52 replies to this topic

[pscEx]

Sorry, Wonko already explained my misunderstood issue.

Peter

[Holmes.Sherlock]

@Homes.Sherlock

#2
We are exiting the "normal" "please help me with this" approach and entering the "I know you are clairvoyant, I am doing a number of different things which I am reporting casually and partially and you can guess allright what I am doing".
Last time you were using VirtualBox, now you are using VMware and "real hardware".
HOW the heck are we supposed to read your mind and know what you are up to?

Unless I told u. how did u know that I've tried it out on Oracle VM VirtualBox, VMware & real hardware?

LAST attempt:

Don't say so, please

I have asked you three questions, would you be so kind to answer them?
Here they are numbered, so that you can reply to them with a reference.

• WHERE have you read that you need to delete MOUNTEDDEVICE key? *
• WHO wrote that?
• WHY would someone put such a step in a tutorial if it was NOT needed?

• http://www.boot-land...?...c=9154&st=7 (Post #8)
• diddy
• it's surely needed & I've already done that

As I see it there are two possibilities:
1. you are trying to replicate an existing tutorial/guide/whatever
2. you are inventing your own way to make a WinVblock based booting

It's a mixture of both of them in the sense that though the tutorial I've mentioned is written for Firadisk, I'm trying to get the basic concepts of creating an image, installing the driver in the image etc. from there & extend them to WinVBlock.

Regarding disk signature:



So, the partition is both primary & active

[Wonko the Sane]

It's a mixture of both of them in the sense that though the tutorial I've mentioned is written for Firadisk, I'm trying to get the basic concepts of creating an image, installing the driver in the image etc. from there & extend them to WinVBlock.

That's exactly your problem, as expected.

Think a bit about the following statements:

• diddy is always very accurate and exact in his posts/tutorials
• more generally, I have rarely seen someone failing in replicating EXACTLY what a tutorial says
• on the other hand I have seen approximately 99.99% of newbies attempting to introduce variations to them and fail

From this experience I ALWAYS recommend:

• NEVER introduce ANY variation, not even minimal, not even seemingly irrelevant to the steps a tutorial or guide (EXPECIALLY if written by a reputable member like diddy is )
• FIRST replicate the steps in a tutorial EXACTLY as they are
• You are welcome, if you fail while replicating EXACTLY the suggested steps to ask for help in understanding each step
• ONCE you have success following EXACTLY the suggested steps, WITHOUT ANY change to them, and ONLY THEN, you may try introducing variations.
• Such variations should be introduced ONE, AND ONE ONLY, AT THE TIME

You might understand how by proceeding with this method, it is much easier to find WHICH change creates the problem.

You may want to compare the above with the "common sense advice", point #f3.
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9101

Now, be nice , FORGET (temporarily) the attempt you made and try replicating that tutorial by diddy EXACTLY as is.
ONCE you have a working with Firadisk image, we'll tackle WinVblock use.

Regarding disk signature:



So, the partition is both primary & active

Which means that you have either completely failed to read the given links or you are completely failing to understand them .

Q:What the HECK has to do the Status of a partition with Disk Signature?
A:Nothing they are two completely unrelated things.

BTW, that partition entry is NON-STANDARD as it sports:

• fractional end Cylinder/head
• fractional end sector

This is likely to give problems, before or later.

Use this and ONLY this with the /R option if you really want to create a disk image yourself:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9033
(but DON'T for the moment, use one of the ones diddy prepared)


Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

Now, be nice , FORGET (temporarily) the attempt you made and try replicating that tutorial by diddy EXACTLY as is.
ONCE you have a working with Firadisk image, we'll tackle WinVblock use.

Thanks Wonko again for ur valuable suggestion. Then, I'll first try out Firadisk as u've told.

Which means that you have either completely failed to read the given links or you are completely failing to understand them .

Q:What the HECK has to do the Status of a partition with Disk Signature?
A:Nothing they are two completely unrelated things.

I assure u that I'll re-read the threads & try to make out myself.

BTW, that partition entry is NON-STANDARD as it sports:

• fractional end Cylinder/head
• fractional end sector

This is likely to give problems, before or later.

Above is not clear to me at this stage. Is the answer there in the threads that u've already referred to?

[Wonko the Sane]

Above is not clear to me at this stage. Is the answer there in the threads that u've already referred to?

NOT really , but it's something that you should know if you are going to fiddle with MBRbatch/mkimg, hard disk and volume images, and more generally troubleshooting booting issues.

