96 replies to this topic

[Wonko the Sane]

Well, there are TWO apps, a simple, GUI one:

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=22523

and a complex, command line only one:

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=22313

 

Both may or may not work on this "minimal" XP, but with a 50 % probability, you started with the most difficult/complex/undocumented one.

 

Possibly you can try the  "DriverInjection GUI, Inject MassStorageController with click through assistant", first.

 

or see if you can rebuild adding this .script:

http://reboot.pro/to...stmakeexe-tool/

 

Maybe you can forget the above and see, since it is clear now that you need the iastor driver, if you can replicate this set of manual instructions:

http://www.msfn.org/...409#entry884409

http://forums.pcper....talling-Windows

Of course since - unike in the above - you cannot actually boot the miniXP on that machine, you will need to add the contents of the .reg file to the offline Registry.

You do know how to do this, right?

 

 

 

@JoshuaCL

Same - more or less - goes for you, finding the dependencies is something that will need a lot of time and dedication, and it is unfortunately a CATCH22, if someone needs to ask if there are dependencies he won't be able to find them .

 

Seriously guys , this is a very limited environment, very, very difficult to modify, something I would not recommend (with all due respect ) to people without a solid background in modding XP, probably you would get faster (and better) results by simply using nlite wisely.

 

Wonko

 

 

 

[Phsmu]

Actually I can't download the first one. I tried.

 

As for Nlite, well, I have been using it for a while, and now RT7Lite. Why?

 

What I need is a way to boot a commandline into a installed machine to run a .cmd/.bat script. Unfortunately, the scripts don't work if I can't access the machine's HD.

 

BTW, the scripts were supposed to:

1. copy the HD contents to an external disk

2. format the drive

3. run Imagex to restore the OS image.

 

Any other ideas of how I could do this?

 

Of course since - unike in the above - you cannot actually boot the miniXP on that machine, you will need to add the contents of the .reg file to the offline Registry.

You do know how to do this, right? 

Nope, no idea. 

[Wonko the Sane]

Actually I can't download the first one. I tried.

No.

You tried downloading it from the first post in the linked thread, then INSTEAD of READing the thread, you went for the other app.

 

If you had READ it (besides possibly learning something on it's usage) you would have found this post:

http://www.911cd.net...pic=22523&st=66

 

 

 

As for Nlite, well, I have been using it for a while, and now RT7Lite. Why?

I guess we are still in the initial misunderstanding.

By using nlite you can make easily a source from which you can install a more complete XP than this one.

This project (miniXP) is NOT intended to be a "portable" anything, it is a FULL INSTALL (only very, very reduced), just like one nlite will produce, only much smaller.

 

Here you are describing a PE (Pre-install Environment) which is "portable", BTW you are assuming additionally that ImageX will run perfectly on a XP (which may or may not be true):

 

What I need is a way to boot a commandline into a installed machine to run a .cmd/.bat script. Unfortunately, the scripts don't work if I can't access the machine's HD.

 

BTW, the scripts were supposed to:

1. copy the HD contents to an external disk

2. format the drive

3. run Imagex to restore the OS image.

 

Any other ideas of how I could do this?

Lots of them .

 

Now you have finally exited the chocolate covered banana problem :

http://homepage.ntlw...red-banana.html

 

What you need/want is a PE (and NOT an INSTALLED system) and since you want it only command line, you should go for a "plain", "normal" WinPE 2.x (Vista based) or 3.x (7 based) that you can build from the WAIK (where surely ImageX will work):

http://technet.micro...1(v=ws.10).aspx

http://technet.micro...bedded.21).aspx

 

http://www.microsoft...ls.aspx?id=5753

http://www.microsoft...s.aspx?id=10333

 

a standard WinPE 2.x or 3.x should already have the iastor.sys driver.

 

Or are there any other needs/requirements?

 

Wonko

[Phsmu]

 ops. I download first, then read the manual.

As for Nlite, well I was only answering your question...

...

And unfortunately, there ARE other requeriments. I don't seem to find a way to fix the drive letters in anything but a installed system (before I would say miniXP, because I didn't knew WHY, so I guess I did learned something  ) so I can't point which image to restore.

Restoring from RAM is a NO, Image is too big, and MiniXP does satisfy ImageX requeriments AFAIK, it at least ran in the other machine I tried.

 

But I'll check the ones you pointed, thanks for the links.

[Wonko the Sane]

 ops. I download first, then read the manual.

As for Nlite, well I was only answering your question...

...

And unfortunately, there ARE other requeriments. I don't seem to find a way to fix the drive letters in anything but a installed system (before I would say miniXP, because I didn't knew WHY, so I guess I did learned something  ) so I can't point which image to restore.

Restoring from RAM is a NO, Image is too big, and MiniXP does satisfy ImageX requeriments AFAIK, it at least ran in the other machine I tried.

