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View Full Version : Tripleboot Knoppix+UBCD4Win+UBCD from USB flashdrive



DanStieneke
09-08-2008, 11:50 PM
MOAT - Mother Of All Thumbdrives
From a single USB flash drive (UFD) / thumbdrive, boot:
- UBCD4Win v3.20 (http://ubcd4win.com/)
- UBCD v4.11 (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/)
- Knoppix v5.1.1 (http://knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html)


Need fast thumbdrive, have tested with 2G OCZ Rally2 (need to remove some big modules from UBCD4Win) & 4G OCZ Rally2.
Start with UBCD4Win

Install & do updates as you would for building a CD.
i. Optionally - update spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org) from 1.5.2 by copying all files from the program directory of a working, installed copy to C:\UBCD4Win\plugin\AntiSpyware\Spybot\. You can edit the .inf file to reflect new version instead of 1.5.2.
Build - no ISO output necessary.
Replace all instances (it may not be necessary to replace every instance; I didn't test) of ntdetect.com, setupldr.bin, and ramdisk.sy_ / ramdisk.sys in the C:\UBCD4Win\ tree with the equivalent files from Windows Server 2003 SP1 or SP2 (or greater?)
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I've heard SP1 files should work, I only tested with SP2.
W2K3SP1 or 2 files are older than the XPSP3 files, but they can handle USB booting.
Download from http://www.microsoft.com, and run <NameOfSPFile> -x to extract the entire service pack to a directory, then pick out the files you need.

The following is adapted from http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9630, with corrections/notes made.
i. As admin, run PEtoUSB (http://gocoding.com/projects/petousb/4CO22/PeToUSB_3.0.0.7.zip). I've only tested using "Enable Disk Format" / "Quick format"; it may work some other way.
ii. This will get you to a booting system on the flash drive, but it boots the NT way, not the syslinux way (i.e. no menu to choose UBCD4Win/UBCD/Knoppix).
iii. Run syslinux.exe -s -d /syslinux X:, where X: is your flash drive. I used v3.71, later is probably OK/better. Download from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/.
iv. Don't bother with downloading the "boot menu" files he lists. (But see note below***)
v. Copy cat.c32, chain.c32, menu.c32, reboot.c32, and vesamenu.c32 from the syslinux you downloaded to the thumdrive's /syslinux/. (The .c32 files are small utility programs that run when called from by syslinux)
Try booting the windows environment. If you get a BSOD, verify that all instances of ntdetect.com, setupldr.bin, and ramdrive.sy_ / ramdrive.sys on the thumbdrive are from the W2K3 service pack.
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Add UBCD
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Use the CD or extract the files from the .ISO.
Copy all of the directories from the root of the CD / .ISO to the thumbdrive, except /isolinux/ and /syslinux/. /images/ will overlap with your existing /images/ directory, and that's fine. The filenames don't conflict, just the directory name.
Make backup copy of thumbdrive's /syslinux/syslinux.cfg. Edit /syslinux/syslinux.cfg
i. Add the following stanza:


LABEL UBCDDOS
MENU LABEL Launch "The Ultimate Boot CD (DOS)"
KERNEL menu.c32
APPEND /menus/main.cfg

ii. Optionally, for better compatibility, change DEFAULT vesamenu.c32 (graphic menu) to DEFAULT menu.c32 (text menu) and remove the line MENU BACKGROUND LOGO.PNG.
iii. Optionally customize MENU TABMSG & MENU TITLE.
iv. Optionally remove TIMEOUT 200.
Make a backup copy of the thumdrive's /menus/main.cfg. Edit /menus/main.cfg to include this stanza:


LABEL back
MENU LABEL Back to main menu
KERNEL menu.c32
APPEND /syslinux/syslinux.cfg


Add Knoppix

Copy the \KNOPPIX\ directory from the Knoppix CD to the root of the USB drive.
Copy the \boot\isolinux\ directory from the CD / .ISO to \KNOPPIX\isolinux\ on the thumbdrive. (This invalidates every entry in the knoppix menu, but that's easy to fix w/a global search & replace)
Edit the thumbdrive's /syslinux/syslinux.cfg to include the following stanza:


LABEL knoppix
MENU LABEL Launch Knoppix
KERNEL menu.c32
APPEND /KNOPPIX/isolinux/knoppix.cfg

