[syslinux] Odd question: memdisk emulate multiple drives?

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 08/05/2010 08:40 AM, Chris Adams wrote:
> Is it possible to have memdisk emulate multiple drives?
> 
> Here's why I'm asking: I have a Dell server that I replaced the
> motherboard.  I want to reset the service tag to the correct tag for the
> system, and the only way to do that is to run a Dell tool under DOS.  I
> have downloaded the tool, but it is doubly-wrapped: a self-extracting
> ZIP file (which I unzipped under Linux) which contains a "Disk eXPress
> Self-Extracting Diskette Image".
> 
> My server has no floppy or CD, so I am PXE booting a DOS image with
> memdisk.  I put the second self-extractor in the image and booted it,
> but it deletes all the files on the floppy except for the extracted
> file(s), leaving me with the old DOS prompt looking for COMMAND.COM.
> 
> I was thinking that if memdisk could emulate both drives, I could point
> the extractor at the second drive (okay to delete everything), and then
> run the extracted tool.
> 
> Any ideas?

Some people have run memdisk inside memdisk, which makes this possible;
it's not exactly convenient, though.

However, I would suggest that a better way to do what you need is to run
the self-extractor thing inside a virtual machine (KVM, VirtualBox,
Vmware) on another system and when you have the final floppy image
*then* you memdisk it on your target system.

	-hpa