 

But I'll check the ones you pointed, thanks for the links.

 

Well, in *any* PE the actual PE drive letter is normally "X:" (PE 1.x will have an additional "B:" drive letter used) and all other drive letters should not be "touched" (provided that they were originally automatically assigned by the original install.

 

But of course you can "fix" drive letters in an installed system as well, but you will have to learn how to manage the system's Registry (both "normally", i.e. "online" and "offline", i.e. the Registry of another install), nothing particularly difficult, but you need to learn some basics about the Registry and the tools capable of accessing/changing it's contents.

 

Maybe you should do the "right thing", i.e. start a NEW thread in a more generic Forum, like here:

http://reboot.pro/fo...indows-extreme/

in either the 2K/XP/2003 or the Vista/2008 or the 7 sub-forum

and ask there your question/doubts...

 

As a side note, and JFYI, you do not detail if you are using Imagex to also copy/backup, or just for deploying a .wim, (to  deploy it's OK, to copy/backup/capture there may be issues):

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=19355

 

 

 

Wonko

[JoshuaCL]

i was able to get dwarf fortress non sdl version to work because it told me what dlls were missing. u r probably right about nlite tho. ill try to see what error messages it throws w the sdl stuff

[JoshuaCL]

the error I get with doomrl is this

fmodinit failed

 

 I did a search for fmod as well as fmodinit

 

has something to do with audio...

 

I found some stuff here

http://fmod.org/fmod-downloads.html

and here

http://content.gpwik...Tracker_Modules

 

in fact I get this exact error message that's found on that last link "FMOD Init Failed!"

 

I checked out armored moon btw, looks neat for a dos game, but had a very very low rating...

 

 

I

[Rasqual]

Hi,
 
I need some help using a larger HDD image. Here are the step I have followed:
- create a new disk in ImDisk, offset 0
- format as NTFS (OS is XP)
- save with the 32256-byte header
 
 
When I open the resulting file (offset 63), the filesystem column shows as "NTFS".
 
 
So, I zip the image in DiskImages.zip somewhere in the cache folder.
 
I delete the target IMG, and regenerate a new one ("End" step in wb)
 
It mounts correctly on a drive letter during the process and all files were copied from ROOT, np.
 
 
But when QEMU starts, it says this and remains stuck instead of whowing the XP boot logo
 

SeaBIOS (version pre-0.6.3-20110315_112143-titi)
Booting from DVD/CD...
Boot failed: Could not read from CDROM (code 0003)
Booting from Hard Disk...

 
I have read docs/files/install.htm without success.
Can somebody please help?

[misty]

....I need some help using a larger HDD image. Here are the step I have followed:
- create a new disk in ImDisk, offset 0
- format as NTFS (OS is XP)
- save with the 32256-byte header

I'm assuming the header contains a master boot record - does this contain a disk signature? And a valid partition table?

What size disk image are you wanting to use? I might have a ready made one somewhere.

Consider using a different method to create your diskimage. I think I used Firadisk to create the one in the download. You could give this new tool a try - http://reboot.pro/to...iniport-driver/ (or consider using Erwan.l's GUI - http://reboot.pro/fi...e/374-imgmount/)

Regards,

Misty

P.s. If it's due to a missing disk signature then you could try adding one using a hex editor.

[Rasqual]

Hi misty, thanks for the swift answer.

1/ ImDisk does create a valid MBR and flags partition 1 as bootable (type 06)

I can't tell a valid from an invalid signature though.

 

MbrFix64.exe /drive 6 readsignature
0000

2/ The Arsenal Image Mounter gave the following results:

 

touch 500mb.img & truncate 500mb.img 524353536 & ArsenalImageMounterControl.exe /add /filename=500mb.img

Created device (format: LLTTPP hex): 000000

REM initialize hdd, create a NTFS partition, set active (bootable) in XP (@sector 63)

MountTool\ArsenalImageMounterControl.exe /remove /filename=500mb.img

Source:MBR_by_xp.bin
┌─────┬────┬────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────┬─────────────┐
│Part │Type│Boot│  Begin   CHS  │   End   CHS   │ LBA Start │ LBA Sectors │
│  #  │    │    │ BCyl │BHd│BSec│ ECyl │EHd│ESec│           │             │
├─────┼────┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼───────────┼─────────────┤
│    1│  06│  80│     0│  1│   1│    62│254│  63│         63│      1012032│
├─────┼────┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼───────────┼─────────────┤
│    2│  00│  00│     0│  0│   0│     0│  0│   0│          0│            0│
├─────┼────┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼───────────┼─────────────┤
│    3│  00│  00│     0│  0│   0│     0│  0│   0│          0│            0│
├─────┼────┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼──────┼───┼────┼───────────┼─────────────┤
│    4│  00│  00│     0│  0│   0│     0│  0│   0│          0│            0│
└─────┴────┴────┴──────┴───┴────┴──────┴───┴────┴───────────┴─────────────┘

Even if I apply Sysint's fixmbr, the MBR is unchanged, so I assume it is correct.

