630 replies to this topic

[Jeditobe]

Last time I checked, ReactOS wasn't yet ready for a proper virtual disk driver. If I recall correctly, neither PnP nor ScsiPort have been fully implemented.

 

How long time did you do it? Scsi and PnP  now have some improvements.

[o.k.]

HI!

 

Does FiraDisk support FAT or FAT32? I can't make it work. I want to boot file backed vhd (ntfs) from fat partition.

 

Thanks for reply.

Edited by o.k., 29 July 2014 - 09:29 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Does FiraDisk support FAT or FAT32? I can't make it work. I want to boot file backed vhd (ntfs) from fat partition.

There is NO reason why a "disk" driver can be compatible (or not compatible) with a filesystem.

 

A disk driver allows to access disk contents (sectors of raw data), a filesystem driver interprets these raw data according to the filesystem specifications.

The filesystem driver for FAT 12/16/32 on NT systems is fastfat.sys, and it is normally included and enabled (exception made - perhaps - for some very minimal builds), all filesystem drivers make use of an auxiliary driver fs_rec.sys which is a "filesystem recognizer", i.e. "detects" the filesystem in use and "connects" to the "right" filesystem driver for the found filesystem.

 

Start a NEW thread describing IN DETAIL what you are attempting to do and how EXACTLY you are attempting to do it, and which EXACT errors you have, standard litany please :

http://homepage.ntlw...ard-litany.html

 

Wonko

[Brain Freeze]

Is there a firadisk driver version that works for XP x64?I know the one for xp x32 works because I've used it and this one says Vista - 7.

[At1ant]

0.0.1.30 works on Xp x64.

[L A M A]

Soo,... how come karyonix stopped development of firadisk?  hope he did not run away from newbies???

 

is there really nothing more that can be done to this driver? or he signed "halt development" agreement with M$??? 

[karyonix]

Soo,... how come karyonix stopped development of firadisk?  hope he did not run away from newbies???

 

is there really nothing more that can be done to this driver? or he signed "halt development" agreement with M$??? 

 

There are something more that can be added.

- Interaction with user-mode program -- CLI and GUI

- Improve support for disk image format, mounting, loading, saving.

- Installer

- Code signing -- This cost money. I will do it when I am satisfied with completeness of this driver.

 

But my time is limited. I can't do everything quickly.
I have not installed developing environment for this project since I bought my new computer.

[L A M A]

Hi 
 
http://thehackernews...-Keylogger.html
 
...looking at this GPU based malware link, is it possible to perform the following sequences??
 
01. Boot G4D, Hand over GPU the job of mapping *.vhd etc to GDDR/DDRx memory 
02. Start the OS kernel while the rest is still under the process of getting mapped? 
 
Because OSes accepted "spinning" delays from traditional mechanical hard disk drives, is it not possible to virtually mimic such delay by FiraDisk driver? my goal in this is to cut the time G4D takes while mapping empty space of huge vhd images.
 
edit: The alternative route to cut boot time would've been THIS thread but, you seem to have abandoned it indefinitely?    (maybe both solutions can work together?)
 

Latest "dev" version of LZ4 now supports frame content size (original size).
https://github.com/C...73/lz4/tree/dev

edit2: This post shows strange interesting alien language to me (could possibly speed anything?) 

[karyonix]

No, I will not use that GPU based hack. It looks too malicious and it is too difficult.

One of my goal is to implement support for reading dynamic hard disk image, so empty space will not need to be read.

 

Currenly, my grub4dos build environment is unavailable. I will recover or reinstall it soon.

I have just added a new hard drive. I now have enough available disk space.

[L A M A]

...
One of my goal is to implement support for reading dynamic hard disk image, so empty space will not need to be read.

This looks better till G4D maps dynamic hard disk image but, imagining windows starting from mem-disk and "growing + expanding" itself on memory looks like another problem for FiraDisk driver (that will require implementation of new code?).

On the other hand, G4D supporting lz4 will not force FiraDisk to change right?


