[syslinux] memdisk - reboot loaded image

Puckett, Richard H. richard.puckett at ngc.com
Tue Apr 5 17:15:28 PDT 2005


Thanks for the information.

I have a "reboot" program, but I was looking for a way to reuse
the floppy image already loaded by memdisk -- to reload the floppy
boot sector and re-bootstrap DOS off the virtual floppy.  I suspect
that even if I am able to actually execute this, that DOS will complain.

I was looking for a way for the user to enter some configuration
information, re-partition (and reboot), and continue with the installation.

I presently do this from an actual bootable floppy, but have a new
requirement is to support a floppyless boot by booting from a CD-ROM
(in floppy emulation mode) which makes the floppy image read-only and
persistent writable storage unavailable (pre-repartition anyway).

Looks like I'll have to pursue other avenues of thought on this 
(like Windows PE or Linux) that support dynamic repartitioning
w/o requiring rebooting.

Thank you again.

- Rick

-----Original Message-----
From: Murali Krishnan Ganapathy [mailto:gmurali at cs.uchicago.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2005 8:00 PM
To: Puckett, Richard H.
Cc: syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: Re: [syslinux] memdisk - reboot loaded image


To reboot
---------
You can write a really small program to do this.
Create a file called "reboot.com". The assembly code should be

JMP FFFF:0000

thats it. This location contains the BIOS code which reboots the 
machine. You should be able to create this using the "debug.exe" utility 
in three lines.

If you are unable to do this, let me know, I will try to get the .COM file.

To save information
-------------------
No, you cannot make any changes to the image, when you boot off the 
memdisk image. Depending on what information you want to save and what 
it is for, you might be able to something about it.

- Murali

Puckett, Richard H. wrote:
> Is there a method to reboot a memdisk (floppy) image?
> 
> I'm working on a DOS-based installation floppy that needs to repartition the hard disk
> prior to proceeding.  DOS will only recognize the updated partition table after a reboot, but
> I'd like to be able to save information to the currently loaded memdisk floppy disk and
> simply reboot the image.  Possible?
> 
> I haven't had any luck with pboot, loadlin (for reasons discussed in the archives), or other
> programs I have available.  I would think this is possible as the memdisk provided RAM disk
> is loaded prior to DOS.  Am I missing something here?
> 
> Any insights would be appreciated.
> 
> - Rick
> 
> 
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