The history of CHS and LBA and the conventions once used are part of the "basic knowledge" to understand most of the problems when booting.
(as an example you wouldn't have attempted creating a hard disk image with IMDISK if you had this knowledge )

Ideally you should get familiar with the history of HD size barriers:
http://www.pcguide.c...d/bios/size.htm
(AND ALL the pages linked to on the left)

Once you have the basic historical notions, you should be able to tackle some more complex/difficult pages, like the Starman's Realm:
http://thestarman.pc.../mbr/index.html
(that you have to read anyway)

Maybe you could start from here:
http://www.pcguide.c...f/hdd/index.htm

and go back and forth beetween the pcguide and the Starman's pages.

Then, for experimenting, read this:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=2959

And play a bit with the spreadsheets attached (MUCH safer than on real hard disks/MBR's )

Mind, you it's a lot of info , and most of it is not actually "easy", so take your time.

If you want a quick reply, to be surely working a partition must begin and end on a Cylinder boundary.
This means that if the device (like normally with recent devices and non-Lenovo BIOSes) is seen as nx255x63
First partition should start on CHS 0/1/1 (yours does ) but ends on m/254/63 (yours end on 31/221/62 )
(by definition in CHS addresses Cylinders are counted from 0, Heads are counted from 0, Sectors are counted from 1 - to simplify things in LBA Sectors are counted from 0)

The nearest "right" sizes should be:
0/1/1-30/254/63-63/497952
and
0/1/1-31/254/63-63/514017


Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

BTW, that partition entry is NON-STANDARD as it sports:

• fractional end Cylinder/head
• fractional end sector

This is likely to give problems, before or later.

Use this and ONLY this with the /R option if you really want to create a disk image yourself:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9033
(but DON'T for the moment, use one of the ones diddy prepared)

I did the following

hddimage.cmd G:\BootLand\HDDImage.img 250M /R

The output was

Creating an MBR from "G:\BootLand\hddimage05\dmadmin.exe" with dsfo.exe

OK, 512 bytes, 0.000s, MD5 = 61a174a7d3cbe41d9996de0f124b7ebf



Created hard-disk image G:\BootLand\Test.img (Size=526417920, Sectors=1028160, C

ylinders=64)

The I tried to mount it with VDK this way as instructed in hddimage guide

vdk.exe install

vdk start

vdk disk 1

vdk stop

vdk start (To take the change effect,  restart was needed)

vdk open * G:\BootLand\HDDImage.pln /RW

All but the last command threw an error

Virtual Disk Driver for Windows version 3.1
http://chitchat.at.i...k.co.jp/vmware/

Virtual Disk 0
Failed to open the virtual disk image.
The data is invalid.

The hddimage guide says

Remember to use something like:
vdk open * imagename.pln [/RW] /p:1 [/l:z:]
each time you use the image with vdk or better still, do NOT use the /p swit
ch at all

Did i interpret it wrongly? Have I made any mistake?
BTW, if I try to mount the image with IMDISK, it works fine & automatically skips the MBR+Hidden Sector taking the first sector offset as 63.

[Wonko the Sane]

Hmm , sometimes VDK hangs because of another instance or because of VSS or for any other reason.

BUT:

The output was

...
Created hard-disk image G:\BootLand\Test.img (Size=526417920, Sectors=1028160, C
ylinders=64)

The I tried to mount it with VDK this way as instructed in hddimage guide

....
vdk open * G:\BootLand\HDDImage.pln /RW

I would think that the batch creates a "Test.pln" file when creating a "Test.img"

In other words, does a file HDDImage.pln exists?


Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

I would think that the batch creates a "Test.pln" file when creating a "Test.img"

In other words, does a file HDDImage.pln exists?

Actually that was my mistake. As I retried 5 times & each time doing the entire process from the scratch, I had a couple of Windows open. While posting, I wrongly copied output from different windows. That's why, they don't match. In short, HDDImage.pln "does" exist.

[pscEx]

Hmm , sometimes VDK hangs because of another instance or because of VSS or for any other reason.

That happens, if the output / error console is hidden and vdk queries an input.

In cooperation with the author Ken Kato, I compiled a special version avoiding this.

But maybe this version disappeared also in the "Server Move Nirwana"

BTW: This post maybe is interesting, too.

Peter

[Holmes.Sherlock]

BTW: This post maybe is interesting, too.

The link above says

VDK cannot mount a disk image which is on a NTFS compressed drive.

Probably this is the reason for which I can't mount the image. It's residing on an NTFS compressed drive.