Aside from annoying delays of mapping free space, there is also another annoying issue. Saving changes to disk image that can turn out to become Medusa snakes . For example, I've to take a backup of *.vhd before modifying/updating because I'm not sure if I will like the change after a reboot/week etc. The point is, If you consider "Differencing" hard disk image support instead of "dynamic" for FiraDisk driver, it would be cool  

Differencing hard disk image: a set of modified blocks (maintained in a separate file referred to as the "child image") in comparison to a parent image. The Differencing hard disk image format allows the concept of Undo Changes: when enabled, all changes to a hard drive contained within a VHD (the parent image) are stored in a separate file (the child image). Options are available to undo the changes to the VHD, or to merge them permanently into the VHD. Different child images based on the same parent image also allow "cloning" of VHDs

edit: Expecting FiraDisk driver having ability to monitor "changes" and "save changes" may require some work (doesn't look like happening  )

[sixcentgeorge]

firadisk should support lzma or lz4 or rar image file in ram ; may be a setting for a second vhd : in ram or usb [ or saved on usb at shutdown ] that write changes , registry...would help creating light and stable win install .

the way i see it would need a vhd with a boot partition that also hold the "disk-driver" that handle the realtime un-lz* and the second vhd .

a tool handling these vhd should be made to pass the updated files added to the second vhd in the main one .

a usb stick of 4 or 8 Go could be enough to boot a win7 x64 with 2 vhds .

[L A M A]

Hi 

 

Can FiraDisk driver ever have ability to continuously monitor rdd block level changes and save those changes to *.001.lz4 upon user request? (by using an executable or firadisk devmgr.msc property sheet)?? Something (like *.001.lz4) that can be over-mapped by grub4dos or firadisk AFTER initial image has been mapped???

 

 

 

edit: "Save Changes" button/command line option really could've been great along with "Make Changes Permanent" button/cmd option (which could merge into *.vhd.lz4 and remove all *001,*002 etc parts). Anyhow such a feature implementation work requires focus and time,..  

 

 or i guess it's probably a stupid idea (no one is asking for it)... I got to disappear from this place for a while...  

[sixcentgeorge]

i do not see that using real-time , more like a two bottles system . the main one having most of the windows files loaded in ram at boot and the second file on disk or ram that has the temp files and the files replaced by updates . the two files being connected by a junction NTFS .

from times to times the user move the updated files in the main vhd ...that could be cool also for updates that are not working so well and that MS removes later...

[sixcentgeorge]

does FiraDisk work with win10 ?

[At1ant]

Yes it works, but you need enable TESTSIGNING ON.

[mr_jrt]

Just hoping for a quick categorical answer...does Firadisk support direct mapped images? I have an installation disk that is rather large (~3GB) and I'd like to a ) speed up testing and b ) make it usable on low-ram machines. RAM-loaded images otherwise, as expected, work fine.

 

i.e.

map --mem /multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)

...works

 

but...

map /multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)

...doesn't. Gets our old friend 0x7b when switching to protected mode.

Edited by mr_jrt, 03 January 2016 - 10:58 PM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Just hoping for a quick categorical answer...does Firadisk support direct mapped images? I have an installation disk that is rather large (~3GB) and I'd like to a ) speed up testing and b ) make it usable on low-ram machines. RAM-loaded images otherwise, as expected, work fine.

Categorical answer :

Yes and No.  

It does, but it needs to be loaded by the XP setup (or be pre-integrated into the .iso).

 

Steve6375 uses it in one of his projects, generally speaking though, Winvblock seems more "universal", see:

http://reboot.pro/to...using-firadisk/

http://www.rmprepusb...-xp-from-an-iso

 

If you want to try either Firadisk or Winvblock, check here:

http://www.msfn.org/...rom-a-iso-file/

 

This is the original thread by Firadisk's Author karyonix:

http://reboot.pro/to...sata-hard-disk/

 

Wonko

[mr_jrt]

Categorical answer :

Yes and No.  

It does, but it needs to be loaded by the XP setup (or be pre-integrated into the .iso).

 

Steve6375 uses it in one of his projects, generally speaking though, Winvblock seems more "universal", see:

http://reboot.pro/to...using-firadisk/

http://www.rmprepusb...-xp-from-an-iso

 

If you want to try either Firadisk or Winvblock, check here:

http://www.msfn.org/...rom-a-iso-file/

 

This is the original thread by Firadisk's Author karyonix:

http://reboot.pro/to...sata-hard-disk/

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

I did a bit more poking around despite having found those threads a while back, and decided to see if there was any merit in the tiny config ramdisk karyonix talks about...and what do you know, that sorted it.

 

I speculated that loading the iso into RAM worked because firadisk could see the ramdisk and thus activated, but when direct-mapping there is nothing for it to find, so it fails. Either the very act of configuring any RAM disk or (more likely) the config settings made it all work as intended, so thanks for your help!

map --mem (md)0x800+4 (99)
find --set-root /multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map /multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso (0xff)
map --hook
write (99) [FiraDisk]\nStartOptions=cdrom,vmem=find:/multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso;\n\0
chainloader (0xff)

...works fine for me. Yay!

