486 replies to this topic

[agni]

Hi Wimb

Looks like there is problem with vhd file.

How are you creating the vhd file?
Can you try installing XP to an img file and check if it is stable?

[Wonko the Sane]

so, is it by default that txtsetup.oem can only have say, one driver, which setupldr.bin will use by default?

Yes.
You can have only 1 (one) txtsetup.oem in the floppy device, but this single file can contain "install instructions" for more than one driver.
You have to think at txtsetup.oem as an "additional module" to txtsetup.sif.

BUT - as often happens - the good MS guys messed up with it allright , so some limitations apply:
http://support.micro...kb;en-us;885756

AND:
http://www.tim.id.au...6-driver-guide/

AND (OT, but for your interest):
http://www.msfn.org/...ith-usb-floppy/
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=22428


Wonko

[sara - pmedia]

I feel like i'm being spoon fed by asking for the ima file from Sara.

Just ask



I added a few links at the end of the guide...

[sambul61]

I read further down the thread concerning spoon-feeding, and gosh I feel like i'm being spoon fed by asking for the ima file from Sara.

We have to look at what any Tutorial is all about. A novice tutorial writer would usually spend tons of time studying the subject, then trying to accomplish the task (like running xp.vhd from USB), then explain it to others in a brief step-by-step Guide. To make it shorter, the explanations are often omitted, making it for a reader impossible to understand.

With experience a Tutorial writer would gradually learn that to be understood the material must be presented not only in sequential, but also LOGICAL for a reader manner. This presumes, that not only HOW, but also brief WHY & WHAT HAPPEN should be incorporated, thus making it a professional knowledge sharing document targeting less prepared audience than the writer.

It's simply more efficient way to learn. Otherwise any unskilled novice would be forced to sift through the tons of crap on many forums that usually accompany small grains of gold, and most aren't qualified to filter that gold. This task is for a teacher. The approach isn't new, the whole pro education is based on it. What's new for each novice writer - to look at it a professional way.

Now, a Tutorial can still be made short by presenting material artfully, as its done in pro documents like college books. Just by using various format and other features. But it won't suffer from appearing incomplete and illogical to a reader. Of course, skills "prerequisites" always apply in college courses, but on the forums its not structured that well, so "default" skill level is always presumed, unless other Tutorials (or good developer presentations) are referenced bringing a reader to required skills level.

[wimb]

Everyone have their preferred way to install EWF filters... For me I find that the following is extremely simple and does a perfect job:
http://www.saunalaht...ws_embedded.php

If you fancy GUIs instead of command line tools, you can also consider:
http://www.computa.c.../staff/dan/?p=5
or even:
http://www.thevod.or...lication=active but this one requires .NET3.5

Hope that helps !

Thanks a lot DooDoo

The first link seems very useful to me, since it has batch code and simple description
which will probably allow me to built-in EWF support in IMG_XP package.

[kingvi]

run this setup command

title start setup xp on img
map --mem /winvblock.ima (fd1)
map --mem (md)0x6000+800 (fd0)
map /xp.vhd (hd0)
map --mem /IMAGES/xpsp3.iso (0xff)
map --hook
dd if=(fd1) of=(fd0) count=1
chainloader (0xff)



title continue setup xp on img
map --mem /winvblock.ima (fd1)
map --mem (md)0x6000+800 (fd0)
map /xp.vhd (hd0)
map --mem /IMAGES/xpsp3.iso (0xff)
map --hook
dd if=(fd1) of=(fd0) count=1
root (hd0,0)
chainloader /ntldr

Where have I to run this code?

Steps are not so clear for me that I read only this post and I did not follow the others.

[wimb]

Looks like there is problem with vhd file.

How are you creating the vhd file?
Can you try installing XP to an img file and check if it is stable?

YES

That makes the difference, thanks a lot agni

What I did is mount with ImDisk a previously with IMG_XP_Create.exe made xp.img file of 1.6 GB
that I formatted then with NTFS and compression followed by ImDisk unmount.

This xp.img file was then used to install XP using the procedure given by Sara.
Everything went well and Install of Audio and Video driver by DriverForge worked now at T-9
Also on reboot I can Install other programs and everything is stable now.

It might have to do with the file which ends now on cylinder boundary, but that is not the case for xp.vhd file.
The troublesome xp.vhd file that I used was prepared in portable Windows 7 PE using Disk Management.
For vhd filetype an extra sector with info is appended.

