I have a laptop which I can boot from a PCMCIA memory card. It treats it like a hard drive. To do this I have PXE booted into DOS, then used FDISK to set the partition on the PCMCIA memory card to active and then did a FORMAT /S.

What I would like to do though is boot into a Windows PE environment from the PCMCIA memory card. To do this I deleted all the DOS files off of my card and then copied all the files from a WinPE boot CD to the PCMCIA memory card. When I tried booting from it, it did not work though. I got a invalid system disk message. I am assuming that because it probably has a DOS boot sector on it and not a Windows PE boot sector on it is why it is not booting? I am probably being very niave about how bootable media works and that is why I am here. Hopefully someone can help me out with this. Here are my specific questions:

(1) Are there any windows tools available that will allow me to set any partition as active? I tried Windows Disk Manager but it will not allow you to set a Removable Disk as an active partition. The DOS Fdisk tool works but it only allows you to set a partition active on the first DISK.

(2) How can I make a PCMCIA memory card boot a Windows PE environment? Do I need to copy the Boot Sector from a Windows PE boot Cd and place it on the memory card? Are there any windows tools to assist me in doing so?

(3) Are there any sites or can someone explain bootable media to me? I am assuming the boot sector tells the hardware that the media is bootable and what file to run for the booting OS? For example a DOS floppy boot has a boot sector that tells it to run msdos.sys? I could be way off base here but I want to understand bootable media better.

Thank you for any help in advance!

- John

Lots of questions...

From what you say, your laptop uses the PCMCIA card as it were a Hard Disk or a Memory stick, i.e. technically a "block device".

As you were able to copy all Barts' files to it, I presume that it is "BIG" i.e. 512 Mbytes or more.

A block device this size behaves as a Hard Disk, so it has to have a structure made by:
1) MBR (Master Boot Record), comprising an IPL (Initial Program Loader) or Boot Code and a partition table
2) One or more partitions
3) A fikesystem on the partition(s)

This topic is one of the most complex ones, so you'll have to read a lot, I'll try to give you some info:
Read these articles here:
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/
http://www.ranish.com/part/primer.htm
http://therdcom.com/asm/mbr/MBR_in_detail.htm
http://www.ptdd.com/aboutpt.htm

Search on the board for "peinst", for "peusb".

Here is a tool that will help you in fixing the MBR:
MBRfix
http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10956
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...topic=30378&hl=
Find here MBRwizard:
http://mbrwizard.tripod.com/

Here is a tool taht will help you for the bootrecord:
http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm

Search on the board for "boot.ini" and for "bootpart"


Quick answers:
1) See MBRfix and MBRwizard above
2) See bootpart above
3) Any NT based system will boot from the 1st active partition on the 1st Hard Drive.
Have a look at my post here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33030
You have to add an entry in the boot.ini file to boot from a system on another disk/partition

Please, I know it's lot of things to read, but do it, then post again if you have further questions.

jaclaz