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Select bootable ISO image at bootup.


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#1 pgsmick

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Posted 28 January 2009 - 10:47 PM

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum and to modern boot problems and solutions. I hope you'll forgive that and get me started in the right direction.

I want to prepare an external bootable hard drive (either USB or USB/SATA) with a library of bootable CD/DVD ISO images and be able to select, mount and boot the desired ISO image at boot time, just as if I had placed the selected bootable CD into the CD drive. These ISOs will primarily be OS installation CD/DVDs for various Windows workstation and server OSs.

I also must be able to use the drive as a regular storage device accessible from Windows when it is not being used as a boot device. And I also need to be able to maintain the ISO image library from within Windows.

I do not want or need the ability to have multiple OSs actually INSTALLED on the external drive, just the ability to select a bootable ISO.

Short of having a selection method at boot time, I could live with a solution that required me first to access the drive from a Windows machine, and either mark a particular ISO or copy it to a special location so that at the next boot from the drive, that ISO would mount and load.

Is this doable? What tools should I be exploring? If I can't do this, how close can I get?

Thanks,
Peter.

#2 amalux

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Posted 29 January 2009 - 01:01 AM

Hi pgsmick, welcome to the forum :cheers:

Are you familiar with VMWare workstations where you can boot up any ISO or more than one at a time? You can install sw, test diff OS's; save current stats, drag/drop from VW to desktop etc. Just an idea; booting real hardware from ISO's is possible but problematic and limited.

#3 pgsmick

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Posted 29 January 2009 - 02:57 AM

Are you familiar with VMWare workstations where you can boot up any ISO or more than one at a time? You can install sw, test diff OS's; save current stats, drag/drop from VW to desktop etc. Just an idea; booting real hardware from ISO's is possible but problematic and limited.



Yes, actually I just started working with VMWare--very cool software--and want to be able to do just what it does. Many of my clients don't use VMWare and want a variety of OSs installed on various machines. It would be nice to be able to have all those OSs on a single drive that I can carry around rather than a bunch of CDs which get lost, scratched, etc.

So in what way is booting hardware from ISO problematic (other than that I don't know how to do it)? In what ways limited?

I guess the boot device needs to have some OS on it to present the ISO as a mounted CD, and then step aside to let the ISO/CD's bootup take over. I can see this being tricky, but would have thought that enough people would benefit to make it worth someone's while to work it out.

Thanks for talkin'
Peter

#4 amalux

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Posted 29 January 2009 - 08:44 AM

Many of my clients don't use VMWare and want a variety of OSs installed on various machines. It would be nice to be able to have all those OSs on a single drive that I can carry around rather than a bunch of CDs which get lost, scratched, etc.

OK, one possibility (the one I use often) is a single CD/DVD-R(W)/USB/UFD with multiple install sources, driver packs, whatever and a liteweight LiveXP frontend to boot from with all the tools you need for bare metal (unattended) installs, backup/restore, repair etc. - If this sounds good, let me know and I'll give you more info.

So in what way is booting hardware from ISO problematic (other than that I don't know how to do it)? In what ways limited?

I guess the boot device needs to have some OS on it to present the ISO as a mounted CD, and then step aside to let the ISO/CD's bootup take over. I can see this being tricky, but would have thought that enough people would benefit to make it worth someone's while to work it out.

Well, it's not for lack of trying, I've personally spent many hours at this only to become frustrated and look for other solutions. You can boot some ISO's from a USB/UFD drive but XP/Vista/NT (afaik) won't work in the way you want :cheers:

Have a look at these and see if you find your answer.
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=5041
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=18846
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=19333
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=10482

One other option to think about would be booting to a LiveXP image from HDD instead of removable media, there's a great tutorial on it here. Hope you find what your looking for and feel free to ask more questions B)

#5 was_jaclaz

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Posted 29 January 2009 - 09:45 AM

The problem is the "ANY" .iso.

Very little has changed since this thread:
http://www.boot-land...p?showtopic=808

In a nutshell:
ALL DOS based .iso usually work or can be made to work easily
SOME Linux based .iso work, ALL of them can be made to work (not so easily)
ONLY RAMDISK (from Server 2003 SP1 or R2, NOT "gold", NOT SPS2 - limited to 512 Mbyte images) NT based images are known to work

This is not "limited" by grub4dos or other bootmanager, but by the actual way the .iso images are built and, in the case of NT based images, by the lack of a suitable driver.

With plenty of RAM there is a Commercial Ramdisk driver capable to go over the 512 Mb limit.

