8 replies to this topic

[Rootman]

I've been messing around with booting to disk based imaged using firadisk and Winvblock via a grub boot. I've gotten memdisk version to work and understand the 3GB limit to them beacuse f 32 bit memory constraints. What I can't get to work is a NON memdisk (that is no grub4Dos --mem setting) disk hosted image greater than 4GB.

Is this possible? Whenever I try to boot an an image above 4GB i get an error stating the disk image can't be mounted like so:

Booting Hard Drive Image

NTFS MPB found with 0xEB (jmp) leading boot sector.

Warning: MPB total_sectors(73738286) is greater than the number of sectors in the whole disk image (6629416).  The int13 handler will disable the read/write operations across the image boundary. That means you will not be able to read/write sectors (in absolute address, i.e., lba) 6629416 - 73738285, though they are logically inside your filesystem.



Probed C/H/S = 4590/255/63. probed total sector = 73738286

root (hd0,0)



Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition.

I want to create a good size image to boot to, say 20 GB. I want to multiboot 2 or more versions of the same OS from the same disk without re-paritioning. Is this possible?

BTW: I am unable to get an image to boot using Firadisk, whenever it boots I get a BSOD even though Firadisk 0.0.1.24 is installed in the image. It seems to boot fine when Winvblock is installed. Anyone else have these issues?

[Wonko the Sane]

There are two different problems.
I will ONLY address the first (grub4dos problem).
Your image has a "wrong" size.
If you have a MBR holding a partition with:
4590*255*63=73,738,350 sectors, your image size needs to be EXACTLY:
73,738,350*512=37,754,035,200 bytes

Since your image is 6,629,416 sectors it is probably a "sparse" image.

HOW (with which program, with which commands) did you create the image?
and
HOW (with which program, with which commands) did you partition it/formatted it?


Wonko

[Rootman]

In one instance I used BOOT_IMG.EXE and another I used Clonedisk. I though that might be the issue - the exact disk size.

With BOOT_IMG.EXE I just specified a 7GB image, with Clonedisk it copied the entire VMWare boot disk I was messing with at the time.

I seem to recall someone mentioning a spreadsheet someone had laying out the exact disk sizes for images in order for them to boot, but I can't seem to find it. Either that or a quick tutorial or utility to tell me would be nice.

Thanks for the response.

[Wonko the Sane]

A more complex one:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=3191
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=5000

and an easier one:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9033

In MBRBatch the provided size needs to be already the right multiple, hddimage rounds it to the right cylinder for a single partition.
Use FSZ and NOT mksparse.

Spreadsheet(s) (maybe) here:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=2959


Wonko

[Rootman]

Well I had to order a larger hard drive to try this further and still have no luck with this.

I manage to create img files with 3 different methods.

mkimg.cmd out of the MBRBatch utilities. It seems to create correctly sized images but GRUB4DOS always complains about the file not being contiguous - even though it's a 20GB file on a 100GB NTFS partition and both contig and wincontig say it IS contiguous. I created it telling it to use /fsz, it creates, mounts and formats and then when booted I get an ERROR 60 from Grub4dos. I defraged the entire drive and checked the file with contig again, still no go.

CreateRawImg - Seems to not create images that are the right size even though the END AT CYLINDER BOUNDARY is chosen.

hddimage06 - Does the same as CreateRawImg.

I tried smallish images of MBs and a few GBs and they seem to be OK with all 3 creation tools.

Anyone have any ideas?

[TheK]

I had similar problems with older versions of grub4dos. Please try chenall's or tinybit's latest version.

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/

CreateRawImg - Seems to not create images that are the right size even though the END AT CYLINDER BOUNDARY is chosen.

Can you please tell me what was wrong with the size? If there's something wrong I can fix it.

[Rootman]

I had similar problems with older versions of grub4dos. Please try chenall's or tinybit's latest version.

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/

Can you please tell me what was wrong with the size? If there's something wrong I can fix it.

When I boot from Grub4DOS to an large image (16GB to 20GB sizes tested) created by CreateRawImg or hddimage06 it simply gives me the size error and it won't mount. LIKE the following but with whatever size the image is. I've tried smaller image sizes and they load OK but are of course too small. Seems like I can't get above like 6GB or so and I start experiencing the problems with the warning. I've tried DOZENS of combinations of size and it seems that real large images just won't work with anything but mkimg.cmd - and then AI run into the "false" contiguity error.

Booting Hard Drive Image

NTFS MPB found with 0xEB (jmp) leading boot sector.

Warning: MPB total_sectors(73738286) is greater than the number of sectors in the whole disk image (6629416).  The int13 handler will disable the read/write operations across the image boundary. That means you will not be able to read/write sectors (in absolute address, i.e., lba) 6629416 - 73738285, though they are logically inside your filesystem.



Probed C/H/S = 4590/255/63. probed total sector = 73738286

root (hd0,0)



Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition.

I'll give the latest G4D a try.

One thought I had last night; this is a brand new HYBRID SATA drive with 4GB of "smart" memory and 500GB of actual hard disk. I wonder if the image could some how be seen by GRUB4DOS as non-contiguous because of this?

[Wonko the Sane]

Rootman,
none of my business, mind you, but out of curiosity is it just for the sake of experimenting or is there an usage for such a big image?

Rather than "mixing" everything, why don't you post a single definite report of what you did with mkimg.cmd?

If you post some DATA, maybe it is possible to find the problem (again the one about the creating of the image and grub4dos).

In other words right now we don't know if:

• there is a problem in the actual image (yes, from what you posted there is)
• there is a problem with grub4dosby itself or in combination with the above
• there is a problem with firadisk or winvblock by themselves or in combination with the above
• there is a problem with your particular hardware by itself or in combination with the above

If we could eliminate the first two, we may get nearer to having it working.


Wonko

[Rootman]

Trying to boot to an image file with my Windows XP OS on it. I've got it to work with smaller images created with IMG_XP by installing Firadisk and WinVBlock on the running OS. However I would like about a 20GB image to allow me to install other software and have a more or less "normal" OS parititon.

I'll try creating another image tonight and listing exactly what it does.

I am first and foremost just interested in the ability to boot a "real" OS from an image file. I would also like to boot multiple versions of XP, and perhaps Win 7 from the same hard drive without messing with partitioning it and worrying about OS's wiping each other out.

I've also been keeping watch for VBoot ( http://www.vmlite.co.../products/vboot ) which is promising a beta this month. It does the same thing but can also use the same VHD as a virtual machine under a master OS.