26 replies to this topic

[ispy]

Hi all ,

A friend of mine told me that there is a program (Grub4dos!) that is capable of creating a ramdisk @ boot time (in respect of booting a 98se system that is) & that a custom Bootable floppy disk or maybe a floppy 98se bootable floppy disk image could be loaded into this ramdisk, that has been created just previously using Grub4Dos. I hope that general explanation of what I am trying to achieve is not to confusing, cuz I'm confused reading back over this LOL?

Anyway the Boot disk is a windows 98se custom boot disk with Config.sys; Io.sys - Amended with Barts Jo.sys, & an Autoexec.bat with a front end menu for a series of fixit batch routines just for clarity of explanations sake!

Firstly, I don't have the 1st idea how to use this bootloader as I am very new to it.

My questions are as follows:

1) Is it possible to use Grub4Dos to do this?

2) Can Grub4Dos be loaded onto the front end of a floppy disk that will:

a. Create a ramdisk at the initial stage of booting the floppy disk & create, say Drive R:\ ("R" for Ramdisk)?
b. Then boot the contents of the floppy Disk or Floppy Image into the ramdisk "R:\"?

3) If the above is feasible, could someone please provide me with a laymans easy explanation of how to undertake the procedure ("Like a newbies tutorial please") & any additional tools or procedures that would be req, I would be very grateful.

The reason I want to do this is because the fixit utils run a lot faster from a ramdrive (XMSDSK.EXE)

Mucho Regards,

ispy

[was_jaclaz]

Sure, it is possible.

Can you list the contents of the floppy you need booting?

A

DIR A: /s>C:\floppydir.txt

will be enough, attach the file to your next post.

Is it a "standard" 1,44 Mb floppy, is it?

It uses "normal" DOS, does it?

There are a couple of ways to achieve what you want, usually using memdisk as memory loader is "more compatible", but also direct grub4dos booting should work allright.

Some changes to autoexec.bat/config.sys mught be needed, but nothing too problematic.

Post the required info and I'll show you the "way" .

jaclaz

[ispy]

Hi Jaclaz,

1stly, Many Thanks for the Prompt reply!

My appologies for the nature of this request, as strictly speaking I know I should download the program read all the help files & discover for myself the full capabilities of the Bootloader (if that is the right term to give it). However I didn't know it was feasible in the 1st instance & 2ndly as you point out in your reply post there may be a more compatable way of engineering this procedure.

Anyway excuses on the back burner for the Mo, & to answer some of your reply questions:

a. It is a standard 1.44Mb Floppy disk with 98SE dos structure (I think it's dos 7.1)
b. The boot sequence has been amended with JO.SYS so the user has the option to use floppy emulation to boot to the CD (If Made) or boot to the floppy itself, courtesy of Bart L.
c. The more compatable way as you suggest maybe the way to go as The custom floppy has been complied with usage on as many PC's as it can .
d. You might need to take this into consideration, the floppy disk has a file called ALL.ZIP that you will notice from the attachment FloppyDir.txt that you requested. This file contains additional programs that are unpacked with Lunzip.exe from Autoexec.bat during the Boot process. the reason was to save space on the floppy disk?

I can post the contents of the Config.sys & Autoexec.bat if you like but the autoexec.bat is fairly lengthy in the respect of obtaining additional files, menu's and system checks, user configuration details etc etc.

Well once agian I would like to take this oppertunity in thanking you for your response to this request

Mucho Regards,

ispy

[was_jaclaz]

Ok:
1) download grub4dos 0.4.2:
http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome
http://grub4dos.jot....r_dos-0.4.2.zip?

2) extract from the .zip file the file fat12grldr.img and save it somewhere, say C:\tempG4dos\

3) download syslinux:
http://www.kernel.or.../boot/syslinux/
http://www.kernel.or...slinux-3.61.zip

4) extract from the .zip file the file \memdisk\memdisk and save it to C:\tempG4dos

5) create an image of your current floppy drive, a suitable app can be Roadkil's Disk Image:
http://www.roadkil.net/DiskImg.html

and save it to C:\tempG4dos\myfloppy.img

6) use any zip compatible app gzip to compress C:\tempG4dos\myfloppy.img to C:\tempG4dos\myfloppy.zip C:\tempG4dos\myfloppy.img.gz

7) use any zip compatible app gzip to compress C:\tempG4dos\memdisk to C:\tempG4dos\memdisk.zipC:\tempG4dos\memdisk.gz

8) get a new floppy and format it normally.

