I am having the darnedest of times trying to get my WinPE to work off the syslinux loader. I used to use isolinux, and my isolinux config would just invoke the etfsboot.com file which i had renamed to loader.bin, and everything would work just fine off a cd. But now I'm trying to transfer all of my cd functionality to thumbdrives. With Syslinux, i have my syslinux.cfg file calling loader.bin like I used to and it doesn't work from the thumbdrive, i'll get these weird CDBOOT: Can't find BOOTMGR messages and stuff I'm curious though, if I freshly format my thumbdrive and just copy my PE files to it and boot off of it, it loads up PE without a glitch, but I can't seem to figure out how to tell syslinux to load my PE OS. My USB stick looks like this: G:\ G:\boot\ G:\EFI\ G:\sources\ G:\bootmgr G:\ldlinux.sys and my syslinux.cfg and menu.c32 files in the root Boot has bcd, boot.sdi, boofix.bin, etfsboot.com (all default from a fresh PE build), and loader.bin which is just etfsboot.com ::My syslinux.cfg looks like this (summarized):: LABEL pe MENU DEFAULT MENU LABEL ^1. PE KERNEL /boot/loader.bin LABEL memtest MENU LABEL ^2. MemTest86+ KERNEL /boot/memtest LABEL gdisk MENU LABEL ^3. Gdisk - Wipe Disk KERNEL memdisk append initrd=gdisk.ima LABEL INPD MENU LABEL ^4. Initialize Primary Disk Drive KERNEL memdisk append initrd=INPD.ima LABEL win98 MENU LABEL ^5. Win98 Boot Disk KERNEL memdisk append initrd=win98.ima LABEL RECO MENU LABEL ^6. RECO PointSec Recovery Tool KERNEL memdisk append initrd=reco.IMZ LABEL boothd MENU LABEL ^7. Boot First Hard Drive localboot 0x80 LABEL bootFlop MENU LABEL ^8. Boot Floppy localboot 0x00
Hey Matthew. How about using chain.c32 to chain BOOTMGR as an NTLDR? I haven't tried Vista yet, but maybe you could think about chain.c32. It's documentation is in its source code at com32/modules/chain.c Also, I believe that SYSLINUX uses file extensions to know how to boot what "kernels". In doc/syslinux.txt there is a section which describes using "commands" other than "kernel" which force the "kernel"-type. I would get into the habit of using them. LABEL VistaPE COM32 chain.c32 APPEND ntldr=bootmgr I hope this helps, somehow. - Shao Miller
Matthew Holevinski wrote:> I am having the darnedest of times trying to get my WinPE to work off > the syslinux loader. > I used to use isolinux, and my isolinux config would just invoke the > etfsboot.com file which > i had renamed to loader.bin, and everything would work just fine off a > cd. But now I'm trying > to transfer all of my cd functionality to thumbdrives. >Is there any reason you specifically want to use Syslinux? You can boot PE off a USB thumbdrive without it. Paul
Eek! 'dd if=\\.\E: of=vista.bin count=1 --progress' - Shao -----Original Message----- From: Miller, Shao Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 22:56 To: 'For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa' Subject: RE: [syslinux] Syslinux + USB + PE 2.0 Matthew: While your USB stick is formatted by Vista (or whoever) and in a "working" state, use Linux DD or DD for Windows to copy off the working boot-sector. Some of this depends on whether or not your USB stick is partitioned, or if it is in a "superfloppy" format. If you are using DD for Windows, try 'dd --list' for a list of devices. If you are partitioned, you want to do something like 'dd if=\\.\E: of=vista.bin --progress'. If you are not partitioned, you still want to do the same thing. :) This way, you are always grabbing the partition's boot sector. Then you install SYSLINUX, then you can chain to the boot-sector file you saved. I wish I could offer more, but I haven't yet tried to chain to Vista's BOOTMGR. Sorry. - Shao Miller -----Original Message----- From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On Behalf Of Matthew Holevinski Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 19:43 To: paul at attryde.com; For discussion of Syslinux and tftp-hpa Subject: Re: [syslinux] Syslinux + USB + PE 2.0 Well because of all the other tools I'd like to use, and syslinux seems to be the appropriate choice. Just can't seem to figure out how to copy off the working bootsector from this thumbdrive when it does work and then invoke it through syslinux. Does or has anyone used syslinux to boot vista's bootmgr? Matt On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Paul Attryde <paul at attryde.com> wrote:> Matthew Holevinski wrote: >> >> I am having the darnedest of times trying to get my WinPE to work off >> the syslinux loader. >> I used to use isolinux, and my isolinux config would just invoke the >> etfsboot.com file which >> i had renamed to loader.bin, and everything would work just fine offa>> cd. But now I'm trying >> to transfer all of my cd functionality to thumbdrives. >> > > Is there any reason you specifically want to use Syslinux? > You can boot PE off a USB thumbdrive without it. > > Paul > > _______________________________________________ > 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. > >_______________________________________________ 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.