14 replies to this topic

[ickleric]

I am having the same problem. I have made a USB boot stick, i have made a menu with 2 choices.

1) to load BartPE
2) to load DOS

Here is what my menu.lst file looks like:

color white/blue

default 0

timeout 999



title BartPE

find --set-root /grldr

chainloader /minint/setupldr.bin



title DOS

find --set-root /grldr

chainloader /IO.sys

Booting into BartPE works fine. But when i try DOS i get the message about looking for a command interpreter. In the root of the pen drive is IO.sys, MSDOS.sys, command.com.

Any ideas??

[ickleric]

I have made a USB pen drive with gnub4dos a boot menu. When i try and memdisk a image an image it either says i/o insert disk, or sits there saying starting.... (but does nothing )

Any ideas? Also having problem trying to load DOS (mentioned in another post). Any ideas?

[was_jaclaz]

Any ideas?

Yep, lots of 'em!

The fact that you have two different features of grub4dos not working, including the very basic one (in the other thread) of chainloading IO.SYS, appears to me like something is wrong in your overall setup, but cannot say what unless you post some details, including the type and nature of the disk images and your current menu.lst entries, and the version of grub4dos.

I am moving the post in the other thread here, so that we bon't need to hump forth and back.

Try changing from:

title DOS

find --set-root /grldr

chainloader /IO.sys

to:

title DOS

find --set-root /COMMAND.COM

chainloader /IO.SYS

In other words, check that you do not have a ROOT directory that has IO.SYS but not COMMAND.COM, double check CaSe oF NaMeS.


jaclaz

[ickleric]

I tried changing my menu.lst but i still get the message:

type name of command interpreter. I have tried a couple of versions of DOS files but still doesn't work. The COMMAND.COM and IO.SYS are in the root of my usb pen drive. Here is my menu.lst

[codebox]color white/blue blue/white default 0 timeout 999 splashimage /black.xpm.gz title Disk Image find --set-root /grldr kernel /memdisk/memdisk initrd /WIN98SE.ima title BartPE find --set-root /grldr chainloader /minint/setupldr.bin title DOS find --set-root /COMMAND.COM chainloader /IO.SYS [/codebox] I found a post on another forum which other people had problems loading image files, the cure only seemed to be to use an older version. So i downloaded an older version and i can now load image files. The only problem i have is i created an image file of the netbootdisk (www.netbootdisk.com), and when i try and load that image from grub it gets stuck at STARTING...... Anyone managed to get the netbootdisk to load from grub. I think its strugles cos it has to load stuff into the RAM.

Any ideas?

[was_jaclaz]

Well, asking for more details means that I actually need more details in order to try and help you.

"An older" version does not mean much, you need to state the exact version that it is not working and the exact version that it is.

The more accurate you are the greater are the chances that someone will be able to help you, read point #d of "Common sense advice" within Rules:
http://www.boot-land...?act=boardrules
and while you are there read point #f too

How are you running grub4dos?
Installed in MBR+hidden sectors, chainloaded from BOOT.INI or grub.exe from DOS?

Which filesystem does the USB stick use?
FAT16 is OK with all kinds of DOS
FAT32 is OK ONLY for DOS 7.x (post Windows 95 first release) and for some other "flavours" of DOS that are however not officially supported by grub4dos
NTFS is a NO-NO

Which size is it?

Which size has the first active primary partition on it?

How (I mean with which app/method) did you fdisk/format/sys the USB stick?

Which geometry does it has?

(What you report may hint that there is some wrong data in either the MBR or bootsector or in the order in which the files have been written to the stick - expecially for DOS 6.22 and earlier)
For DOS 6.22 IO.SYS MUST be the first file on partition.
For ALL DOS versions, system files must be near the beginning of the partition, if you first copied bartpe files and only later the DOS ones, re-format the stick and do the other way round, copy to the stick in THIS order:
DOS files
grub4dos files
files for bartPE that go in ROOT of drive, like NTLDR/SETUPLDR.BIN, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI
all the other BartPE files (the ones that go in \I386 or \minint)

Can you use hdhacker:
http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/
to create a copy of noth MBR and bootsector?
(zip them together and attach the .zip file to a new post, I'll have a look at them)

Do you have a file "COMMAND.COM" in the root of another accessible at boot volume?

Can you try to use instead of the "find --set-root" an hardcoded path, like (hd0,0)?