9) use again Roadkil's disk image "backwards" to transfer C:\tempG4dos\fat12grldr.img to the new floppy.

10) edit file menu.lst on the floppy, just copy and paste the following overwriting it's contents:
(menu.lst contents corrected for .gz compressed files)

color black/cyan yellow/cyan

timeout 30

default 0





title myfloppy (grub4dos) 0

root (fd0)

map --mem /myfloppy.img.gz (fd0)

map --hook

root (fd0)

chainloader (fd0)/IO.SYS



title unhook memory

map --unhook



title myfloppy (grub4dos) 1

root (fd0)

map --mem /myfloppy.img.gz (fd0)

map --hook

root (fd0)

chainloader (fd0)+1



title myfloppy (memdisk) 2

root (fd0)

kernel /memdisk.gz

initrd /myfloppy.img.gz

11) copy to the floppy C:\tempG4dos\memdisk.gz
12) copy to the floppy C:\tempG4dos\myfloppy.img.gz

13) try booting from floppy, try choosing the menu items

14) if any of the menu items fail to boot, you need to choose "unhook memory" before trying another item.

Report (hopefully ) success.

Most probably, once the thingie works, you can uncompress the contents of ALL.ZIP if the files within are less than 262,144 (free space) + 130,958 (ALL.ZIP) + 98,286 (LUNZIP.EXE) = 491,388 (to be checked with actual disk occupation) and remove the LUNZIP.EXE file, which by the way is not the "right" unzipper for a floppy, being quite large, unless you REALLY need LONG FILENAMES, PKUNZJR.COM ( 2,750 bytes) or pcdezip.exe ( 18,161 bytes) are obviously preferrable.

It is also possible that some of the items in autoexec.bat or config.sys use non-dos access to the floppy and get "confused" by the virtual floppy created in memory by either grub4dos or memdisk, in which case there will be the need to troubleshoot the single app setup.

jaclaz

P.S.: The version of gzip downloadable here:
http://gnuwin32.sour...ckages/gzip.htm
has been tested by ispy and proved to be working.
Users not familiar with command line may simply drag'n drop a file over the gzip.exe program, BUT:
(a word of warning though, by default gzip creates a new file, adding to it's current name the extension ".gz" AND deleting the original file!!!).
you need to add the -k switch to the command line to keep the file:

gzip.exe -k filename.ext

One may also experiment with the -9 switch, which should allow for a "tighter" compression.

[ispy]

WOW! That was fast Jaclaz,

Oberservation: You are obviously very conversant with this program!

Just a quicky to express my gratitude for all your hard work in producing for what is a very useful practical application of grub4Dos & it appears from your latest post "Memdisk" also.

I have run into a practical blockage and as it turns out a coincidence my floppy drive on my PC has just given up the ghost (Died!) so I am limited in what I can do until it can be replaced.

I have downloaded the programs above that you have suggested and will work through your tutorial.
just 1 ? 1. item 10. menu.1st is located within fat12grldr.img yes?

& as you have picked up on the autoexec.bat is lengthy so could require troubleshooting but I will have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

From your layout above this procedure would have taken me "eons" to figure out, so MANY MANY thanks for your guidance, next stop purchase a new floppy drive LOL!

I will post to let you know you how I get on THANKS!!!

Regards,

ispy

[was_jaclaz]

Well, you can use Ken Kato's VFD or IMDISK to follow the tutorial using virtual floppies, then test them under a Virtual Machine, such as Qemu (+ Qemu Manager).

It would be an occasion for you to get familiar with the above mentioned tools.

I have downloaded the programs above that you have suggested and will work through your tutorial.
just 1 ? 1. item 10. menu.1st is located within fat12grldr.img yes?

Yes, it's the default grub4dos choices menu, the file, a simple text file, needs to be named MENU.LST, in small letters: menu.lst, NOT menu.1st.

