[syslinux] SDI loading patch

[a178235]

I did not test the SDI patch before I made you aware of it and I am not the author of it. I tested both syslinux-2.11-sdi.tar.gz and sdi.c32 which didn’t work. I don’t know if I have a correct Vista SDI file to test with and this may be a mute point once chain loading wdsnbp.com is working, although this may still not work. What I did test is merging the unmodified Windows AIK boot.sdi and winpe.wim files using” copy /b boot.sdi + winpe.wim winpe.sdi” and replacing the \RemoteInstall\Boot\boot.sdi with the new winpe.sdi file. When I PXE booted from WDS, it started the generic WinPE, winpe.wim, instead of the customized LiteTouch boot image, which shows that you can append a WIM file to the end of boot.sdi and it will load, at least in a WDS environment which loads wdsnbp.com, pxeboot.com, bootmgr.exe, BCD, and boot.sdi. The original boot.sdi has an empty WIM BLOB entry at the end after the PART BLOB which it why appending a WIM file to the end works.
  I tried many of the tricks, such as creating a BOOT BLOB with startrom.com and LOAD BLOB with ntldr, but that didn’t work, but I was trying to get it to load the appended Vista WIM file.
  I have found several articles containing source code to SDI loading below:
  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms838543.aspx
http://kolk.kiev.ua/sdi/sdi.h
http://skolk.livejournal.com/1320.html
http://bbs.znpc.net/redirect.php?tid=4554&goto=lastpost
  I’m just trying to find any way to load Windows Vista PE using gPXELinux over HTTP. If someone has a known working SDI file, that may help, but it will need to have a BOOT BLOB.

"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:  Andrew Stuart wrote:
> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> 
>>> I have a small sdi for booting Vista installs, but I think it relies 
>>> on a few other files as well. If I can get a binary of the com32 I can 
>>> figure out what files you need and tar it up for you.
>>> (I don't use / have access to a linux box currently)
>> http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/syslinux/sdi.c32
>>
>> -hpa
> 
> Okay, I need to take off for the evening. I didn't have any luck. The 
> image I built works off cd, but by being booted from sdi.c32 fails. 
> Before I say it's broken though, I want to review the documentation that 
> goes along with the inital patch, to see if there is anything special I 
> need to do.
> 

I appreciate the help.

It might be worth building the original patch (which looks like it's 
against syslinux-2.11) and see if that boots the image or not. I built 
what still builds of syslinux-2.11 with current tools, with the patch, 
and put it at:

http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/syslinux/syslinux-2.11-sdi.tar.gz

It's actually kind of shocking looking at this old code and realizing 
just how much development has happened between then and now...

-hpa

_______________________________________________
SYSLINUX mailing list
Submissions to SYSLINUX at zytor.com
Unsubscribe or set options at:
http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
Please do not send private replies to mailing list traffic.



       
---------------------------------
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.