Try using grub4dos interactively from command line, see these posts for some examples:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=20314
http://www.boot-land...p?showtopic=715

jaclaz

[ickleric]

Thanks for the reply.

The version i originally tried to use is grub4dos-0.4.3 (most recent). The one i downloaded which works loading images is grub4dos-0.4.3 (2007-03-10).

I formated the usb pen drive as FAT16 using the HP usb utility
The size of the drive is 1GB with only 1 partition.

ran mkbt -x pe2usb.bin e:

I then copied the grldr to the root
I then copied the boot.ini to the root
I then copied the menu.lst to the root
I then copied the ntloader to the root
I then copied the ntldr to the root
I then copied the command.com to the root
I then copied the IO.SYS to the root
I then copied the memdisk folder to /memdisk
I then copied the BartPE main folder to /minint
I then copied the BartPE programs to /programs

I then modified the boot.ini to this:

[boot loader]

timeout=10

default=C:\grldr

[operating systems]

C:\grldr="Grub4Dos

I then modified the menu.lst to this:

color whiteblue

default 0

timeout 999



title Disk Image

find --set-root /grldr

kernel /memdisk/memdisk

initrd /WIN98SE.ima



title BartPE

find --set-root grldr

chainloader minint/setupldr.bin



title DOS

find --set-root grldr

chainloader IO.sys

I have uploaded the hdhacker files.

I also tried formatting it again and starting from stratch, but had same problem

Attached Files

•  hdhacker.zip   1.17KB   517 downloads

[was_jaclaz]

Some points:
The stick is formatted as 0E partition, this won't work with DOS 6.22.
The partition size uses fractional end cilynders, this is not recommended for any DOS.
You seem to have missed copying MSDOS.SYS to root of the stick (maybe simply forgot it when posting)

Try the following:
1) Use the HP utility to format the stick using DOS files
2) Try booting from it (in DOS)
3) Add to it bootpart:
http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
NTLDR
NTDETECT.COM
BOOT.INI
4) boot from the stick (in DOS) and use bootpart to create a DOS bootsector, first thing run

BOOTPART

without parameters, make sure that in the output your stick has a * near it, something like this:

0 : C:* type=6 (BIGDOS Fat16), size = 1044193 KB

now, depending on the version of DOS you are using, do either of these:

BOOTPART DOS622 C:\BOOTSECT.622 "MS-DOS 6.22"

or

BOOTPART Win95 C:\BOOTSECT.W95 "Win95 DOS"

or

BOOTPART Win98 C:\BOOTSECT.W98 "Win98 DOS"

and finally run:

BOOTPART WinXP C:\BOOTSECT.XP

and

BOOTPART WinXP BOOT:C:

5) reboot, you should see the BOOT.INI choices and be able to boot DOS from it
6) reboot normally and copy to the stick:
grldr
menu.lst
SETUPLDR.BIN
the /memdisk folder and it's contents
the /minint folder and it's contents
the /programs folder and it's contents
the WIN98SE.ima file
7) edit BOOT.INI to add the C:\grldr="Grub4Dos" entry if it wasn't already there
8) DOUBLE CHECK case of filenames, CaSe DoEs MaTtEr.
9 see if everything works, then delete unneeded bootsectors and BOOT.INI entries and bootpart

jaclaz

[ickleric]

Right, i have just followed the steps as above.

I chose the DOS 6.22. Do you put the DOS files in the root? (i have) but when i choose DOS 6.22 from boot.ini menu it justs loads a blank screen and nothing happens. Where is it trying to load it files from??

Also i tried to load DOS from the grub menu and that says 'Invalid or unsupported executable format'

Thanks in for your help so far, its really appreciated.

[was_jaclaz]

Where is it trying to load it files from??

The NTLDR can boot TWO kinds of "things":
1) an "ARCPATH" pointing to a valid NT/2K/XP/2003 install
2) a bootsector

BOOTPART simply creates a bootsector using the "loading" code of the various Operating Systems and the "address and geometry" data from current (booted from) bootsector.

For DOS 6.22, as said, IO.SYS must be the FIRST file on partition, followed by MSDOS.SYS, and partition type MUST be 06 (BIGDOS).

About DOS files you DO NOT "put them in the ROOT", you let the HP utility do that for you (or the SYS command).

If anything has changed on the position of the file, or if you changed somehow the partition type, DOS 6.22 will not boot anymore.

You DID NOT run :

mkbt -x pe2usb.bin e:

after or during the procedure I outlined, did you?