From your layout above this procedure would have taken me "eons" to figure out, so MANY MANY thanks for your guidance, next stop purchase a new floppy drive LOL!

I will post to let you know you how I get on THANKS!!!

NO prob, I guess that the above steps can be useful to a number of members (or lurkers ) of the board, as well, after all it is a "general" howto in making a grub4dos floppy.

Steps explained:
a. create a floppy disk, based on fat12grldr.img, with a bootsector invoking directly grldr.
b. add to it (compressed as you cannot fit a 1440 kb floppy img inside a 1440 kb floppy ) the floppy image you wish to boot
c. add to it memdisk (also compressed, but this is not compulsory), as with some setups/floppy images it works better than plain grub4dos
d. edit menu.lst inserting in it the entries for various methods of booting the compressed floppy image

proposed menu.lst commented:
(corrected for gzip compressed images)

color black/cyan yellow/cyan	<- just the standard colours of grub4dos menu

timeout 30			<- timeout before default item is chosen

default 0			<- default item number, dirst item is 0, second is 1, etc.





title myfloppy (grub4dos) 0	<- title, this is the text you will see when booting

root (fd0)			<- set the floppy as ROOT, when you boot from floppy it is already set, 

				<- but another menu entry may change ROOT, so we establish it explicitly

map --mem /myfloppy.img.gz (fd0)	<- map the image as floppy (fd0) is first floppy, i.e. "A:\"

map --hook			<- hook the mapping, i.e. make it "fixed"

root (fd0)			<- set the floppy image (after the hook seen as first floppy) as ROOT

chainloader (fd0)/IO.SYS	<- chainload the DOS system file IO.SYS in the floppy image, since 

				<- ROOT is already established, could be written as "chainloader /IO.SYS"title unhook memory		<- title, this is the text you will see when bootingmap --unhook			<- this resets the mapping, in order to be able to "hook" it againtitle myfloppy (grub4dos) 1	<- title, this is the text you will see when bootingroot (fd0)			<- set the floppy as ROOT, when you boot from floppy it is already set, 				<- but another menu entry may change ROOT, so we establish it explicitlymap --mem /myfloppy.img.gz (fd0)	<- map the image as floppy (fd0) is first floppy, i.e. "A:\"map --hook			<- hook the mapping, i.e. make it "fixed"root (fd0)			<- set the floppy image (after the hook seen as first floppy) as ROOTchainloader (fd0)+1		<- chainload the bootsector of the floppy imagetitle myfloppy (memdisk) 2	<- title, this is the text you will see when bootingroot (fd0)			<- set the floppy as ROOT, when you boot from floppy it is already set				<- but another menu entry may change ROOT, so we establish it explicitlykernel /memdisk.gz		<- use memdisk as kernelinitrd /myfloppy.img.gz		<- use floppy image as initial ramdisk (initrd) used by the kernel (memdisk)				<- Note: the last (implied) item of any entry in menu.lst is the command "boot", if you				<- use "c" command line to enter commands one by one, you need to terminate				<- the sequence of commands with an explicit "boot" command

Don't be afraid of experimenting with grub4dos, the worst thing that can happen with it is just a failure in booting....



jaclaz

[ispy]

Hi again Jaclaz,

Great Stuff, "explanation 2boot" (Pardon the pun! )

What you have done is very helpful (without wanting to appear 2 slithery!) cus not only have you illustrated the the "WAY" in which a given user can boot from a floppy (question here coming up) but you have gone 1 step further in explaining the process behind it, Kewl and yes I think many noobs (like me!) are scared off using aparatus like this due to the shear complexity of options/switches. Some programs etc seem daunting sometimes, practical examples like this, I think will help many users out there (inc "Lurkers", & yes I have to confess that I sometimes fit into that mould when visiting other sites) hence the reason presumeably of setting up this Grub4dos forum section as a very useful aid item?

I was having trouble with the Roadkills DiskImage as all sorts of violation exception errors were being reported, probably due to the knackered floppy drive. I would like to contribute a freeware alternative that others may find useful for floppy disk Imaging. See here entitled Diskette tools & other useful stuff 2:

http://pagesperso-or...opy.htm#content

After further consideration looking at the info above one thing that escapes my notice is that within the boot process I see no reference to the creation of the path to the ramdisk say R:\, is this defined within the "myfloppy.zip", or does A:\ become the ramdrive, I am a little foggy here?