 

 

MbrFix64.exe /drive 6 readsignature
CD811107

 

Link

https://www.sugarsyn...60977647_152671

 

3/ The last thing I tried is create & initialize a 500MB drive in AIM+Windows 7 (aligns @sector 128); Then I would use an XP system to format the partition as NTFS, ensuring the partition is marked as active.

 

No more luck, though the type is 07, like the firadisk? image you shipped.

 

 

 

 

[Wonko the Sane]

@Rasqual

IMDISK does NOT produce a MBR which is valid in all cases.

As a matter of fact it skips it at mounting times as what you mount in imdisk is the volume and NOT the disk.

The issue is connected to the fact that on 2K (and later) there is a "default" HS disk geometry of 255/63, whilst Qemu has a "strict" (BOCHS derived) BIOS that will assume a disk geometry based on it's size.

Most probably you are wanting to use a 16/63 geometry, as 1024*16*63*512=528,482,304

 

There are four ways to solve the issue:

1. use a 16/63 geometry on your smaller than 528,482,304 bytes image
2. make the image slighlty larger than 528,482,304 bytes (it will then be forced - hopefully - to the 255/63 one)
3. patch the NTFS (or FAT32) bootsector
4. use a FAT16 filesystem <- the FAT16 bootsector code does not make this check

The real showstopper in your issue is most probably the NTFS (or FAT32) bootsector BPB that checks the validity of the geometry against the BIOS one.

It is very likely that in your image the geometry in the BPB is 255/63 whilst the BIOS is using the 16/63 one.

Patching the bootsector:

http://www.911cd.net...ic=21702&st=129

http://reboot.pro/to...32-boot-sector/

http://reboot.pro/to...sector/?p=73205

 

Make an image with a chosen geometry:
http://reboot.pro/to...atch-001-alpha/

http://reboot.pro/to...-v0100-release/

 

About disk signature, *any* value represents a valid disk signature, with the EXCEPTION of 00000000 (which means NO disk signature).

See also (only seemingly unrelated):

http://reboot.pro/to...nsically-sound/

http://reboot.pro/to...sound/?p=177728

 

Wonko

[Rasqual]

Wonko, you're my savior!

I didn't have too much success with method #1 16/63, but method #3 nop'ing bytes in the bootsector (http://reboot.pro/to...tor/#entry72651) made it work like a charm!

 

Big thanks!!

[Nuvo]

The project homepage is down.  Is there a mirror available? 

[Wonko the Sane]

The project homepage is down.  Is there a mirror available? 

Use the Wayback Machine until links are fixed:

http://web.archive.o...ixp.reboot.pro/

 

Wonko

[Tarkin000]

This an excellent project, I'd like to thank everybody involved!

 

I have a couple of questions....

 

1) How does one shutdown? I naively tried expanding & copying shutdown.exe from my install source,

and tried executing it with -s and -s -f, it just hangs...

 

2) What are some of the methods used to trace what dll's a process needs to execute?

 

TIA,

  Tarkin000

[Wonko the Sane]

This an excellent project, I'd like to thank everybody involved!

 

I have a couple of questions....

 

1) How does one shutdown? I naively tried expanding & copying shutdown.exe from my install source,

and tried executing it with -s and -s -f, it just hangs...

 

2) What are some of the methods used to trace what dll's a process needs to execute?

 

TIA,

  Tarkin000

At the time one among other reasons why BBlean/BlackBox was used was exactly because *nothing* exception made for it seemed to work to shut down, see:

http://reboot.pro/to...ge-3#entry31659

 

It is entirely possible that since that post a new self-standing shutdown thingy came out, but at the time I was very thorough in searching for it and noone worked "out of th ebox".

 

Tracing an app is an art (as opposed to "exact science") the methods are only seemingly simple:

1. analyze the program with dependency walker, first statically and then by tracing it (in the MiniXP)
2. add the seemingly missing .dll's (please note how this often implies adding MORE .dll's then what is really-really needed)
3. check for the need of any of the missing .dll to be registered
4. try runnning the program
5. if it doesn't work, trace it in a "full environment" with dependency walker and check differences
6. add the seemingly miissing .dll's/other files
7. try runnning the program
8. if it doesn't work, trace it in a "full environment" with Filemon and Regmon
9. add anything that is seemingly needed 
10. try running the program
11. loop in the above steps until you get it to work
12. start removing files/dll's one at the time until it stops working, then re-add the last one removed
13. loop in above until you get the bare minimum needed for the program to work

it is not really difficult, but you will need a lot of patience.