Copy the thumbdrive's /KNOPPIX/isolinux/isolinux.cfg to /KNOPPIX/isolinux/knoppix.cfg
Edit /KNOPPIX/isolinux/knoppix.cfg
i. Global search for KERNEL linux & replace with KERNEL /KNOPPIX/isolinux/linux
ii. Global search for initrd=minirt.gz & replace with initrd=/KNOPPIX/isolinux/minirt.gz
iii. Insert the following stanza at the top of the stanza list


LABEL back
MENU LABEL Back to main menu
KERNEL menu.c32
APPEND /syslinux/syslinux.cfg

iv.Optionally delete the TIMEOUT 300 line.
v.Optionally customize MENU TABMSG & MENU TITLE.
vi.Optionally make at least some cheat codes available. (Probably better to add your favorite cheat codes as a new stanza)
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Add the following stanza


LABEL cheat
MENU LABEL Cheatcodes (See note below)
KERNEL cat.c32
APPEND /KNOPPIX/mycheats.txt
TEXT HELP
This *EXITS* the menu system. Type 'menu.c32 syslinux.cfg' to return.
ENDTEXT

Copy the thumbdrive's /KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt to /KNOPPIX/mycheats.txt, and edit /KNOPPIX/mycheats.txt so it's no more than 24 (prettier) or 25 (more info) lines.

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From the UBCD4Win menu, "Memtest86" and "NTFS for DOS" don't work, but that's OK because UBCD (DOS) supplies them - either ignore those options, delete the stanzas, or edit the stanzas to point to the UBCD equivalent.
***The "Windows(tm) Recovery Console" doesn't work either, maybe that is fixed by the bootfiles from http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9630? I'll let somebody else test that.

For those who care, UBCD4Win goes first because USB-booting Windows is flaky (if I hadn't found PEtoUSB I don't think I'd have ever got it). Once that's running, it's pretty easy to add non-Windows syslinux/isolinux apps.

There's a lot of work left to "pretty-fy" the menu system; maybe the next person can upload some of that work here. Here's my mycheats.txt: (those superscript "3"s are ascii vertical lines)


knoppix dma -- DMA access for all IDE ³ knoppix toram - CD->RAM & run from RAM
knoppix wheelmouse - - - - Use IMPS/2 ³ knoppix nowheelmouse -- Use plain PS/2
knoppix vga=normal - X, no framebuffer ³ knoppix 2 -- Runlevel 2, Textmode only
knoppix acpi=off -- Fully Disable ACPI ³ knoppix acpi=force - - FORCE ACPI Bios
knoppix pci=bios Workaround for bad PCI controllers
knoppix ide2=0x180 nopcmcia - - - - - Boot from PCMCIA-CD-Rom (some notebooks)
knoppix pci=irqmask=0x0e98 -- Try if PS/2 mouse doesn't work on a (esp. laptop)
knoppix mem=nnnM - - (ucase M) Maybe fix "Panic: cannot mount root file system"
knoppix no{apic,agp,apm,audio,ddc,dhcp,fstab,firewire,pcmc ia,scsi,swap,udev}
knoppix no{usb,usb2} Kill USB entirely, or just 2.x extension
knoppix noideraid - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Disable IDE-Raiddisk detection
knoppix pnpbios=off No PnP Bios initialization
knoppix xmodule=ati|fbdev|i810|mga|nv|radeon|savage|s3|rad eon|svga|i810
knoppix desktop=fluxbox|gnome|icewm|lg3d|larswm|openbox|tw m|wmaker|xfce|xfce4
knoppix floppyconfig Run "knoppix.sh" from a floppy
knoppix myconf=/dev/sda1 - - - - - - - - - - Run "knoppix.sh" from a partition
knoppix myconf=scan (or config=scan) Try to find "knoppix.sh" automatically
knoppix home=/mnt/sda1/knoppix.img - - - - Mount loopback file as /home/knoppix
knoppix home=scan Automatic search for knoppix homedir
knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hda1/KNX.iso - - - - - Access image, boot from ISO-Image.
knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hda1 -- Access Image then boot from previously copied ISO
(enables booting from NTFS / ReiserFS)


Enjoy!
Dan Stieneke