Anyway without cluttering this posting still further my appreciation, respect and gratitude are extended to you on my behalf of myself & others who will undoubtedly come across this discussion topic & find it very useful, keep up the good work Jaclaz!

Point taken in respect of virtual floppy drives and the use of Qemu, I have a posting within the Winbuilder section relating to the setting up of a Live XP CD & trying to setup WWW. network connectivity but failing to date, but needless to say have suceeded using the Qemu option to boot the CD proving it is possible but Qemu seems to use a virtual Realtek NIC Card for connection & not my Via Rhine III - sorry I digress must stop rambling & concentrate on the task in hand LOL!



Regards,

ispy

[was_jaclaz]

Yes, I suggested Roadkil's App because it is one of the more easy to use.

Another excellent GUI app is DCOPYNT:
http://users.pandora...plications.html

and of course Winimage (Shareware):
http://www.winimage.com/

but for the simple RAW copying back and forth of a floppy there are more:
http://members.aol.c...ert/diskimg.htm
http://www.disoriented.com/diskwrite/
http://www.osdev.org...sk_Images#Tools

and, if you are not "scared" by command line, dsfo/dsfi DSFOK package:
http://members.ozema...eezip/freeware/

or various versions of dd for windows work with floppies as well.

Here are (maybe) some more I forgot:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=11096

After further consideration looking at the info above one thing that escapes my notice is that within the boot process I see no reference to the creation of the path to the ramdisk say R:\, is this defined within the "myfloppy.zip", or does A:\ become the ramdrive, I am a little foggy here?

Well, the idea behind this grub4dos (and also memdisk) way of booting is to "mask" the "real" info detected by BIOS, to trick DOS into "believing" that the floppy image is the first floppy, a.k.a. "A:\", in other words there is no Ramdisk "known to DOS" (and thus with an additional letter attributed to it) we more simply make DOS connect to what it sees as a "real" floppy disk, while it is really just a 1440 Kbytes area of memory where the contents of the floppy image have been copied.

jaclaz

[ispy]

Hi Jaclaz,

This pulls back the curtains somewhat, I couldn't get my very few grey cells that I have around what & how the boot mechanics worked!

Well, the idea behind this grub4dos (and also memdisk) way of booting is to "mask" the "real" info detected by BIOS, to trick DOS into "believing" that the floppy image is the first floppy, a.k.a. "A:\", in other words there is no Ramdisk "known to DOS" (and thus with an additional letter attributed to it) we more simply make DOS connect to what it sees as a "real" floppy disk, while it is really just a 1440 Kbytes area of memory where the contents of the floppy image have been copied.

I will need to be careful here because my autoexec.bat basically loads the 1.44Mb boot disk in the following manner:

• Doslfn is loaded 1st (the user selects USA or UK setup)
  
• A CD Drive is setup shsucdx
  
• Then a Ramdisk XMSDSK is loaded R:\ to setup TEMP files
  
• Command.com is copied across to the XMSDSK ramdrive to envoke comspec
  
• Then all the Dos Utils and Bat files are copied to R:\
  
• then All.zip is unpacked adding more Dos Utils
  
• The user is then asked to input the drive/partition (98SE) that is going to be worked on
  
• Checks are then made to ensure certain 98SE files are in fact on that drive
  
• Next additional dos utils are acquired from the drive/partition & copied to R:\
  
• & finally the user is asked to indicate whether a menu is required or to work from the command line

So I am wondering whether a re-write is in order in respect of the XMSDSK Ramdisk R:\ as there maybe a conflict between A:\allocated memory and the memory allocated for XMSDSK. Supposedly if the image file is larger than 1.44Mb the cat is out of the bag in respect of dos being conned into believing it is dealing with a floppy disk?

Just typing aloud here, will have to try it out I see!