[Wonko the Sane]

Either the very act of configuring any RAM disk or (more likely) the config settings made it all work as intended, so thanks for your help!

map --mem (md)0x800+4 (99)
find --set-root /multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map /multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso (0xff)
map --hook
write (99) [FiraDisk]\nStartOptions=cdrom,vmem=find:/multiboot/ISOS/xp.iso;\n\0
chainloader (0xff)

...works fine for me. Yay!

Yep , the idea is that the "tiny ram disk" is used to "pass" to Firadisk two pieces of data that otherwise it cannot gather, the use of a (virtual) CD-ROM device and the actual name and location of the .iso file, you can consider it as a (volatile) "bridge" between the grub4dos part and the SETUPLDR.BIN part.

 

Wonko 

[mr_jrt]

Just thought 'd share this for any future adventurers...Firadisk BSODs 0x07B in XP text mode setup if you have multiple USB mass storage devices connected to the same USB controller (an Etron USB 3.0, in my case) and use directly-mapped access to an ISO from one of them (maybe it gets confused about which to access?). Moving the non-boot device to another USB controller seems to be fine, as does loading the ISO into RAM.

 

Also seems fine in BartPE.

 

It's an edge case I've found whilst testing, but it's not obvious if you've not being methodological about what you're doing...I suspect both mass storage devices are the same hardware ID and Firadisk doesn't check the instance ids or volume names so finds the wrong one?

[steve6375]

I have found that if you boot from just a single USB-HDD with firadisk (no other USB connected), then it BSODs, but if the drive is a Removable USB drive, then it is OK. If you load the ISO to memory then it is OK.

[imnothing]

Hi all, I'm sorry for my bad English.

I don't know why using firadisk or winvblock i cannot boot MiniXP successful. Not BSOD, not restart, just hang with blank screen.

If i remove using winvblock or firadisk then i can boot to desktop without hang.

Test with Hp probook 4420s

 

My menu.lst code

title MiniXP WimBoot method with Firadisk
set isoname=/ISO/XP.iso
map --mem (md)0x800+4 (99)
map %isoname% (0xff)
map --mem /firadisk.gz (fd0)
map --mem /firadisk.gz (fd1)
map --hook
write (99) [FiraDisk]\nStartOptions=cdrom,vmem=find:%isoname%;\n\0
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)

title MiniXP Wimboot method (Winvblock)
set isoname=/ISO/XP.iso
map %isoname% (0xff)
map --mem /winvblock.gz (fd0)
map --mem /winvblock.gz (fd1)
map --hook
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)

# -----
#menu.lst that work fine

title MiniXP WimBoot method no Firadisk
set isoname=/ISO/XP.iso
map --mem (md)0x800+4 (99)
map %isoname% (0xff)
#map --mem /firadisk.gz (fd0)
#map --mem /firadisk.gz (fd1)
map --hook
write (99) [FiraDisk]\nStartOptions=cdrom,vmem=find:%isoname%;\n\0
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)

title MiniXP Wimboot method (no Winvblock)
set isoname=/ISO/XP.iso
map %isoname% (0xff)
#map --mem /winvblock.gz (fd0)
#map --mem /winvblock.gz (fd1)
map --hook
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)

P/s: I need to use firadisk or winvblock because i need to mount ISO after it boot to desktop.

[wimb]

P/s: I need to use firadisk or winvblock because i need to mount ISO after it boot to desktop.

 

You can install ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver, so that you can right-click on a ISO file to mount it as a virtual disk drive.

 

http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/

 

Install of XP in VHD is working with WinVBlock driver

 

http://www.msfn.org/...-2#entry1117324

http://reboot.pro/to...tall-xp-in-vhd/

http://reboot.pro/to...t-make-mini-xp/

[imnothing]

You can install ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver, so that you can right-click on a ISO file to mount it as a virtual disk drive.

 

http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/

 

Install of XP in VHD is working with WinVBlock driver

 

http://www.msfn.org/...-2#entry1117324

http://reboot.pro/to...tall-xp-in-vhd/

http://reboot.pro/to...t-make-mini-xp/

Tks for your help, wimb.

But it not simply mount ISO. My minxp has .cmd file that auto run after boot to desktop, it will detect where XP.ISO located then mount to virtual drive and run nircmd to create shortcut for some programs.

I tried winvblock before, it work on some computer, just not work with my laptop as i say above.

I tried firadisk, too but no luck.

[steve6375]

Did you try just using one map fd - e.g. fd0 or fd1?

what about setting the number of floppies too?

 

map --floppies=1

or map --floppies=2