ISO boot from FAT/NTFS/USB (GRUB.exe, grldr from boot.ini)

**jacksonon** · 10-30-2005, 06:18 PM

alright since there has been much help in here i'll post my problem as well :-)

i've got a laptop with sata interface:
sda1 -> NTFS windows-root-partition
sda2 -> reiserfs, my linux root partition
sda3 -> fat32 partition filled with recovery stuff
sda4 -> swap partition

my problem... while booting grub i get the flashing cursor only stated earlier here.
i'll start off with my 2 config files:

boot.ini:

Code:

[boot loader]
timeout=8
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windoze" /fastdetect
c:\bootgrub="Linux 1"
c:\grldr="Linux 2"

menu.Lst: (the file does not have a capital L, just to distinguish between i and l :-)

Code:

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 1
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message

title Linux
    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 vga=0x314 selinux=0  xyz acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode splash=silent resume=/dev/sda4  showopts
    initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd

title Windoze
    root (hd0,0)
    chainloader +1

title Failsafe
    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2 showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off vga=normal noresume selinux=0 barrier=off nosmp noapic maxcpus=0  3
    initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd

title memtest86
    kernel (hd0,1)/boot/memtest.bin

as you can see i already tried to use the bootgrub thing, with no difference. i have also copied bootgrub, grldr and the /boot folder to my FAT32 partition and changed C:\grldr and bootgrub to D:\ which is the fat32 partition (the last thing changed the error! i then get the hal.dll missing)

and yes, i have both the initrd and vmlinuz files in my C:\boot folder
any suggestions?

oh sorry i forgot.. this is winxp prof (yea i know xp sucks, but i heard some rumors about w2k and problem with centrino notebooks

**ruymbeke** · 10-31-2005, 12:59 AM

Originally Posted by jacksonon

...as you can see i already tried to use the bootgrub thing, with no difference. i have also copied bootgrub, grldr and the /boot folder to my FAT32 partition and changed C:\grldr and bootgrub to D:\ which is the fat32 partition (the last thing changed the error! i then get the hal.dll missing)
and yes, i have both the initrd and vmlinuz files in my C:\boot folder. any suggestions?
oh sorry i forgot.. this is winxp prof (yea i know xp sucks, but i heard some rumors about w2k and problem with centrino notebooks

I have this running on my T43 Thinkpad which is using a serial ata interface and a buggy sata/pata bridge to the pata hdd.
So there is no problem with centrino notebooks or sata interfaces but yes old version of grldr do not always work with 2k.
Please use one of the latest version from http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/grldr
About your boot problem, you have to put the grldr file into the root of your XP partition which is the C drive as it was called at the time of the XP install and you cannot rename or move the grldr file. This is a limitation of the ntldr XP boot code. Now to boot knoppix from the iso on the hdd you will need to use the initrd_ntfs.gz or initrd_reiser.gz ramdisk (fat,ext,nfts+reiser support) instead of the initrd.gz ramdisk off the cd, cf: http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402.zip or http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402r.zip
Last thing, you will need to have the XP partition as the primary active partition (first boot loader code run from the bios).
Hope this helps, regards, Gilles

**jacksonon** · 10-31-2005, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by ruymbeke

I have this running on my T43 Thinkpad which is using a serial ata interface and a buggy sata/pata bridge to the pata hdd.
So there is no problem with centrino notebooks or sata interfaces but yes old version of grldr do not always work with 2k.
Please use one of the latest version from http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/grldr

done.

About your boot problem, you have to put the grldr file into the root of your XP partition which is the C drive as it was called at the time of the XP install and you cannot rename or move the grldr file. This is a limitation of the ntldr XP boot code.

yep sure thing, done as well.

Now to boot knoppix from the iso on the hdd you will need to use the initrd_ntfs.gz or initrd_reiser.gz ramdisk (fat,ext,nfts+reiser support) instead of the initrd.gz ramdisk off the cd, cf: http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402.zip or http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402r.zip

hm.. cant find those initrd files on my dvd. i guess that's because i bought knoppix on a dvd inside a magazine. die /boot folder doesn't contain those files and the KNOPPIX folder only has KNOPPIX & KNOPPIX2 in it.. looks like some kind of image to me... are these files available online?