Anyway this works for me.

[sambul61]

How are you creating the vhd file?

What's the right way for this app to create a blank vhd file?

[TheRookie]

Hi JackLaz,

Thanks much again, for the links you provided.
so my understanding now is:
txtsetup.oem may contain multiple driver entries, however one will be selected by default.
Purpose of containing other driver info is that when "x" selects another driver the information is in place as to how the driver will be installed.
And the drug for dos, really gave me a laugh as well!

And the link of the different ways to integrate the f6 drivers was really nice too.

@Sambul61, take it easy man. I just wondered where i might have messed up in the creation of the ima file.

@sara, thanks much for the ima file however, I am still having a problem where grub doesn't seem to be mounting the ima file, and so I can only get access to the local partition and not the vhd.

I'm starting to think that my problem either lies in:
a. the way in which I made the vhd file?
(using disk management in windows 7) VHD file is fixed, and is about 5 GB. The vhd file is on an internal hard drive.
B. Grub4dos itself.

But, i'm not sure...

Regards,

[LeMOGO]

We have to look at what any Tutorial is all about. A novice tutorial writer would usually spend tons of time studying the subject, then trying to accomplish the task (like running xp.vhd from USB), then explain it to others in a brief step-by-step Guide. To make it shorter, the explanations are often omitted, making it for a reader impossible to understand.

With experience a Tutorial writer would gradually learn that to be understood the material must be presented not only in sequential, but also LOGICAL for a reader manner. This presumes, that not only HOW, but also brief WHY & WHAT HAPPEN should be incorporated, thus making it a professional knowledge sharing document targeting less prepared audience than the writer.

It's simply more efficient way to learn. Otherwise any unskilled novice would be forced to sift through the tons of crap on many forums that usually accompany small grains of gold, and most aren't qualified to filter that gold. This task is for a teacher. The approach isn't new, the whole pro education is based on it. What's new for each novice writer - to look at it a professional way.

Now, a Tutorial can still be made short by presenting material artfully, as its done in pro documents like college books. Just by using various format and other features. But it won't suffer from appearing incomplete and illogical to a reader. Of course, skills "prerequisites" always apply in college courses, but on the forums its not structured that well, so "default" skill level is always presumed, unless other Tutorials (or good developer presentations) are referenced bringing a reader to required skills level.

sambul61, what are you saying? I am not sure I get your point (but don't misunderstand, I understand your frustration). Are you just "venting" your frustration, or making a request?

• If 1, then you did (hence got ignored)
• If 2, what exactly is is the source of your frustration, and what change are you asking for in this post?

You seem to know about tutorial writing, why not jump in and help put it together so the rest of us can follow along?

Edited by LeMOGO, 03 February 2011 - 04:08 PM.

[sambul61]

LeMOGO

I'm not frustrated at all. The post you quoted was a "comment on comment" about one of the methods used here, where its author on another forum explained the details eventually but a bit late. Sara did excellent job, and actually gradually incorporated some explanations in her Tutorial, and some in post comments. It does require skills and time to make something look like a professional work. Important is, she accomplished interesting goal and shared it with others the best she can.

There are more complex concepts she used in step 3, 4 and other that require extra study from a reader. Representing a 3-d party method in a 1-sentence summary is a challenge mastered only by practice. Each of these methods in turn requires extra knowledge, and she used many, showing impressive skills. A list of methods used with some links would help.

See, all comments in this thread are left, because ppl like the idea and appreciate the effort. Everyone wanted to help, not express frustration. This is a cumulative method, a result of many ppl work. I look through it thinking how skilled one must be to run around traps left my MS. Now, about jumping in, each author wants to preserve the form of their presentation that reflects their personality. We can only suggest, unless its an open Wiki style article.

[agni]

@Wimb
I am glad that you were able to install XP to disk image.

I observed that if you create a vhd file and format it using the Windows 7 or 7PE Disk Management,a 8mb unallocated space is created.

This 8mb unallocated space is also created if you format the disk(either vhd or img) from XP Setup(During the text mode installation).
Such img or vhd files with 8mb unallocated space may be the problem.
In one of my tests,imdisk was not able to mount an img file formatted from XP Setup.

I have not tested much,but maybe somebody here can do some tests using pre-formatted disks and disks formatted from XP Setup or Win7 Disk Management.

@Sara - pmedia
How did you format your vhd files?Did you format it during XP Setup?