Many thanks for all your help & guidance it has been very enlightening experience

Excellent many thanks,

ispy

[was_jaclaz]

NO prob, mate, and don't worry, you won't have problems with XMSDSK or R:\.

jaclaz

[ispy]

Hi Jaclaz,

I did say I would get back to you with the results

I have followed your recipe for making a Bootable Ramdisk & I have failed miserably I'm afraid

I will outline what I have done & hopefully you can inform me as to the "error of my ways"
Sorry about the length of this reply just trying to cover all bases for a prognosis.
The final floppy disk contents are as follows (just as a checking mechanism or inventory of files):
5 no files total [Size 839Kb (859,136bytes) on disk]

1. A file called default = 2kb
2. A file called grldr = 164kb
3. A file called myfloppy.zip = 662Kb (zipped with 7Zip Max compression from within windows)
4. A file called memdisk.zip = 11Kb (Agian zipped with 7Zip from within windows)
5. A file called menu.lst = 1Kb (with the internal contents removed & your code copied & pasted therein)

Firstly Can you tell me whether these are the Prerequisit files need to be on the floppy, or by chance have I missed something?

Moving on to the floppy, booted to the menu screen & received the following [1) 2) 3) & 4) below are for illustration, not part of menu really]:

Grub4Dos 0.4.2 (2006-12-28) Memory: 639 /510m, code end 0x3C8BC
-----------------------------
1) | myfloppy (Grub4Dos) 0
2) | Unhook Memory
3) | myfloppy (Grub4dos) 1
4) | myfloppy (memdisk) 2
-----------------------------
Use the up & down keys to select which....... (There was a "c" option for command line but was not confident in using this)

Selecting 1) above (myfloppy (Grub4Dos) 0 the dos screen printed:
-------------------START-----------------------------
Booting 'myfloppy (Grub4Dos) 0'
root (fd0)
error 19: Cannot mount selected partition
press any key to continue... (So pressed <enter> returned to main menu & selected option 2) & got:
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Booting 'unhook Memory'
map --unhook
error 42: The Int13 handler not yet on hook
Press any Key to continue... (So pressed <enter> returned to main menu & selected option 1 again) & got
--------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
Booting 'myfloppy (Grub4Dos) 0
root (fd0)
Filesystem type is fat, using whole disk
map --mem /myfloppy.zip (fd0)
Autodetect number-of-heads failed. Use default value 2
Autodetect sectors-per-track failed. Use default 18
floppies_orig=1, harddrives_orig=1, floppies_curr=1, harddrives_curr=1
map --hook
root (fd0)
error 19: cannot mount selected partition
press any key to continue... (So pressed <enter> returned to main menu & selected option 3 ) & got
----------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------
Booting 'myfloppy (Grub4Dos) 1'
root (fd0)
Error 19: Cannot mount selected partition
press any key to continue... ( So pressed <enter> [had to x 2 times depress] returned to main menu & selected option 2 ) & got:
----------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
Booting 'unhook memory'
map --unhook
Error 42: the Int13 handler not yet on hook
press any key to continue... (So pressed <enter> returned to main menu & selected option 3 ) & got:
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Booting 'myfloppy (Grub4Dos) 1'
root (fd0)
Filesystem type is fat, using whole disk
map --mem /myfloppy.zip (fd0)
Autodetect number-of-heads failed. Use default value 2
Autodetect sectors-per-track failed. Use default 18
floppies_orig=1, harddrives_orig=1, floppies_curr=1, harddrives_curr=1
map --hook
root (fd0)
error 19: cannot mount selected partition
press any key to continue... (So pressed <enter> returned to main menu & selected option 4 ) & got:
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------
Booting 'myfloppy (memdisk)' 2
root (fd0)
Error 19: Cannot mount selected partition
Press any key to continue... (So pressed <enterx2> returned to main menu & selected option 2 ) & got:
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
Booting 'unhook memory'
map --unhook
Error 42: The Int13 handler not yet on hook
press any key to continue... (So pressed <enter> returned to main menu & selected option 4 ) & got:
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
Booting 'myfloppy (memdisk) 2'
root (fd0)
Filesystem type is fat, using whole disk
Kernel /memdisk.zip
error 14: Invalid or unsupported executable format
press any key to continue...
--------------------END--------------------------- (At this point I aborted & returned to Windows)

From the information above am I basically stuffed, my system not being compatable with Grub4Dos?

Hoping this helps you find a clue as to what is wrong (most likely operator error me thinks!)

