[RESOLVED] Boot Multiple Images from USB

[psyk]

I posted this in the DOS forum, but thought someone with Linux background can help as well.

I need help figuring out a way to boot multiple floppy images (Ghost client with NIC drivers) from my USB flash drive. I've initially used UBCD to do this, but I was tired of constantly making new CDs whenever I wanted to add more images and decided the USB idea would be awesome. They have some informal tutorials in the the UBCD forums on the UBCD on USB but I really don't need all the UBCD stuff. I just want to boot these floppy images and have a UI menu to choose them from.

Anyone familiar with UBCD customization? Isolinux/syslinux? GRUB? What's gonna make this USB-boot-multi-image-menu-interface thing to work??

[psyk]

Okay, so I've tried a couple of things, but the images hang after it says "Starting..."

So far I've used Syslinux and Memdisk to use simple menus and boot my "floppy images". Using a program called makebootfat, I created a bootable USB drive by putting the following command into the command line:

makebootfat -o usb -Z -Y -b ldlinux.bss -m mbr.bin -c ldlinux.sys usbroot

where usbroot being a folder where the files I want in the USB drive are in.

The syslinux.cfg file has these lines:

PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 0
DEFAULT 1
DISPLAY Menu.txt
LABEL 1
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=e100b.ima

LABEL 2
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=e1000.ima

LABEL 3
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=b57.ima

And the corresponding Menu.txt file has this:

Select NIC Driver to boot into Ghost:

1. - Boot to Ghost with Intel PRO 100
2. - Boot to Ghost with Intel PRO 1000
3. - Boot to Ghost with Broadcom NetXtreme

Type number then press [Enter]

From posts I read from the UBCD forums, I also have the files chain.c32 and ubusb.c32 from the syslinux package. I'm not sure what they do, but it seems to boot my USB into the simple menu. After I choose the image I want to boot next, it begins to load the image, memdisk begins to reserve memory, and then it says "Starting..." and hangs there. Does anyone have any idea what is going on? I'm not very used to Linux or advanced programming for that matter. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Tuttle]

I approached this a different way -- using the menu stuff available in config.sys. Ghost actually creates the framework (and then doesn't use it for anything), which you can adapt to choosing a different network driver based on the user's choice. You won't be able to fit all the drivers you want on a floppy image, but the rest of your USB key is hopefully available as C: while config.sys and autoexec.bat are being processed.

[psyk]

Could you be a bit more specific about using the config.sys file Ghost creates? Do you mean to just have multiple NIC drivers in the /net folder and just altering config.sys and autoexec.bat? How would the config.sys look like? By default, it looks like this

DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net
DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net\*NICDRIVER*.dos

Would I just add on more lines for however many drivers I want to add? Sorry, if I'm missing the point. I didn't know you could get a menu system out of Ghost.

[Tuttle]

Well, the default Ghost config.sys looks like this:

[menu]
menuitem=FROMFLPY, This computer was started from a Ghost boot disk
menuitem=FROMCD, This computer was started from a Ghost bootable CD

[FROMFLPY]

[FROMCD]

[COMMON]
DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net
DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net\e100b.dos
LASTDRIVE = Z

That's all the framework you need to create your own menu:

[menu]
menuitem=A, Network card type 1
menuitem=B, Network card type 2

[A]
DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net
DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=C:\net\firstnic.dos

[B]
DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net
DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=C:\net\othernic.dos

[COMMON]
LASTDRIVE = Z

The catch is that you won't be able to fit too many drivers on a single floppy image, so they need to go on the data bit of the USB key -- that's why the C: is in there.

You'll also need to clean up Ghost's autoexec.bat since you changed the menu:

@echo off
SET TZ=GHO-09:30
prompt $p$g
\net\netbind.com
MOUSE.COM
echo Loading...
C:\GHOST.EXE

[psyk]

Alright, well I made the changes and even put the different NIC drivers in its own folders so it can have its respective protocol.ini files. I used this article for help, How to Create a Ghost 8.0 Network Boot CD. But now, I seem to be running into problems with the USB booting. The CMOS settings are fine, but I now get this message:

Remove disks or other media
Press any key to restart

I used the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool to copy the MS-DOS startup disk bootsector to my USB flash drive and then I copied over the necessary files for Ghost to boot.

Here's what my USB drive file structure looks like now:
+GHOST (folder)
+NET (folder)

+e100b (NIC folder)
+e1000 (NIC folder)
+b57 (NIC folder)
-netbind.com

-mouse.com
-mouse.ini
-io.sys
-msdos.sys
-command.com
-autoexec.bat
-config.sys

[Tuttle]

Not sure how to troubleshoot that one; I haven't used the HP utility before. I'm assuming that your USB thing acts like the SD card in my laptop (or a CD) -- there's a disk image of sorts which is booted from, then you can access the other files on the device normally

[psyk]

The following is for anyone else that might stumble upon this thread that needs answers.

I found out how to make my USB flash drive boot. Using this MBRTool from Memorykey Tools (with just formatting, no boot files) to format the USB drive and go through the instructions from WeetHet - Boot from USB Flash drive it was able to boot.

As for the multiple NIC's I used the file structure from iSchool - How to Create a Ghost 9.0 Network Boot CD but with a slight change. In the CONFIG.SYS file, the device entries should be inputed as follows:

[*NIC ENTRY*]
DEVICE=\net\*NIC FOLDER*\protman.dos /I:\net\*NIC FOLDER*
DEVICE=\net\*NIC FOLDER*\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net\*NIC FOLDER*\*NIC DRIVER*.dos

If your USB drive root gets cluttered, everything can be attributed to be system and hidden except MOUSE.COM and MOUSE.INI.

Man, I'm glad I finally figured this out!

[Tuttle]

Great, thanks lots for posting back the details of how you got it.