 

This might be useful:

http://reboot.pro/to...10-mb/?p=154017

 

but more generally, review the whole thread:

http://reboot.pro/to...fs-below-10-mb/

as it contains a number of useful tips/tricks and some "previous art" that you may try to replicate to get the hang of it.

 

Wonko

[erwan.l]

Side note about Filemon and Regmon : they are outdated these days and you may want to use the more recent Process Monitor (from the same guys at Sysinternals) which does it all.

 

Find it here.

 

Cheers,

Erwan

[Wonko the Sane]

Side note about Filemon and Regmon : they are outdated these days and you may want to use the more recent Process Monitor (from the same guys at Sysinternals) which does it all.

Yep , curiously enough , I suggested intentionally to use the "old" Filemon and Regmon, EXACTLY because the more recent Procmon does it all (i.e. it provides a much more confusing output) and yes, I do know that procmon has a nice "filter button" allowing to show (or not show) "Registry activity" and "Filesystem activity", but when you trace programs for missing .dll's/files and missing Registry settings the process is interactive (you find a missing .dll and add it and re-run and the added .dll may need a Registry entry, etc. ) and it is IMHO easier to have the two separate apps instead of switching modes/view on the one window ...

 

...probably it is just me, however, for the record:

• New means new (and NOT necessarily better)
• Better means better (and NOT necessarily new).

 

Wonko

[Tarkin000]

Thanks for your input!

 

I found a way to programatically shutdown windows, it's trivial with mingw32.

I hope this might help others...

#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#define _WIN32_WINNT _WIN32_WINNT_WS03
#include <windows.h>

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
  LPSTR buff;
  if (!InitiateSystemShutdown(NULL,NULL,0,TRUE,FALSE)) {
    FormatMessage(
      FORMAT_MESSAGE_ALLOCATE_BUFFER | FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM | FORMAT_MESSAGE_IGNORE_INSERTS,
      NULL,
      GetLastError(),
      0,(LPSTR)&buff,
      0,NULL);
    MessageBox(NULL,buff,"Failed to initiate shutdown",MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR);
    LocalFree(buff);
  }
  return 0;
}

Compile & link with gcc -s -o shutdown.exe shutdown.c -ladvapi32, and copy it over to the image.

 

Now, I've had some strange business with both this little program, and bblean/blackbox,

not taking effect until I exit the cmd console from which I started.

So, for example, I do:

>cd C:\Apps\bblean

>blackbox

>exit

...and then after the exit, blackbox shows up.

 

I am using a supposedly oem source cd image, XP Pro SP3.

I cannot say how I came by the image...

 

Has anyone else observed this behavior?

 

In any event, my little program obviates the need for bblean/blackbox.

Aside from the issue of having to exit the console to spawn apps,

minixp is a lot of fun to tinker with.

 

TTFN,

  Tarkin

[Wonko the Sane]

Tarkin, if I get it right, that is a non-problem (the command prompt I mean).

 

The original XPCLI was like that by design (or by chance ), the "elected" shell was intentionally CMD.EXE, and it contained a batch:

 

@echo off
ECHO *******************************************************
ECHO ATTEMPTING TO START BlackBox:
ECHO You should see the CMD window top bar colours cycle
ECHO The cursor should become a hourglass on the desktop BUT
ECHO it will revert to arrow on the top right corner of the
ECHO CMD window.
ECHO Close the CMD windows by clicking on the X
ECHO Don't be afraid, CMD.EXE is the SHELL, it will restart,
ECHO this time with BLACKBOX in the background
ECHO ********************************************************
IF EXIST C:\WINDOWS\1strun.log GOTO :GO_BB
ECHO.
ECHO IMPORTANT!
ECHO.
ECHO Run in the new CMD window fileass.cmd
ECHO to associate .exe files, otherwise
ECHO blackbox menu entries invoking executable files
ECHO will NOT work!
ECHO.
ECHO.
PAUSE
:GO_BB
cd %SystemRoot%\APPS\BBLEAN
blackbox.exe

 

If you set the shell to bblean (or to another shell) you won't see the CMD.EXE untill you call it expicitly and then it will behave as a "normal" app.

Check the contents of:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon\Shell

 

Wonko

[Tarkin000]

I see, because cmd.exe is the shell, the first time it is executed on startup, programs spawned from it act 'weird'.

I can confirm that once the initial cmd.exe instance is exited, the one that starts up in its place (because the

system shell respawns) can run programs normally. The expanded shutdown.exe utility from the OEM disk

works.

 

And yes, it's not a problem, I love the command line, I was just confused about programs seeming to misbehave

when started from the initial cmd.exe.

 

Now, to get reading up on what's been done, and see if I can't get networking going...

 

TTFN,

  Tarkin

[friske]

Do it is possible to pack img file or convert to iso to pack to gz?