30 replies to this topic

[Sha0]

...I am going to place grub.exe somewhere in my DVD_root folder and then enter the following item into my isolinux.cfg file:

LABEL grub

MENU LABEL back to Grub4dos loader

KERNEL /boot/grub/grub.exe

I don't understand "back to". If the first thing the CD/DVD boots (the El Torito boot image, as specified in whatever .ISO or CD/DVD building program you are using) is ISOLINUX, then why would you be going "back to" GRUB4DOS? Or are you building the CD/DVD so that it boots GRUB4DOS first?

I also don't understand why booting GRUB.EXE didn't work for you. I'm pretty sure that's what I boot with Syslinux every time I do Syslinux -> GRUB4DOS.

Grub should than load this menu.lst??

Huh? You just said isolinux.cfg file. What menu.lst? ISOLINUX uses ISOLINUX.CFG. GRUB4DOS uses MENU.LST.

Update: WOOHOO I got it!!

While that is good news for you, I'm sorry that your solution uses GRUB4DOS but the thread is in the Syslinux forum.

• Readers mightn't find it
• Readers mightn't find it relevant to Syslinux
• I don't know why the ISOLINUX + chain.c32 method failed to chain BOOTMGR, but perhaps it's an opportunity to fix a bug

I will refine my methods and learn more about GRUB4DOS than post my final result. Big thank you to Wanko and Sha0!

Heheheh. Hopefully you are very lucky and do not discover that either of those PEs require any files inside the .ISOs they are booted from, after they've been booted. Hopefully they have everything they need within their .WIM files.

[mille535]

I don't understand "back to". If the first thing the CD/DVD boots (the El Torito boot image, as specified in whatever .ISO or CD/DVD building program you are using) is ISOLINUX, then why would you be going "back to" GRUB4DOS? Or are you building the CD/DVD so that it boots GRUB4DOS first?

I also don't understand why booting GRUB.EXE didn't work for you. I'm pretty sure that's what I boot with Syslinux every time I do Syslinux -> GRUB4DOS.


Huh? You just said isolinux.cfg file. What menu.lst? ISOLINUX uses ISOLINUX.CFG. GRUB4DOS uses MENU.LST.


While that is good news for you, I'm sorry that your solution uses GRUB4DOS but the thread is in the Syslinux forum.

• Readers mightn't find it
• Readers mightn't find it relevant to Syslinux
• I don't know why the ISOLINUX + chain.c32 method failed to chain BOOTMGR, but perhaps it's an opportunity to fix a bug

Heheheh. Hopefully you are very lucky and do not discover that either of those PEs require any files inside the .ISOs they are booted from, after they've been booted. Hopefully they have everything they need within their .WIM files.

The disk is still ISOLINUX I am basically calling GRUB from ISOLINUX to boot my two PEs (which are of a different Windows version) while everything else is still being launched from ISOLINUX. I intend on putting all the details in a post once I get it the way I like it (still trying to figure out PXE booting through isolinux+grub and switching back it ISOLINUX from GRUB). Ideally I would prefer to keep it ISOLINUX/SYSLINUX if I could for simplicities sake so if you could recommend a way to boot my two PEs from ISO/PXE/SYSLINUX I am certainly game to try out anything you have in mind. Unfortunately everywhere I look does it differently and there isn't a "standard" way to accomplish this that I can find.

After reading dozens are posts about the chain.c32 method it looks like everything should work but unfortunately it threw the same error with both PEs that I am using.

I was able to get boot grub.exe instead of grldr by changing the BOOT statment to KERNEL thusly:

LABEL Boot PEs

KERNEL /grub/grub.exe

OK after reading this one more time I see that the solution found for my initial question would lie under a GRUB category but, like I said, ideally I would like to stick with ISOLINUX if I can find a suitable method.

Edited by mille535, 10 May 2011 - 05:50 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Forgive me if I'm over looking something but I don't really see how this is accomplished I see confirmation that it does indeed work and examples of menu.lst files but nothing that explains what files I need, where they need to be, how the ISOs must be setup. Is there a guide somewhere you can point me to? Also would GRUB4DOS be replacing ISOLINUX or be called from it?

I will keep digging to see if i can find a guide.

Maybe a sticky in the grub4dos forum?
http://reboot.pro/forum/66/
http://reboot.pro/5187/

Please also read this:
http://reboot.pro/14/

And whenever posting about grub4dos (or Syslinux) do post also the actual version you are testing.


Wonko

[mille535]

Alllright I got everything running using just ISOLINUX (and PXELINUX but that's a whole different story). So here's my whole setup and how I got everything to work for future reference. At time of CD build I used SYSLINUX 4.04

Directory Structure

CD_root

	/BOOT		>	Exported from ESET SysRescue ISO (WinPE 3.1)

	/EFI		>	Exported from ESET SysRescue ISO (WinPE 3.1)

	/images		>	Folder full of floppy images (Seatools, Ghost, etc.)

	/isolinux	>	Folder containing isolinux.bin, config files, vesamenu.c32

	/kernel		>	Folder for linux kernels, memdisk, etc.

	/SOURCES	>	Exported from ESET SysRescue ISO (WinPE 3.1)--This is where I added second WIM file

	BOOTMGR		>	Exported from ESET SysRescue ISO (WinPE 3.1)

Since the focus of this is dual-booting WinPE2/3 from ISOLINUX we will forget the full configs and I will give you the entry in my isolinux.cfg file that boots the PEs

LABEL Boot WinPE menu

COM32 /kernel/chain.c32

APPEND fs ntldr=/BOOTMGR

Now here comes the tricky part, you must edit the BCD store with BCDEDIT on either a Vista or Win7 machine (or PE if you wanna go that route). Since I found this great article that is super easy to understand I am going to just attach that. They also have a nice looking script to do it for you essentially automatically but I went through the steps just so that I may better understand the process.

http://www.msfn.org/...sta-on-one-dvd/

After that is done copy you should be able to create your ISO and enjoy!

[Sha0]

Alllright I got everything running using just ISOLINUX (and PXELINUX but that's a whole different story). So here's my whole setup and how I got everything to work for future reference. At time of CD build I used SYSLINUX 4.04
...

Thank you for sharing!

[sbaeder]

Alllright I got everything running using just ISOLINUX (and PXELINUX but that's a whole different story).

Just to be clear, this gives you a sub-menu approach, where the various wim files are selected using the MS boot manager process - For a different approach, see RMPrepUSB Tutorial that uses a hacked bootmgr and separate BCD files to allow booting directly from the GRUB (or in this case ISO/SYSLINUX) menu. Both are valid !....

Thanks for the links!