Just as a general background question, you are helping me a floppy image that is 1.44Mb in size would this procedure in theory work with a 2.88 Mb floppy image also (Although I have heard that 2.88Mb floppy disk are more difficult to boot or what I should really say is there is a smaller success rate?). your thoughts please?

Mucho regards,

ispy

[dog]

Looks like

map --mem /my floppy.zip (fd0)

should be

map --mem /myfloppy.zip (fd0)

(avoid spaces or non-8.3 filenames)
You could try using rootnoverify (fd0) instead of root (fd0)
and put it after any mappings
I'd also try it without zipping, until you have it working

[ispy]

Hi "D",

Thanks for your input!

OOooop's, yes you are quite right it should read "myfloppy.zip" not "my floppy.zip" I have edited the previous post to reflect this (typo), sorry!

I will indeed try the rootnoverify option as you suggest, thanks!

I cannot see with the No zipping option the floppy disk carrying all the files required because the original floppy boot disk adds up to a hefty 1.35Mbs, (freespace 38Kb's) & when I make an image of the floppy, will it not compile it to a 1.44Mb myfloppy.img anyway? I'm not sure but I think this is why Jaclaz put zipping this img file in his tutorial.

Unfortunately this would leave no room on the floppy disk for files, default (2Kbs), Grldr (164Kbs), memdisk (which is 20Kbs unzipped) & menu.lst (1kbs) which is a total of 187Kbs on top of the 1.44Mb myfloppy.img unless of course you know of a workaround solution, I'm kinda cramped for space?

Rather than submitting another post I have been away & tried "D's" rootnoverify suggestion and still the error messages prevail. Am I right in assuming that the unhook from memory option deletes the 1.44mb of allocated memory before an alternative option is selected?

Best Regards,

ispy

[dog]

How about trying just memdisk not zipped, and maybe use windows to make your myfloppy.zip in case grub4dos can't handle 7zip's maximum compression?
Is the image file 1.44mb before you zip it?
You don't need to unhook anything unless you are testing things at the command line, I normally just reboot instead.
Chances are most people will be using this to boot floppy images from a hard disk or cd, so you might be forging a new path here - good luck

[ispy]

Hi again "D",

Well, yes the Floppy image file (myfloppy.img) is 1.44Mb before it is zipped, Jaclaz pointed me towards Roadkills DiskImg.exe but at the time, coincidently my floppy disk drive went paws up & died. Very kindly Jaclaz pointed out links to some virtual floppy drivers but I felt a little bit incomplete without a bootable floppy disk drive in my PC, silly really buts thats just a preferance.

The Bootable floppy that I am trying to boot in this unorthodox manner is a first as far as I can see is a first on the WWW. It is 98SE specific, & its core function is to semi automate the re-building of the Vmm32.vxd & other things cuz it basically is a suite of freeware programs & bat files. It has been inspired by this web site & painful experience LOL!:

http://www.helpwithw...iles/vmm32.html

I also felt sympathy all the poor individuals out there who once they have lost or found their Vmm32.vxd has become corrupted are looking at a re-install. I was hoping to give the user a fighting chance at re-building this unique/monolithic file, however it is still buggy & slow to load, hence the interest in memory loading route.

Sorry I digress again prone to rambling, I will take onboard your suggestions & give it a go. Any credits for this belong to Jaclaz & yourself as I am basically like a blind man fumbling around in the dark as I have had "NO" experience in the usage of this program but it would be advantageous to dust this procedure off?

Yes I suppose rebooting/reloading is probably as quick as unhooking, as it takes very little time to load anyway. I might do some background research & see what these enumerated error codes mean on the WWW.

Also are we restricted zip format or would say a cab file unload 2. The other thought was a SFX .EXE files but there is no size reduction benefit as far as I can see, that is if indeed these are practical options etc.

Well less typing and more action will go away, start again from scratch within a secondary folder & tweak things a little & see what transpires. I will get back & edit this post with the results if that is ok

CYA soon Regards to all,

ispy

[ispy]

Hi all reporting back,

From "TO"

Well "D" you R the "D's" Dangly bits (Pardon the Pun) LOL!