[sambul61]

Where have I to run this code?

Steps are not so clear for me that I read only this post and I did not follow the others.

The author seems to suggest to create an empty vhd file on a local HD (possibly after booting to Win7 PE image or by other means), then copy other mentioned images to that HD. Its presumed, you also installed Grub4DOS to that HD, so your system images can boot from it. Now you have environment suitable to format and install WinXP to that empty vhd image, and further manipulate the vhd.

Regarding G4D menu, she gave some extra info in this post, but it still require some knowledge to understand. That's why I was suggesting to give some links at each step of the Tutorial. You may look at Diddy's Grub4DOS Guide for this step. Once you finished manipulating the vhd as described, you can copy it to a USB drive. Before doing that, make sure that USB drive is also properly "prepared" (partitioned and formatted) depending on its type to boot on many PCs, and has G4D installed. That info is available on this forum.

[pajenn]

sorry, deleting double post

Edited by pajenn, 03 February 2011 - 05:05 PM.

[pajenn]

i'm running the xp.vhd setup right now on a VMware virtual machine (for testing and to use Windows 7 for VHD creation). initially i had trouble with the setup part, step 3, so if anyone else is stuck on that, here's what worked for me:

1. I had to decrypt my drive, otherwise the VHD was detected, but not accessible. (I'm using DiskCryptor for full system encryption with pre-boot authentication. The same would probably also be true with TrueCrypt). However, I think it might be possible to run the initial setup off a(n unencypted) flash disk by copying all the files to it instead of C: and using the right g4d commands (maybe just "find --set-root /winvblock.IMA" before the map commands or maybe also "map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)" (as two separate lines before the find command).

2. My first install failed because I was using a 900 MB vhd, which was too small. Setup informed me that the target partition had to be at least 1201 MB. (This was with a very streamlined 250 MB windows xp pro/sp3 setup iso).

3. I also received error messages such as 'Setup cannot copy the file: wvblk32.sys' for the winvblock files until I changed the original menu.lst setup commands to the following:



for the 'start setup' portion, i had to following that menu choice up by pressing enter to 'boot from cd' (i.e. xpsp3.iso), otherwise I got a blue screen error.

Hope this helps someone. I'm off to configure my booted xp.vhd now... Thanks for the tutorial.

[sambul61]

pajenn

By what means did you create, and when partition & format the vhd? I guess for VMWare its done as "Add disk" option when creating a new VM? And then you formatted it when running WinXP setup? Also, VMWare has its own means to mount images - did you use them instead of Grub4DOS?

[01e6e10]

Hello to all!

Could anyone help on understanding of that steps?

From what I understand for now:

1. Create of XP.vhd with size of 1024MB. Possible with diskpart or VPC.
2. Prepare XPSP3.ISO with nLite to remove free space requirement and reduce unneeded components. + Integration of
DriverPacks (I added only MassStorage+Chipsets, cause XPSP3 had AMD Proccessor inside).
3. Create/Download winvblock.ima.
4. Create menu.lst with "Setup XP" commands.
5. Copy all to G4D usb.
6. Boot from that USB. -> Here I get an error of too big size of ISO to mount.

I used original XP SP3 VLK iso and removed only Docs and stuff from root and removed free space and memory requirements + Integration of DriverPacks.

I'll appresiate any help.
Thank in advance to all.

Edited by 01e6e10, 03 February 2011 - 05:53 PM.

[pajenn]

here's what I meant to post before:

i'm running the xp.vhd setup right now on a VMware virtual machine (for testing and to use Windows 7 for VHD creation). initially i had trouble with the setup part, step 3, so if anyone else is stuck on that, here's what worked for me:

0. I'm using Windows XP, but I have Windows 7 installed on a cirtual machine, so I used the native windows 7 vhd support (accessible from disk management) to create a VHD. (from win7 disk management, I also 'initiatialized' and 'attached' the VHD, set it up as a 'simple volume' and formatted it (ntfs) - i guess you don't need to do that, but i was trying different things because the setup wasn't working initially and i didn't know why).

1. I had to decrypt my drive, otherwise the VHD was detected, but not accessible. (I'm using DiskCryptor for full system encryption with pre-boot authentication. The same would probably apply to TrueCrypt encrypted systems). However, I think it might be possible to run the initial setup off a(n unencypted) flash disk by copying all the files to it instead of C: and using the right g4d commands (maybe just "find --set-root /winvblock.IMA" before the map commands or maybe also "map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)" (as two separate lines before the find command).