[pscEx]

Probably this is the reason for which I can't mount the image. It's residing on an NTFS compressed drive.

Peter

[Holmes.Sherlock]

At the same time, let me ask u if there is some alternative to VDK for mounting multi-volume image. Because, IMDISK can handle handle a single partition image, so far I know.

[pscEx]

I'm not sure whether I understood you correctly (my bad English ...).

But maybe you have to use the -v switch.

To get the complete imdisk cmd line syntax, just type only 'imdisk' in a cmd window.

If you do not have imdisk installed, attached the syntax.

Peter
 imdisk.zip   3.39KB   6 downloads

[Holmes.Sherlock]

But maybe you have to use the -v switch.

Yes, thank psc. That's what I wanted. Let me ask u one more question. If I could mount the image using VDK, then would it be shown under WinXP->Control Panel-?Administrative Tools->Disk Management? Or, in other words, in that case, does the system recognize it as a separate disk(not a "volume") attached to the system?

[pscEx]

Yes, thank psc. That's what I wanted. Let me ask u one more question. If I could mount the image using VDK, then would it be shown under WnnXP->Control Panel-?Administrative Tools->Disk Management? Or, in other words, in that case, does the system recognize it as a separate disk(not a "volume") attached to the system?

To answer this question, is outside my knowledge. Maybe Wonko can help you here.

The only thing I know that the mounted volume appears under a drive letter in explorer.

Peter

[Wonko the Sane]

At the same time, let me ask u if there is some alternative to VDK for mounting multi-volume image. Because, IMDISK can handle handle a single partition image, so far I know.

VSS:
http://www.boot-land...?...ic=6492&hl=

Which by the way has a "lower" kind of access and that actually shows it's mounted "physicaldrive"(s) in Disk Management.

IMDISK is NOT a hard disk image driver, it is a partition driver, so you CANNOT anyway access the MBR on a IMDISK mounted image, which is essentially what it is needed to check it.

Each separate volume on a multi-volume image can be mounted in IMDISK, by re-mounting the DISK image and choosing another partition/volume each time.

To re-cap:

• IMDISK is a "high" level kind of driver and DOES NOT connect to the "physicaldrive", but ONLY to "logicaldrive" (read as drive letter)
• VDK is a "intermediate" driver and connects to BOTH the "physicaldrive" and "logicaldrive", but the physicaldrive is NOT shown in Disk Management
• VSS is a "lower" level driver, connects to BOTH the "physicaldrive" and "logicaldrive" AND the physicaldrive is shown in Disk Management

Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

IMDISK is NOT a hard disk image driver, it is a partition driver, so you CANNOT anyway access the MBR on a IMDISK mounted image, which is essentially what it is needed to check it.

Exactly for this reason I tried to mount it with VDK. Because u've advised me to check the disk signature.

To re-cap:

• IMDISK is a "high" level kind of driver and DOES NOT connect to the "physicaldrive", but ONLY to "logicaldrive" (read as drive letter)
• VDK is a "intermediate driver and connects to BOTH the "physicaldrive" and "logicaldrive", but the physicaldrive is NOT shown in Disk Management
• VSS is a "lower" level driver, connects to BOTH the "physicaldrive" and "logicaldrive" AND the physicaldrive is shown in Disk Management

This is the EXACT info I was seeking for. "Thanx" kind of words are too less for u, honestly.

[Holmes.Sherlock]

Hi Wonko,

Following diddy's tut verbatim, I've just booted an XP installation hard disk image using Firadisk. I'm so excited. But there is a couple of things woth mentioning:

• After it was booted, it was asking for Windows XP SP3 CD, probably because of hardware change. So, can't do anything as the system halted there
• When I simulated in VMware, normal Win XP startup screen with logo appeared but on real hardware the installtion strted directly without showing any boot screen

1) Can u explain the above two?
2) Now I'll try out my hand with WinVBlock & please help me where I'll get stuck.(i know the forum rules, I'm not pressing u, just a mere request to a senior member).

Thank u for guiding (& also scolding) me all the way,

[Wonko the Sane]

Following diddy's tut verbatim, I've just booted an XP installation hard disk image using Firadisk. I'm so excited. But there is a couple of things woth mentioning:

• After it was booted, it was asking for Windows XP SP3 CD, probably because of hardware change. So, can't do anything as the system halted there
• When I simulated in VMware, normal Win XP startup screen with logo appeared but on real hardware the installtion strted directly without showing any boot screen

1) Can u explain the above two?

