[syslinux] Slightly OT: Anyone got a PXE bootable HDD low level format tool?

[Peter.Leenders at computacenter.com]

Hello Tim,

normaly you can use DOS-Bootfloppies with pxelinux and memdisk.
There some points that that may inhibit this:

* Using SATA drives in native mode with DOS (use compatible mode).
* Using a the HD on a raid-controller unter DOS.
* Using DOS floppies from Windows ME or XP without the "raw" or
  "bigraw" option in pxelinux.
* If you use MS-DOS with himem, please use the /testmem:off switch.
* A buggy Bios, e.g.:
  * Some BIOS will not emulate a floppy on pxe, if not a floppy is
    physicaly present at the pc.
  * Some Bios with onboard Marvell Yukon 2 chip will hang if you start
    pxemenu (menu.c32), but it starts pxelinux and memdisk if this is
    hardcoded in the config file.

With WinImage you can make a image of your bootdisk that could be
started via pxe. Just start WinImage, put the floppy inside the drive
an choose 'read disk'. With "save as..." you can save the image of the
floppy on your PXE server.

Put something like this, in your config file to start the bootdisk:

   LABEL lowlevel
      MENU LABEL Lowlevel Format Utility
      KERNEL /...tftp path to memdisk.../memdisk
      APPEND initrd=/...tftp path to bootimage.../bootimage.imz

If you don't need lowlevel formating, but you only want to be shure
everything is erased from your harddisk DBAN may be a alternative for
you. Look for DBAN at http://dban.sourceforge.net/

For implementing DBAN and other system utilities from pxe look at:
http://www.sysresccd.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1157
  (This will make a big pxe boot image on linux system)

Peter Leenders



                                                                           
             Tim Bates                                                     
             <tin at new-life.org                                             
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                                                                   Subject 
             03.09.2007 01:35          [syslinux] Slightly OT: Anyone got  
                                       a PXE bootable HDD low level        
                                       format tool?                        
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Slightly off topic, but does anyone have a utility for low level
formating Maxtor ATA hard disks that can be booted from PXELinux (either
as some kind of binary or as a floppy image)?

I just went to get the official tools, but they only have a floppy
creator (which won't help me in Linux, or without a floppy drive) and a
CD ISO. And it seems 99% of 3rd party software is unhelpfully the same
(or is a Windows program).


TB


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