For DOS 6.22, you need to use BOOTPART (booted from a floppy image) like this:

BOOTPART REWRITEROOT:C:

(see bootpart's readme.txt for explanation)

Try again with DOS 7.1 files (you have them in your Win98.ima), extract them to a directory and "feed" them to the HP USB utility when formatting the stick, they should have no problems with a "0E" partition.

In some cases, it might be needed to completely "wipe" the first, say, 100 sectors of the stick, before using the HP USB utility (and then disconnect and re-connect the stick, before using it).

You can use a disk editor to "0 fill" the first 100 sectors on stick, or use this procedure, using tools from the DSFOK toolkit:
http://members.ozema...eezip/freeware/

fsz 51200 J:\0file100sectors.dat

(this will create a file 51200 bytes in length filles with digital "00"s on drive J: - a partition on your Hard Disk).

dsfi \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2 0 0 J:\0file100sectors.dat

PHYSICALDRIVEs are numbered from 0, so if you have just one Hard disk, it will be PHYSICALDRIVE0, and the stick will be PHYSICALDRIVE1
if you have 2 hard disks, they will be PHYSICALDRIVE0 and PHYSICALDRIVE1
and the stick will be PHYSICALDRIVE2

Be VERY careful, you could WIPE another drive by mistake!



jaclaz

[ickleric]

when i run bootpart it, this is what mine looks like after formating with HP utility and pointing it to dos files:

Physical number of disk 0 : 23ff4149
0 : C:* type=e (Win95 XInt 13), size= 1018592 KB, Lba Pos 63

Is this an issue???

[ickleric]

Right i tried doing what you said and used Win98se as feed files.

It now works loading DOS from the GRUB4dos menu. Still doesn't work from the boot.ini menu. But at least it works.

Thanks for all your help. Now what i was hoping to do it load the network boot disk (from www.netbootdisk.com) once i had DOS loaded. I have copied the files across including the autoexec.bat and config.sys. But it fails straight away. Anyone managed to get this working this way???

[was_jaclaz]

when i run bootpart it, this is what mine looks like after formating with HP utility and pointing it to dos files:

Physical number of disk 0 : 23ff4149
0 : C:* type=e (Win95 XInt 13), size= 1018592 KB, Lba Pos 63

Is this an issue???

Yes, it is, the "type=e (Win95 Xint 13)" translates to "0E" or LBA FAT 16 filesystem, making use of eXtended int 13.

Such a filesystem will not be accessible/bootable with/from DOS 6.22, as it was developed AFTER the release of the Operating System, the first "DOS" able to use that kind of partition is DOS 7.10, the one that came with windows 95 OSR 2.0.

Do read FAQ's here:
http://home.graffiti...SB/USBfaqs.html
and this:
http://www.win.tue.n...on_types-1.html


As said, try using Windows 98 DOS files, you should have no problems with them, but you might also need to use the LBA switch of BOOTPART:

BOOTPART Win98 LBA C:\BOOTSECT.W98 "Win98 DOS"

jaclaz

[was_jaclaz]

@ickleric

Sorry, cross-posting....

Now what i was hoping to do it load the network boot disk (from www.netbootdisk.com) once i had DOS loaded.

You mean you BUILT a network boot floppy from the downloaded files?

Read this:
http://www.netbootdi...errytencaat.doc

jaclaz

[ickleric]

I managed to get the netbootdisk working in the end. For some reason i had to swap the IO.SYS file for another version ass when it loaded the boot disk menu it kept freezing the screen (strange). Also had to add the himem.sys file to the root and edit the config.sys and remove the REM for loading the himem.sys.

So i have now got my USB Pen drive with grub4dos boot menu so i can either load WinPE or Netbootdisk. (just as i wanted)

Thanks for all your help.

[was_jaclaz]

I managed to get the netbootdisk working in the end. For some reason i had to swap the IO.SYS file for another version ass when it loaded the boot disk menu it kept freezing the screen (strange). Also had to add the himem.sys file to the root and edit the config.sys and remove the REM for loading the himem.sys.

So i have now got my USB Pen drive with grub4dos boot menu so i can either load WinPE or Netbootdisk. (just as i wanted)

Thanks for all your help.

Happy everything went well.

Maybe, just maybe, you could try using the Dos 8.0 (Windows ME) that "calls internally" HIMEM.SYS:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=16745
http://www.911cd.net...o...16745&st=13

jaclaz