Last thing, you will need to have the XP partition as the primary active partition (first boot loader code run from the bios).
Hope this helps, regards, Gilles

done too, sda1 is flagged as active

no difference so far :(

don't know if its important, but i took the original linux & initrd files from the reiser partition, which should be ok since i can boot the system using a cd (e.g. a suse install cd.. select install and then boot existing system). (alright i did'nt take the linux & initrd files sind that are only symlinks :-) but i took the files that were linked and renamed them..

**ruymbeke** · 10-31-2005, 09:20 PM

Originally Posted by jacksonon

Now to boot knoppix from the iso on the hdd you will need to use the initrd_ntfs.gz or initrd_reiser.gz ramdisk (fat,ext,nfts+reiser support) instead of the initrd.gz ramdisk off the cd, cf: http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402.zip or http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402r.zip

hm.. cant find those initrd files on my dvd. i guess that's because i bought knoppix on a dvd inside a magazine. die /boot folder doesn't contain those files and the KNOPPIX folder only has KNOPPIX & KNOPPIX2 in it.. looks like some kind of image to me... are these files available online?

The http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/kno402r.zip link is pointing to the initrd_reiser.gz ramdisk that you have to use to boot from the iso being on the hdd. You cannot use the initrd.gz ramdisk that you get off the cd/dvd. I had to modify/patch the original ramdisk to add support for ntfs and reiser and get the iso boot from hdd working. Best Regards, Gilles

**jacksonon** · 11-02-2005, 09:04 PM

OH MY GOD! i'm so stupid :D

i've been messing around with getting grub to work outside of my mbr.. and right now the ultimate solution came right into my mind without any warnings... its done in one simple command: grub-installer --no-floppy /dev/sda1 (or /dev/hda1 if you like :))

and thats it.. this shit works ^^ far easier then working with grub4ntldr or the "make mbr-image and mount that with ntldr"-stuff which actually doesnt work at all but some say it does :8)

**jacksonon** · 11-03-2005, 12:32 AM

in addition to my previous post (there's no edit button around here o_O) i have to say, that my solution left windows unbootable. i then found another solution which now works perfect:

i flagged my sda2 (reiser, mounted as / ) active and installed grub in its bootsector.
sda1 contains windoze and its default bootsector. now grub loads, and BOTH windoze and linux are bootable from it!

**marft** · 11-06-2005, 05:21 AM

Hi people!

I tried to install Knoppix 4.0.2 to a USB dongle for six hours now - without any success. I hope anyone here could help me; that would be so great. Thanks a lot in advance!

Here are the facts:
- I formated the USB dongle under WinXP with the HPUSBFW.EXE and made it bootable with the files in the grub archive.
- I have deactivated booting from all drives except USB port (another computer than the one with WinXP)
- I copied the files to the USB dongle as described here (if I understood right) and have the following files now on it:

>root: Autoexec.bat, COMMAND.COM, Config.sys, DBLBUFF.SYS, grub.exe, HIMEM.SYS, HPUSBFW.EXE, IFSHLP_.SYS, IO.SYS, menu.lst, MSDOS.SYS, treeinfo.wc

>>/boot/boot.cat, boot.msg, f2, f3, german.kbd, isolinux.bin, isolinux.cfg, linux, logo.16, memtest, menu.lst, minirt.gz, minirt_ntfs.gz

>>>/boot/grub/bootgrub, built_in_menu.lst, e2fs_stage1_5, fat_stage1_5, grldr, grub.exe, linux, memtest, menu.lst, minirt_ntfs.gz, nbgrub, ntfs_stage1_5, pxegrub, reiserfs_stage1_5, stage1, stage2, stage2_eltorito

>>>/boot/knoppix.402/KNOPPIX.iso, linux, memtest, menu-lst, minirt_ntfs.gz

There are a fiew files two or three times - I know, I'm desperated

All menu.lst files look like this:

################################################## ####
# GvR April 12th 2005
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout=5
default=5

title Knoppix 4.02 ISO from USB sda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.402/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init bootfrom=/dev/sda1/boot/knoppix.402/*.iso lang=us noprompt apm=power-off nomce ### all the kernel options on a single line ###
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.402/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

title Knoppix 4.02 ISO from USB sda2
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.402/linux ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init bootfrom=/dev/sda2/boot/knoppix.402/*.iso lang=us noprompt apm=power-off nomce ### all the kernel options on a single line ###
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/knoppix.402/minirt_ntfs.gz
boot

title Default Boot on HD 0
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot

title Memory test
kernel (hd0,0)/memtest

################################################## ####

The computer boots until the well known "Error 16: File not found". I also escaped the execution of all DOS drivers (himem.sys and others). After that a list appears and I can choose from the following options:
- /boot/grub/menu.lst
- /menu.lst

Both options do lead to the "Error 16" again.

Thats all I know at the moment. Oh, it's a 1 GB USB dongle from Toshiba. It would be really fine if anyone could give me a hot tip

With kind regards
Marcel

**ruymbeke** · 11-06-2005, 08:04 AM

Originally Posted by marft

... I tried to install Knoppix 4.0.2 to a USB dongle for six hours now - without any success. I hope anyone here could help me; that would be so great. Thanks a lot in advance!

... Marcel

Well this looks like a little confusing to me. Did you follow the instructions I posted here ?
http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...?p=93758#93758
If yes, you should not have that many files in your USB dongle which may confuse the boot process.
And btw, you should delete or rename (at least temporary) any other KNOPPIX directory or KNOPPIX file
you may have on all other partitions or disk drive since that may also confuse the linuxrc boot script.

Anyway I made a new zip file customized for booting Knoppix 4.02 from a usb dongle:
http://s94002264.onlinehome.us/grub/usb_dgle.zip
After formatting your USB dongle with HPUSBFW.EXE pointing to the content of the zip file,
copy the rest of the zip file into your usb dongle but be careful to NOT overwrite the file IO.SYS
and obviously copy the iso knoppix 4.02 file into the /boot/knoppix.402 directory (please keep the lowercase ".iso" extension)
Then after booting from your usb dongle, you should have a first menu proposing to use grub or lilo (both should work but I have a preference for grub)
and if you choose grub you should have a second menu proposing to boot knoppix from the iso on sda1 or sdb1.
In most cases, sda1 will work but with my Thinkpad T43 I have to use the sdb1 option because sda1 is recognized and used by the sata hdd bridge.
Hope this will help you and please let me know how that work for you.
Best Regards,
Gilles

PS: If you have other usb scsi or sata devices on your system, you may need to update some config files
to use /dev/sdc1 or /dev/sd...1, instead of /dev/sda1. The easiest way to know about which device to use
is to boot from the cd and check what device knoppix have assigned to your usb dongle.
Good luck !

**moiz** · 11-07-2005, 02:36 PM

Hello.
I'd like to boot dvd version from d: (I have no place on c

-NTFS. What should I do and how to change the menu.lst?
Dario

**ruymbeke** · 11-07-2005, 06:42 PM

Originally Posted by moiz

Hello.
I'd like to boot dvd version from d: (I have no place on c

-NTFS. What should I do and how to change the menu.lst?
Dario

Boot with the knoppix cd/dvd, check what is the device knoppix will assign to the device you would like to boot from, and modify the file menu.lst accordingly. As an example if the windows d:\ volume is the second partition of your first hdd (as recognized by linux), you will need to change (hd0,0) --> (hd0,1) at the beginning of the kernel and initrd lines, and /dev/hda1 --> /dev/hda2 in the bootfrom= cheatcode of the kernel line. To figure out what is the device assigned to your partition, first click on the device icon on the dashboard and verify that this is the device you are looking for, then open a shell and use the df command to get the device mapping between /mnt/your_d_volume and the /dev/hda... or /dev/sda... Finally when migrating the knoppix boot files from c to d, it is probably a good idea to keep the same filenames and directory tree from the root of the partition. Hope this helps. Please let me know how that works for you.
Best Regards, Gilles