In other words, there is not (yet) a one-size-fits-all solution, each .iso has it's own "story" and needs "particular" attention:
  • some work "as-they-are"
  • some need a few, easy changes
  • some need complex, difficult/undocumented changes (and a solution may even not exist yet)

jaclaz

#6 pgsmick

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Posted 02 February 2009 - 12:15 AM

Thanks (all) to your input, I'm making out pretty well so far.

I have a USB drive holding a small DOS partition and a large NTFS partition. The NTFS partition holds the ISO file library, and the DOS partition holds the GRUB4DOS loading mechanism. When I boot WinXP, I can see both partitions and so can easily maintain the ISO library and the loader files at the same time. Everything seems to be working OK.

My MENU.LST files has blocks like the following:

title Load ISO for Win XP, VL
map (hd0,4)/ISO/XP-SP2-VL-CD1.ISO (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

Since I expect to use this strategy on a variety of machines which may have one or several other hard drives, is there some better syntax to use to be sure the menu works if the USB device does not happen to be hd0 on a given machine? Some way for the grub commands to discover what hd they are running from and then load the ISO from partition 4 of that hd?

EDIT: Oops! I found the "find --set-root..." syntax. Never Mind!

Thanks again,
Peter

#7 pgsmick

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Posted 02 February 2009 - 06:46 AM

Well I spoke in haste about everything working OK. I feel like I'm 90% there. I have set up a GRUB4DOS loader to offer ISOs for an XP installation CD, a Win Server 2003 Enterprise and a Win Server 2003 Standard installation CD. The XP ISO seems to launch and get well into its routine, but both the Win Server ISOs stall right after the prompt to "press any key to boot from CD". The system just hangs with no error and no progress--the longest I waited was about 30 seconds before rebooting. Both the Win Server ISOs are about 15 meg SMALLER than the XP ISO, so I don't think ISO size is causing this.

On the plus side, I have replicated the strategy on a flash drive and have gotten to the same point with it, the server ISOs stall, but the XP ISO runs.

Any thoughts?

#8 was_jaclaz

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Posted 02 February 2009 - 09:35 AM

Any thoughts?

Re-read, this time slowly, this:
http://www.boot-land...?...t=6896&st=4

and link within.

You are nowhere near 90%, it simply dos not make sense, even if you think you get to 99%, it won't work until you get 100%, and AFAIK there is NOT (yet :cheers:) a solution for NT based images, like install disks are, if not the RAMDISK method.

Reading this, also:
http://www.boot-land...?...=2692&st=26
might help you understand the issue at hand.

A grub4dos mapping is "volatile" and is only valid during "real mode" of the booting, once "protected mode" kicks in, the mapping goes "poof".

jaclaz

#9 ribben

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Posted 20 April 2009 - 12:52 AM

yeah i am afraid that jaclaz is very right at this point. I have personally tried to launch different isos from my usb stick and escesially grub4dos on it but it doesn't work. I maybe get a boot screen of the iso but when it goes to installation or kernel loading it gives an error :) . So as an idea propably it should have been said again why don't we try to find out a way to mount iso istead in virtual drive which is recognized by bios e.g. somethink like daemon tools but in bios mode. I think that would solve the problems we face right???????? maybe a have a whole wrong opinion on the subject but it was just an idea!!!

Regards,
Ribben

#10 was_jaclaz

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Posted 20 April 2009 - 07:45 AM

So as an idea propably it should have been said again why don't we try to find out a way to mount iso istead in virtual drive which is recognized by bios e.g. somethink like daemon tools but in bios mode. I think that would solve the problems we face right?


Right. :)

Point is that noone seems to be willing/capable to develop a kernel driver of this kind.

There are Commercial solutions however, like diskless angel and the Perisoft based drivers, and still noone has properly tested the Gavotte's RRamdisk.

See here:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=1507
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=4064

jaclaz

#11 ribben

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 01:07 AM

jaclaz thanks for pointing me these links. :)
But i can't say that i really understand how things are set.(maybe i am a little tired from my project on electric circuits, maybe lack of knowledge) But let me see if i get this straight those rammdisk scripts are able to make the ram of computer as a virtual drive on which i can mount any iso whitout the need to exctract it and costumize it? If yes where is the tutorial i have been looking for it and i can't find it!!!

Thanks for your help
Regards,
Ribben

#12 was_jaclaz

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Posted 21 April 2009 - 08:19 AM

But let me see if i get this straight those rammdisk scripts are able to make the ram of computer as a virtual drive on which i can mount any iso whitout the need to exctract it and costumize it? If yes where is the tutorial i have been looking for it and i can't find it!!!


