[syslinux] Windows harddisk images.

[Christian Marg]

Luis.F.Correia wrote:

>The image you are trying to load is too large, 500Mb?
>  
>
Well, I once tried to load an image about 220 Mb via TFTP. It took a 
while, but it worked.

His problem is that he just extracts a partition, not a disk image. The 
partition table is missing. Perhaps he should try to use some Imaging 
Software or just boot a Linux-Rescuedisk an write the Image via "dd".

>You will never be able to fully load a windows system from a read only
>drive.
>  
>
Who is talking about a readonly drive? Well, the writes are not 
persistent over reboots, but that shouldn't bother Windows much if you 
don't have changed configuration data...

>Since I'm not that an expert at Linux, I would like to know how I can
>*succesfully* generate a bootable image from a partition.
>  
>
Well, the system supports two different image types: Floppy Images and 
Disk images. Floppy disk Images start with a Bootsector as you described 
it, but Disk images have to start with a Partition Table. If you image 
Drive E: you don't save the Partition table with it: Your Disk image is 
incomplete.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Blaauw,Bernd B. [mailto:B.Blaauw at student.fontys.nl] 
>Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2003 3:01 AM
>To: 'syslinux at zytor.com'
>Subject: [syslinux] Windows harddisk images.
>
>  
>
>Now I plug in my SCSI disk into it's controller, so I can boot from SCSI
>into Win2000. There I image the Win98 partition on the IDE disk with
>WinImage (use E:, read disk).
>  
>
Windows is not really appropriate for this task (may not be impossible, 
but I don't know how one would do it correctly). You want to try this 
using Linux, or search some tool you can use in DOS.

>but after a minute of 2 loading into RAM, it fails actually booting:
>"Invalid BootDisk. Replace diskette and hit a key to continue"
>
>So, what am I doing wrong?
>Is there a Windows solution?
>I've read of dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hda2/win98.img , but which action does
>WinImage not do?
>
>opening the win98.img in WinImage shows file contents, and bootsector
>MSWIN4.0
>
>Is there any decent Windows replacement software, or what are my
>alternatives? Syslinux docs easily talk about "1 partition, no guarantees to
>work", but is this exactly what I should expect if it does not work as
>intended (diskless computer, with win98/office working in RAM)
>
Well, afaik we already booted Windows 98 directly using a bootable 
CD-Rom. That was for a Kiosk application. Your approach seems OK, but 
the users should know that their "Harddrive" actually only is a Ramdrive...

bye
Christian