it's using the hard drive instead of the CD it loads into ram alot faster.

Basically you do the same thing, Create bart pe and use the ramdisk.sys from 2003 sp1. Put bart into an SDI and at the root of your drive you place th following files

WINNT.SIF
WINPE.SDI
MININT\SETUPLDR.BIN (FROM 2003)
MININT\NTDETECT.COM

Then have grub look for setupldr just as explained before, and have your winnt.sif file like this

[SetupData]
BootDevice = "ramdisk(0)"
BootPath = "\i386\System32\"
OsLoadOptions = "/noguiboot /fastdetect /minint /rdimageoffset=36352 /rdpath=WINPE.SDI"

and it should boot into ram and be all nice and fast.

Thanks again.

[spacesurfer]

Download the current version of Grub while you can cause the newer version will NOT support NTFS according to the readme.txt file.

It's sad but according to documentation, Vista will break Grub.

It also says newer SP's for Windows XP breaks Grub but I'm using SP2 and Grub works fine.

[spacesurfer]

What does your normal XP show the partition as?

Ed_P, I checked my BartPE partition and IT IS FAT32. I could have sworn I formatted it NTFS.

I urge others to try both NTFS and FAT32 and see what works. Please post your experience here.Thanks.

[Ed_P]

Download the current version of Grub while you can cause the newer version will NOT support NTFS according to the readme.txt file.

It's sad but according to documentation, Vista will break Grub.

It also says newer SP's for Windows XP breaks Grub but I'm using SP2 and Grub works fine.

README.txt

******************************************************************************
*** !!!!!!!! NTFS Will No Longer Be Supported !!!!!!!! ***
******************************************************************************

Notice! In the future, we will remove NTFS support. For Windows users,
please create an FAT partition and place GRLDR and menu.lst
there. From now on, please don't report bugs relevant to NTFS.

Someone reports that Windows XP with newer SPs and Windows
Vista have intentionally broken the compatiblity with many
things(including GRLDR). So you will get into trouble with
these systems.

Well, that will be the end of GRUB4DOS for most people. Too bad. It looked like it had a lot of potential. Thanks for the heads up.

BTW I tried booting a CD with GRUD4DOS on my C: drive and while it recognized CD0 it errored out trying to boot it. So GRUB4DOS boots CDs when booted from a floppy just like the basic 0.95 GRUB version.

[paraglider]

Vista has a totally different way of booting - it no longer uses ntldr / boot.ini. It uses bootmgr and a database edited by bcdedit.

Boot managers that install in the 1st track of the first hard drive like bootus and many others will work with Vista. I use bootus and switch between XP, Vista 32, Vista 64, BartPE primary partitions.

[FeReNGi]

Look at this topic : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&...st&p=114474

This works also fine without extra tools or programs

[paraglider]

Only if your first partition is XP / W2003 / W2K. If its Vista then you will be out of luck.

[spacesurfer]

Major update

Read my post here to:

*Boot Windows XP
*Boot BartPE from HDD
*Boot BartPE from CD-ROM directly
*Boot floppy images from HDD (in *.img format)

Vista has a totally different way of booting - it no longer uses ntldr / boot.ini. It uses bootmgr and a database edited by bcdedit.

Boot managers that install in the 1st track of the first hard drive like bootus and many others will work with Vista. I use bootus and switch between XP, Vista 32, Vista 64, BartPE primary partitions.

I just had a though, paraglider. Maybe we can use Grub with Vista in a round-about way.

First, the facts:

1) Vista does not use ntldr/boot.ini to load.
2) Grub does not support Vista booting.
3) Vista supports booting Windows XP throught it's boot manager. The current beta version I've tried listed Windows XP and I am able to boot it.

Assumption:

1) Vista boot manager must load ntldr to boot to Windows XP. Although I'm not 100% certain, I think Vista must take the ntldr route to boot Windows XP. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Therefore:

If we rename grldr to ntldr, and replace XP's ntldr with the pseudo-ntldr, then we can get a Grub menu. This, then opens the door for loading other OS's.

So, although you can't place Vista on Grub menu, you can place Grub on Vista's menu to load other OS's.

Now, we need someone with Vista and XP dual booting to test this.

[Former_hooovahh_post]

Major update

Read my post here to:

*Boot Windows XP
*Boot BartPE from HDD
*Boot BartPE from CD-ROM directly
*Boot floppy images from HDD (in *.img format)
I just had a though, paraglider. Maybe we can use Grub with Vista in a round-about way.

First, the facts:

1) Vista does not use ntldr/boot.ini to load.
2) Grub does not support Vista booting.
3) Vista supports booting Windows XP throught it's boot manager. The current beta version I've tried listed Windows XP and I am able to boot it.

Assumption:

1) Vista boot manager must load ntldr to boot to Windows XP. Although I'm not 100% certain, I think Vista must take the ntldr route to boot Windows XP. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Therefore:

If we rename grldr to ntldr, and replace XP's ntldr with the pseudo-ntldr, then we can get a Grub menu. This, then opens the door for loading other OS's.

So, although you can't place Vista on Grub menu, you can place Grub on Vista's menu to load other OS's.

Now, we need someone with Vista and XP dual booting to test this.

I've not used vista yet but it sounds like it should work. tricking Vista into thinking it's booting XP.

Also thanks for your instructions on booting CDs and floppy images.

[cornelvis]

I tried booting reatogo from a seperate disk (modular Bay Drive) I get the error that the Hall.dll is missing or corrupt.
I tried copying from my machine to the instalation, but that doesn't help.

Anyone?

[spacesurfer]

This is one of the limitations that I've noticed:

I haven't been able to boot BartPE from a second hard drive yet. Even if they are internal, it gives me the error about txtsetup.sif file is missing or corrupt. If you can't do it from an internal, you might as well forget it from an external, unless someone out there has been able to do it, I would like to know.

Also, you can't boot from an extended partition either.

[Ed_P]

I boot BartPE on my tray IDE drive using GRLDR. I also use it to boot BartPE on my nb's E: partition. And I have used it to boot my USB Flash drive though I usually boot it directly.

[spacesurfer]

Ed_P. I tried your map (hd0) (hd1), map (hd1) (hd0) and IT WORKED!! I admit I was skeptical but I gave it a shot and no more txtsetup.sif file is missing or corrupt error!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks.

[cdob]

This is one of the limitations that I've noticed:

I haven't been able to boot BartPE from a second hard drive yet.

Do you swap hard disk order?

CODE

map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)

Also, you can boot from an extended partition either.

Do you boot or not boot from a extended partition?

Booting from a logical partition is possible.
However you have to adjust boot sector, correct hidden sectors.

Ed_P http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&...st&p=113521
found
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/
http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/ptedit.htm

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/tools.htm
PTedit32
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_...es/PTEDIT32.zip

Be aware of FM_81's warning
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&...st&p=113684

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Apr 13 2008, 11:57 AM