In a roundabout way I did what you said but went back to Jaclaz's Menu.lst layout but changed this (In Red):

title myfloppy (memdisk) 2
root (fd0)
kernel /memdisk.zip
initrd /myfloppy.zip

To this (in Bold):

title myfloppy (memdisk) 2
root (fd0)
kernel /memdisk
initrd /myfloppy.zip

Obviously this now means that memdisk is not zipped in this edition.

Booted to the floppy disk up to the menu screen & systematically worked through the options this time rebooting between selections, (not using the unhook option which for me needed x2 press's of the <enter> key) until I arrived at the memdisk menu item & Jaclaz "Hey Presto" it went to the jo.sys (Bart L's) menu boot from floppy.... depressed the <enter> & away it flew loading up my autoexec.bat Kewl. I would have to say in my case it was a partial success as it bombed out in the final stages of booting but nevertheless it loaded & by Jingo it is fast cus it uses memory instead of the clunky floppy disk drive.

Other considerations or changes were that I used windows zipping tool instead of 7Zip (@ full compression). Also another thing I have noticed within the freeware util EMT4WIN disk imager (that I recommended earlier) it has the facility to compile a compressed disk images (as well as an ARDI whatever that is?). So I might try the compressed image selection to reduce the size of the image file still further, just a thought!

The total size of the very full initial boot disk was 1.35Mb & it was slow loading. The overall new total size with the speed increase in booting is 863Kb's. So the two fold benefits are speed and overall size reduction.

This exercise raises or flags up another concept in my mind, if you can do this for a floppy disk image what about CD disk images like Live XP/PicoXP & so forth cuz memory booting is a lot faster than any floppy or CD for that matter. Larger ram these days open the doors to larger disk images being booted (if it is possible). Imagine the speed benefit of live XP Circa 90Mb loaded into memory to me that would be worth having, along with read write capability for updating virus definitions etc etc, just a thought! & what about loading systems like Reactos directly into ram, sorry I am getting ahead of myself rambling again!

What can I say but a great big THANKYOU!!!

Mucho Regards,

ispy

[tinybit]

zip-format images are not supported so far in the grub4dos' internal disk emulation, i.e., map --mem.

Instead, you should use gzip style.

memdisk supports images in both zip and gzip.

[was_jaclaz]

Of course tinybit is right, I rechecked and I actually did use in my tests:
memdisk.gz
and
Win98SE.img.gz

Sorry for the misleading .zip.

jaclaz

[ispy]

Morning Everyone,

No problem Jaclaz, unless you are using most things on a very frequent basis I/we (& no sexual inuendo implied here either LOL!) will find sometimes "gaps" in the way we undertook things. I have been guilty on many occaisions of this. So in summary the iniatial grub4dos options should work if "myfloppy" zipped is in fact myfloppy.gz? :ok: I understand

I will change the format to ".gz" With gzip4windows and try the complete grub4dos menu list again. I will return & post the results if thats :ok:

I believe that Gzip is command line driven, not gui based but a good tip I found was to drag the file/image over the Gzip.exe file found in my case, or located in "C:\Programs files\GNUWin32a\bin\gzip.exe" let it go and Gzip.exe compiled the myfloppy.gz file within the folder that I obtained the myfloppy.imz file in the first place (if that makes sense). I've added this cus lots of people are uncomfortable with command line programs.

Many thanks Tinybit for pointing this out, tis a big help

Do you think it might be a good idea to re-write this posting to amend the changes for anyone else that arrives at this section to dispell any confusion a bit like a summary or conclusion as to how to create a floppy disk image & have it boot up. Otherwise the whosoever that comes will need to read the whole chapter & verse, so as not to be confused, just asking?

Pleased to report that All 3 Menu.lst options within Grub4Dos menu loader now work.
Observations:
option 1) (Grub4Dos) 0 at the iniatial booting of the floppy skips the (Bart L's) Jo.sys menu. Options 2 & 3 (Grub4Dos) 1 & 2 within the Menu.lst accomodated Jo.sys option. In all 3 cases did not use unhook memory rather did a reboot. Oh & of course amended the Menu.lst file with all instances of "myfloppy.zip" with "myfloppy.img.gz" Hope this helps!