Not "any" .iso.

NT based .iso's, like PE's or Recovery Console or windows NT/2K/XP/2003 Setup can be booted that way using MS own Ramdisk.sys (512 Mbyte limit) or Diskless Angel (limited to 1,2,3 or 4 Gb depending on how much you want to invest on the thingy)

Read this seemingly unrelated thread :):
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=4952

AND the two "main" tutorials by aec on 911cd (links on the given thread).

jaclaz

#13 steve6375

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 07:32 PM

Thanks (all) to your input, I'm making out pretty well so far.

I have a USB drive holding a small DOS partition and a large NTFS partition. The NTFS partition holds the ISO file library, and the DOS partition holds the GRUB4DOS loading mechanism. When I boot WinXP, I can see both partitions and so can easily maintain the ISO library and the loader files at the same time. Everything seems to be working OK.

My MENU.LST files has blocks like the following:

title Load ISO for Win XP, VL
map (hd0,4)/ISO/XP-SP2-VL-CD1.ISO (hd32)
map --hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
boot

Since I expect to use this strategy on a variety of machines which may have one or several other hard drives, is there some better syntax to use to be sure the menu works if the USB device does not happen to be hd0 on a given machine? Some way for the grub commands to discover what hd they are running from and then load the ISO from partition 4 of that hd?

EDIT: Oops! I found the "find --set-root..." syntax. Never Mind!

Thanks again,
Peter



you might find my post here interesting


I found using fd0 rather than (hd32) got better results in some circumstances.

Also, to avoid the 'press a key to boot from CD' issues and later issues with a 'CD' not being available, use (fd0)/BOOTMGR or (fd0)/NTLDR (case sensitive! must match case of file in iso) - depending on what is in the iso.

e.g.

title Boot ISO 1
find --set-root /1.iso
map /1.iso (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)/BOOTMGR
rootnoverify (fd0)

This works on older BIOSes and systems made to a USB as a removable drive.


HTH

#14 was_jaclaz

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 07:56 PM

@steve6375

Your post and experience is about a WinPE V2.x .iso that CAN be booted with .iso mapping.

XP PE 1.x, etc CANNOT be booted with .iso emulation if not through RAMDISK.

jaclaz

#15 steve6375

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Posted 11 May 2009 - 08:09 PM

@steve6375

Your post and experience is about a WinPE V2.x .iso that CAN be booted with .iso mapping.

XP PE 1.x, etc CANNOT be booted with .iso emulation if not through RAMDISK.

jaclaz


Yes, but I did not say that you could boot PE1 like this, just that this example might be a useful menu entry for PE 2 scenarios (e.g. Vista OS install, Server 2008 install, Win7 install CD images). :D

#16 was_jaclaz

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Posted 12 May 2009 - 10:48 AM

Yes, but I did not say that you could boot PE1 like this, just that this example might be a useful menu entry for PE 2 scenarios (e.g. Vista OS install, Server 2008 install, Win7 install CD images). ;)


Well, that was exactly what you omitted to say. :D

Quick summary:
  • pqsmick wanted to boot a XP .iso
  • I told him that it wasn't possible, not because of any problem with grub4dos mapping, but because of the way XP/PE 1.x
  • you hinted about the way you succesfully used (fd0) mapping insted of (hd32) or (0XFF) ;) but without specifying that your finding won't help with the OP request (XP)
  • I made this clarification, to avoid that OP or other readers would try (fd0) mapping with XP or PE 1.x and then, once failed, post asking why it did not work

:D

jaclaz

#17 steve6375

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Posted 13 May 2009 - 09:50 PM

Well, that was exactly what you omitted to say. :D

Quick summary:

  • pqsmick wanted to boot a XP .iso
  • I told him that it wasn't possible, not because of any problem with grub4dos mapping, but because of the way XP/PE 1.x
  • you hinted about the way you succesfully used (fd0) mapping insted of (hd32) or (0XFF) :D but without specifying that your finding won't help with the OP request (XP)
  • I made this clarification, to avoid that OP or other readers would try (fd0) mapping with XP or PE 1.x and then, once failed, post asking why it did not work

;)

jaclaz


@jaclaz
Yes, it is good that you clarify this. The original post (and several of the following ones) did not mention any specific OS at all - just a 'library' of iso's for installing different OS's. I assumed that some of the OS's in the 'library' might be PE2 based which is why I posted the reply.




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