2. My first install failed because I was using a 900 MB vhd, which was too small. Setup informed me that the target partition had to be at least 1201 MB. (This was with a very streamlined 250 MB windows xp pro/sp3 setup iso). The disk initial disk might have to be even a bit larger because after formatting you lose a few MBs. I now chose 1300 MB for the vhd size when creating it.

3. I also received error messages such as 'Setup cannot copy the file: wvblk32.sys' for the winvblock files until I changed the original menu.lst setup entries to the following:

title start setup xp on img (press enter afterward to choose boot from 'cd')
map --mem /winvblock.IMA (fd0)
map /xp.vhd (hd0)
map --mem /IMAGES/xpsp3.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)

title continue setup xp on img
map --mem /winvblock.IMA (fd0)
map /xp.vhd (hd0)
map --mem /IMAGES/xpsp3.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (hd0,0)
chainloader /ntldr

for the 'start setup' portion, i had to following that menu choice up by pressing enter to 'boot from cd' (i.e. xpsp3.iso), otherwise I got a blue screen error.

also, to be clear, xp.vhd, winblock.ima and menu.lst files were in C:\ and xpsp3.iso was in c:\IMAGES folder. I had already set up grub4dos long time using this non-standard method from another forum: http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=18031 (i.e. by replacing the bootloader (e.g. ntldr), with grub4dos bootloader, but of course making grub's default menu.lst entry point to the original, renamed ntldr (e.g. ntldrxp)).

Hope this helps someone. I'm off to configure my booted xp.vhd now... Thanks for the tutorial.

Edited by pajenn, 03 February 2011 - 06:50 PM.

[sambul61]

Thanks pajenn! I was unsure about 0. step.

[noryb009]

Thank you for this guide, but when I boot from the ISO, it comes up with a Stop 0x0000000A error (after it loads all the drivers and says "Starting windows...")

When following the guide, I skipped #2. How do I integrate the drivers? (nLite, I think), but where do I get the drivers?

Any help is appreciated!

[pajenn]

Thank you for this guide, but when I boot from the ISO, it comes up with a Stop 0x0000000A error (after it loads all the drivers and says "Starting windows...")

When following the guide, I skipped #2. How do I integrate the drivers? (nLite, I think), but where do I get the drivers?

Any help is appreciated!

I use Smart Driver Backup to backup all drivers from the computers I use. Then I put the driver backups (folders) for network drivers, storage drivers, and other drivers I think I need to add to my custom xp into one parent folder for nLite to grab. You can of course download all sorts of driver packs from the web too, but I prefer to only add what I need.

[pktman]

Hello to all!


I have an issue that I can not solve.

After step 4, I get xp to install without problems but I can not go from step 5.

When I connect the USB disk or change the windows xp and after reboot, I have bluescreen

The error is:
PFN_CORRUPT_LIST
STOP 0x0000004E
Winvblock: Alive

I used an xp with integrated drivers with nlite. I have also used an original XP without driver integrating with the same result.

Any suggestions?

Thanks for the great work

[wimb]

@Sara

Can you describe in detail how you prepared and initialized your xp.vhd file ?

Until now I can install XP direct into xp.img file created with IMG_XP_Create.exe
but fail for the case of xp.vhd file.
I would like to repeat what you did exactly.

Thanks for your help.

[sara - pmedia]

@Sara

Can you describe in detail how you prepared and initialized your xp.vhd file ?

Until now I can install XP direct into xp.img file created with IMG_XP_Create.exe
but fail for the case of xp.vhd file.
I would like to repeat what you did exactly.

Thanks for your help.

I did this several times in several different ways Both works

for my small xp.vhd
* I created 1gb fixed vhd with virtualpc
* i start xp setup on virtualpc only for making the nt5 mbr partition, and brack when setup "start copying files"
* i reboot and continu with grub4dos+winvblock setup...

for my big xp.vhd
* i use acronis ti for convert my .tib to .vhd
* i use vhd_resizer to convert from dinamic to fixed vhd
* i run my vhd on virtualpc , install winvblock & usb.. service.bat
* continu from there...

[TheRookie]

Hi Sara,


I know I've started my posts in this thread with problems however, I am progressing thus far:
1. Managed to install xp to the vhd as well as my drivers.
now just need to run the necessary stuff to get it to boot via USB.

Thanks alot for the tutorial.

"cheers"