Mucho Regards "Everyone",

ispy

[dog]

Thanks guys, now I might be able to get rid of memdisk (every 20kb counts...)

[was_jaclaz]

Do you think it might be a good idea to re-write this posting to amend the changes for anyone else that arrives at this section to dispell any confusion a bit like a summary or conclusion as to how to create a floppy disk image & have it boot up. Otherwise the whosoever that comes will need to read the whole chapter & verse, so as not to be confused, just asking?

Why not, I will correct the initial "menu.lst post, can you post a link to where you downloaded the version of gzip you tested succesfully?

Pleased to report that All 3 Menu.lst options within Grub4Dos menu loader now work.
Observations:
option 1) (Grub4Dos) 0 at the iniatial booting of the floppy skips the (Bart L's) Jo.sys menu. Options 2 & 3 (Grub4Dos) 1 & 2 within the Menu.lst accomodated Jo.sys option. In all 3 cases did not use unhook memory rather did a reboot. Oh & of course amended the Menu.lst file with all instances of "myfloppy.zip" with "myfloppy.img.gz" Hope this helps!

That is normal, you see, entry "0" chainloads DIRECTLY the IO.SYS DOS system file, by-passing the bootsector, thus JO.SYS has no way to be called.


jaclaz

[ispy]

Jaclaz,

Don't post it just yet! I going to try a couple of things first, to maybe give you a clearer Picture if that is OK?

Regards,

ispy

[was_jaclaz]

Jaclaz,

Don't post it just yet! I going to try a couple of things first, to maybe give you a clearer Picture if that is OK?

Regards,

ispy

too late.....

.... but we can always edit it later....

jaclaz

[ispy]

Hi Jaclaz ,

Okay, what I will do is put the findings & the links etc in a private message to you. So that you can take the bits you feel are relevant then amend your posting.

I have sent the personal message (& you may get 3 copies sorry) as it did not seem to get posted

Private Joke! (Jaclaz) Yes one of MANY "compulsive disorders" that I suffer from LOL!!!

Regards,

ispy

[ispy]

Hi all,

Associated addendum Curiosity!

I have found what I think is an interesting article (I claim No credit for it by the way) in respect of making custom (User Defined) sized floppy images with MEMDISK in mind. I know you can obtain Non-standard images elsewhere on the WWW. but the interesting thing that caught my eye is the compatability with "Memdisk".
For those with the appetite or indeed a challenge in mind, here are quotes from a site I've found entitled "Boosting the power of a dos image"

Large floppy images
The second problem is solved, by having a 10MB floppy image (or larger if you want). One creates a floppy image with non-standard geometry (number of heads and sectors) using unix utilities like mkdosfs, and instructs MEMDISK about the geometry of the image and that it is a floppy image and not a hard disk image.

Creating such a non-standard floppy image is not that difficult ("I will Take his word for it LOL!"). One must ensure that the boot sector of this image is setup correctly. The boot sector created by mkdosfs, will not help. So we need to copy the boot sector from a bootable MSDOS disk (or diskimage). This does not solve the problem completely as well. Parts of the bootsector contain information about the geometry of the floppy. So, we need to copy all the parts of the boot sector which are unrelated to the geometry from the bootable MSDOS disk (or diskimage) and keep the rest of the information untouched.

Finally when booting off this image using MEMDISK, dont forget to tell MEMDISK about the non-standard geometry. See the downloads section for a script which creates the non-standard images for you.

Interested! The origins of this quoted malarky above can be found here:

http://people.cs.uch...gui/isodos.html

And if you click on the download link you will be re-directed to find the following info for the req scripts:

mkfloppyimage.sh Create a non-standard floppy image. You need an existing 1.44/2.88MB bootable image. Just modify the first few lines of this script to choose the size of the larger image.

newmkfloppyimg.sh A user friendly version of mkfloppyimg.sh written by Carsten.

Next question, where would I get a hold of Mkdosfs for Windows, well you could try here:

http://www1.mager.org/mkdosfs/

I know that "Dog" or "D" as I like to call him was claiming he was restricted for space on a 1.44Mb floppy image, this info might, just might, help others also who find themselves cramped for space.

Unless anyone wants to pass comment I promise I will "Buzz Off" now!

Regards & Best Wishes,

ispy