Syslinux - Jun 2003 - Re: WinME command.com (was Re: Problems with Memdisk 2.04)

Hi,

I've got the same Problem. Not with WinMe but Win 98SE. But what I figured
out is,
that it doesn't realy apply to the Command.com rather to the Way the
BootImage was created.
It took me a long time to get my Hands on a Image with 2.8MB that's working.
Since creating one
my self, was allways failling. I downloaded the Bootutils 4.3 from 3com and
used the Imageedit tools.
With these tools it should be possible to to read in an bootable Disk and
extend this one to I think
16MB none exept the original Size of 1.44M worked for me. So searched the
Net and finaly found a
2.8M Image where I could boot from. deleted all the files in side of it and
put DOS7(win98se) german in it.
And I could getit to work.

Now I'm having another problem "MEMORY" with out any thing loaded
I've got
517KB for DOS, loading himem.sys and emm386.exe couldn't help me as much as
I was hoping.
since I'm loading a lot of network stuff, most of it get's load in to
the
normal memory, 'cause
EMM can't get his hands on some MEM-Pages to switch Frames to the Rest of my
unused 256MB,
because of low free addresses (Axxx-Fxxx) I think MEMDISK and/or the
DiskImage is sitting in it.

I was trying to get a share on the SAMBA-Server for accessing Images with
ghost 7.5.
We have a couple motherboards from different firms and what I figured out is
the available Memory
is not equal on every configuration. On some Platforms it's working out of
the Box and on some
ghost is complaining low memory. Other than this when I restore or save an
Image with ghost 7.5
the server has a havy duty serving the client so that other clients having
slower access to there shares.

OK I thought, let's give NFS a try. But since the normal TCP-Stack from MS
is not all to make NFS Happy,
I need to load another MS-Utility called sockets.exe, only ca. 330K Mem left
for operations. So I tried
(SUN's PC-NFS 5.1, Netmanages Versions) I found another inside of the SuSE
distris. Since I only
need the client Stuff I thought It can't be that bad. Boom it is.

The reason is, why I'm using the client found on the SuSE distries, is that
SUN's and NetMange NFS
clients are also Server, and need those registrations. but when I'm working
on a Image in one House
and some one else is working on another one, I've got the Problem, that the
cleint will figure out, that
the Serialnumber that I used to create the Image is already used by some one
else and will create
an error Message that I've got 10 Minutes to go until the NFS-Driver stops
working.

I was looking at the "NETBOOT V 0.9.8" they do I think almost the
same, you
are loading the initial
bootloader and right after this your boot Image, and inside the BootImage
there is a special driver
for a RAMDISK, as fas as I understood this stuff, that will load the whole
initial Ramdisk into another
one at a higher region of Memory and destroy the initial one.

I tried the driver with memdisk, but the driver complained, that it could
find the initial RAMDISK.
Than I tried to build a disk Image with the tools from NETBOOT mknbi-dos but
it wouldn't boot
because I think they are building some kind of bootsector the memdisk don't
like.

Like I said at the Top, I don't think it is a command.com problem rather
than a problem
with the Bootsector of the Image in use.

I tried this stuff with

dd, mkdosfs, copying all the stuff in it.
dd, fdisk, mkdosfs, copying
A small partition on a HD, format /s, copying , dd from it

Then mkdiskimage from the syslinux (2.05-pre1)

None of this stuff worked out for me.
the only Image which was bigger then 1.4M, was the one I downloaded from the
Internet.

All the other Images stopped working right after

.
.
Loading Boot secotr ... Booting ...


Any advice what I'm doping wrong here ??

I'm trying this boot and memory stuff now for more than 2 weeks.
Searching the Internet for Ideas.

What I need is, MS-TCP/IP with maybe some sort of SMB- in it and
a free nfs-client to experiment with, since I know how it works with SMB.
As far as I collected Information NFS with UDP-Transfers, since it is faster
than
TCP, none of my clients are runnig over router, so the UDP-Stuff shouldn't
be a problem
except it's faster.

What would help also is a configuration advise how to setup DHCP with TFTP
to
get a Multicast Stuff working with a simple packetdriver loaded instead of
the
MS-TCP/IP stack.

My current configuration is a mixture of MS-Stack, bundled with a patched
version
from the last dis_pkt9 Package. Plus a huge enviroment-Variables Pointing to
the Serving DHCP-Server, MAC-Address, IP-Adress, Netmask, STD-GW etc.
Frome those ENV-Variables I created some DOS-Names (one depending on the
MAC-Adress,
one debending on the IP-Adress, everyone created with a bunch of AWK and
SED-Scripts)
to do a quick and flexible Client-Depending Backup and Restore, build inside
of a Menu.

If somebody has interess looking what I've did so far, please Mail me.

By the way does anybody has a DOS-Version of NSLOOKUP, ARP, TRACEROUTE that
works with the
MS-TCP/IP-Stack (Freeware please) I could find any.

I wish every one a nice Day

Andy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andreas Kneiseler
Netzwerk-Management & Security
AUMAV (Automatisiertes Mahnverfahren)
Amtsgericht Wedding
13357 Berlin
Brunnenplatz 1
Tel.:  +49-(0)30-9(0)156-671
FAX : +49-(0)30-9(0)156-203
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~