Looks like I can't install syslinux's bootloader on an ntfs partition? What I'd like to do is remotely setup a bootloader to wipe the hard drive contents on old assets. I was kind of hoping, that I could install syslinux on a remote workstation, and then throw a dban image and the corresponding menu and syslinux.cfg files on the remote workstation and then reboot it and have the client choose the option to wipe the hard drive. Unfortunately, the entire hard drive contents is 1 large encrypted ntfs partition. How would any of you guys go about remotely wiping a pc, WITHOUT the ability to create boot media, strictly remote??? oh, and no pxe servers available either :)) Matthew Holevinski
http://boot.kernel.org - pxe without pxe servers being available ;-) - John 'Warthog9' Hawley On 06/16/2010 11:19 AM, Matthew Holevinski wrote:> Looks like I can't install syslinux's bootloader on an ntfs partition? > > What I'd like to do is remotely setup a bootloader to wipe the hard > drive contents on old assets. > I was kind of hoping, that I could install syslinux on a remote > workstation, and then throw a dban > image and the corresponding menu and syslinux.cfg files on the remote > workstation and then reboot it > and have the client choose the option to wipe the hard drive. > > Unfortunately, the entire hard drive contents is 1 large encrypted > ntfs partition. How would any of you guys > go about remotely wiping a pc, WITHOUT the ability to create boot > media, strictly remote??? oh, and no pxe > servers available either :)) > > Matthew Holevinski > > _______________________________________________ > 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.
On 06/16/2010 11:19 AM, Matthew Holevinski wrote:> Looks like I can't install syslinux's bootloader on an ntfs partition? > > What I'd like to do is remotely setup a bootloader to wipe the hard > drive contents on old assets. > I was kind of hoping, that I could install syslinux on a remote > workstation, and then throw a dban > image and the corresponding menu and syslinux.cfg files on the remote > workstation and then reboot it > and have the client choose the option to wipe the hard drive. > > Unfortunately, the entire hard drive contents is 1 large encrypted > ntfs partition. How would any of you guys > go about remotely wiping a pc, WITHOUT the ability to create boot > media, strictly remote??? oh, and no pxe > servers available either :)) >How can you "remotely wipe a PC" without the ability to boot it at all (no boot media, no remote boot)? That seems fundamentally impossible. BKO doesn't solve it, either, since it needs a (very small) piece of boot media. -hpa
Good day Matthew: 1. Syslinux can only access files from within the Syslinux-installed filesystem at this time. That could change in a future version, once filesystem logic has been enhanced. 2. Syslinux cannot be installed on an NTFS filesystem, since there is no Syslinux NTFS filesystem logic at this time. Would an accurate statement about your scenario be: All computers _currently_ are remotely accessible and have Windows installed on their HDDs. If that's the case, were you hoping to use a Windows boot-time menu to chain-boot some flavour of Syslinux and initiate the cleansing process? If so, Ghost used/uses a strategy whereby they write a contiguous partition image file somewhere in the NTFS filesystem, identify the image's start sector, then hack the MBR to include a new partition which points at the sectors occupied by that file, then they set that partition active. On the reboot, BIOS knows nothing about the fact that this partition is actually an image file resident in an NTFS partition. To BIOS, it simply boots it. Such could be a FAT partition image with Syslinux installed. From Syslinux, you could chain a gPXE .lkrn image for pxeknife, etc., etc. - Shao Miller