1. sure, if you build an image on "machine A" (no matter if real or virtual), there may be problems on "machine B" (unless they are Identical)
2. cannot say (read guess), but it seems to me the least of your problems

You do understand how even your report needs some guessing to be understood?
It is not understandable whether you have succeeded fully or not.

Example of a report that does NOT need guessing (this is what I understood from your report, so it's a guess):

• I followed diddy's guide verbatim starting from an image built in a VMware machine.
• The resulting image boots allright in VMware.
• The same image, tested on real hardware fails (probably due to hardware change) asking, after having booted, for the XP SP3 CD.

2) Now I'll try out my hand with WinVBlock & please help me where I'll get stuck.(i know the forum rules, I'm not pressing u, just a mere request to a senior member).

If you succeeded as in my guess, NOW it is the right time (BEFORE attempting using WinVblock) to experiment with different tools and ways to create the Firadisk based image/setup.
You first get a result, and then you try spoiling it (or bettering it ) introducing variations, if you "hop" to another thing you will never know which changes are possible, which are not, which tools can be used and which not and you will continuwe being limited to folllow step by step what others publish...



Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

You do understand how even your report needs some guessing to be understood?
It is not understandable whether you have succeeded fully or not.

1) Sorry Wonko, but I was too excited to report properly then. This is the screen what I got after booting on both VMWare & Real hardware



The screen didn't let me to use mouse & stood still asking for the CD. I'm not sure that whether it is a problem caused by super-lited version of XP(The installer ISO was only 99 MB)while creating the image in VMWare. I've to give a try to some other version of installer.

2) One more thing to which I pointed out earlier also there is a substantial difference in the output of VMware & real hardware while the system was initially booting from the image. In case of VMware, there was a Windows Logo, blue progress bar - everything was just like a normal booting. But on real hardware, after I entered "boot" in Grub4DOS command console, the system freezed for say 15-20 seconds(time to load the image in memory, I guess) & then the screen above appears suddenly. The difference was perplexing, though not really a "problem". But I want to drill down to the reason, whether it's a problem or not.

If you succeeded as in my guess, NOW it is the right time (BEFORE attempting using WinVblock) to experiment with different tools and ways to create the Firadisk based image/setup.
You first get a result, and then you try spoiling it (or bettering it ) introducing variations, if you "hop" to another thing you will never know which changes are possible, which are not, which tools can be used and which not and you will continuwe being limited to folllow step by step what others publish...

3) Another nice & moreover "wise" piece of suggestion. I'll surely follow ur advice, introduce changes one at a time & if I notice something interesting & get any success, I'll share it with others.

Thanx Wonko.

[Wonko the Sane]

The screen didn't let me to use mouse & stood still asking for the CD. I'm not sure that whether it is a problem caused by super-lited version of XP(The installer ISO was only 99 MB)while creating the image in VMWare. I've to give a try to some other version of installer.

It probably is.

But you can mount in the VM a CD and press the [ENTER] on the keyboard (read "OK" button) and see what happens.

This is the n change you introduced, using a greatly slimmed down source/build obviously removes some of the "normal" functionalities of XP and, as you just found out, this may create problems.


Wonko

[Holmes.Sherlock]

But you can mount in the VM a CD and press the [ENTER] on the keyboard (read "OK" button) and see what happens.

Just after mounting the CD(not pressing ENTER), the result is:


There are a few awkward things happening:

• Though the keyboard seems to have focus on the "OK" button, but in reality none of the keyboard keys are working
• U can't see the mouse pointer, so the obvious conclusion is mouse support is disabled also
• As u can see in the snapshot, it's attempting to replace battc.sys with SET1.tmp. Isn't it unnatural?
• Besides the boot-screen difference between VMware & real hardware.

What the hell is this?

[Wonko the Sane]

What the hell is this?

A §@ç#ing mess you apparently caused by "removing too much".


Wonko

[Sha0]

I've renamed the above key of the image by loading it in the registry of the host OS. But still no luck. Any more suggestion?

Is the hardware identical to the hardware that you captured the Windows installation from? If not, you might need to adjust your kernel and HAL combination, possibly with a the BOOT.INI file[1].

[1] Porting Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 2008 to New Target Hardware via SAN-Booting

[Holmes.Sherlock]

Is the hardware identical to the hardware that you captured the Windows installation from?

No, I installed Windows in VirtualBox, mounted it with Winmount & then made the image. But, I booted the image on my desktop, the physical machine.