7 replies to this topic

[esgaroth]

While trying to troubleshoot the problem I am having with getting parted magic to work I am creating a bootable usb to save on wasted cd's. When booting up to the usb it skips the grubfordos loader and goes right into vistape. If I boot up into a virtual machine or burn a cd then the grubfordos menu appears and I can choose from the list. Is this normal behavior for grubfordos?

[maanu]

While trying to troubleshoot the problem I am having with getting parted magic to work I am creating a bootable usb to save on wasted cd's. When booting up to the usb it skips the grubfordos loader and goes right into vistape. If I boot up into a virtual machine or burn a cd then the grubfordos menu appears and I can choose from the list. Is this normal behavior for grubfordos?

ok , lets forget everything .

make sure u have vista pe and other files off the usb . now download fbinst from the following link ,

http://bbs.znpc.net/...nt.php?aid=3542

save it on ur desktop or where ever . now download latest grub4dos from the following link

http://nufans.net/grub4dos/grub4dos-0.4.4-2009-05-23.zip

and from that , JUST copy grldr file to the fbinst folder .

now navigate to command prompt , and get to the required directory where u saved fbinst with cd command (change directory ) ,

first type ,

fbinst --list

you ll be presented with ur attached hdd's and usb .

CAREFULLY select the number against ur usb by judging from size . in my case it is hd2 as i have 2 Fixed hdd's attached and one usb attached . so my first hdd is hd0 second is hd1 and third one is hd2 .

now type ,(replace the digit according to ur config)

fbinst (hd2) format --force --fat32   ENTER

Physically unplug ur usb drive . replug it . now type

fbinst (hd2) add grldr grldr ENTER

now go to the fbinst folder , and create a file there with name of " fb.txt "

copy paste the following into this .

timeout 5

color red

text -n "F1. "

color normal

text grldr

menu F1 grldr grldr

save it in SAME directory as fbinst .

now get back to the opened cmd window and type ,

fbinst (hd2) add-menu fb.cfg fb.txt  ENTER

thats it . now make a menu.lst with whatever u need to have on it . for vista pe go to the following page , in case u r booting in RAM . or else . im not familiar with vista pe so use search for possible examples or even try the last one u were on .

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5041

make sure u have menu.lst on the root of ur usb drive . grldr is not needed at all .

i just wanted to introduce u to a great tool ( which apparently was not needed at all ) .

also this version of fbinst can also boot syslinux along with grub4dos at the boot . means 2 boot loaders in start to choose . let me know if u need a hand on it too .

but grub4dos is enough in ur case .

[esgaroth]

The above steps worked out nicely but its a bit lengthy to do everytime I want to test something new. It did make some testing easier with the problem I was working on about parted magic. All I had to do was copy the new grldr file to the usb drive and it worked. So there must be some problem with the version of grubfordos included with vistape and parted magic.
I think I found the problem with grubfordos not working from usb as well. There was an error in the create usb script as well. The script would always complain about not being able to find HPUSBFW.exe. I never considered it a problem since I had allready formatted my drive. For some reason this would cause grubinst_gui.exe to not run.
I changed line 63 from
ShellExecute,Open,"%TempFolder%\USB\HPUSBFW.exe" -f,"#$q%pFileBox1% #$q"
to
ShellExecute,Open,"%TempFolder%\USB\HPUSBFW.exe","-f #$q%pFileBox1% #$q"
which fixed both problems above.
now grubfordos is working from my usb drive.

[maanu]

thats cool that u somehow managed to find some other way to ur problem .

but fbinst is bullet proof stuff . no hanky banky . MAY BE a eng gui ll be made for this tool (chinese is already available ),

[was_jaclaz]

Unless otherwise stated we are ALWAYS talking about LATEST version of grub4dos.

If VistaPE has an old version, update it.

@maanu
Though fbinst is a nice and handy tool, it is NOT normally needed, expecially if the stick is already booting allright.

jaclaz

[maanu]

@maanu
Though fbinst is a nice and handy tool, it is NOT normally needed, expecially if the stick is already booting allright.

jaclaz

yeah , thats what i told him already that it was not really needed .BUT as i said earlier it is the ONLY tool that NEVER failed on all the systems (including my family and friends systems ) i tried ., it uses special and UNIQUE mechanism to format the drive and make it bootable .

and now specially when it has incorporated syslinux with it . NO OTHER tool has the functions in the world that fbinst has .

im not trying to prove my word or negate u , i just gave him a little how to so that the users who have any problem in making/booting usb ,they can use those steps...-

[was_jaclaz]

Sure.

But in this case there was NO NEED whatsoever to use this tool.

Tools and tutorials are allright when actually needed in answer to the problem, otherwise they may take the thread out of topic and possibly confuse unneededly the OP.

jaclaz

[kDn]

Post moved to right place...here.