Syslinux - Dec 2003 - Pxelinux/memdisk with XP "MS-DOS" boot disk

I'm trying to use this universal DOS TCP/IP boot disk available here:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~bdriver/bootdisk/

It requires an MS-DOS formatted disk created by Windows XP.  It works great as a
floppy but doesn't boot at all with memdisk.  The problem can be simplified
down to just the XP boot disk.  If you make an MS-DOS startup disk with XP on a
floppy, dd the floppy to an image file and try to boot it with pxelinux/memdisk,
it hangs.  It just says "Starting..." and won't even respond to
ctrl+alt+del.  I've booted lots of PC-DOS, MS-DOS, Linux, and BIOS flash
disks with no problems, but this one just won't run.

Any ideas how to debug this?

dpetersen55 at new.rr.com wrote:
> I'm trying to use this universal DOS TCP/IP boot disk available here:
> 
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~bdriver/bootdisk/
> 
> It requires an MS-DOS formatted disk created by Windows XP.  It works great
as a floppy but doesn't boot at all with memdisk.  The problem can be
simplified down to just the XP boot disk.  If you make an MS-DOS startup disk
with XP on a floppy, dd the floppy to an image file and try to boot it with
pxelinux/memdisk, it hangs.  It just says "Starting..." and won't
even respond to ctrl+alt+del.  I've booted lots of PC-DOS, MS-DOS, Linux,
and BIOS flash disks with no problems, but this one just won't run.
> 
> Any ideas how to debug this?
> 
Is there an autoexec.bat/config.sys or the equivalent on the disk?  If 
so it might be possible to hit <f8> (is that right?) and single-step 
loading the drivers one after another.  It's probably HIMEM.SYS or 
EMM386.EXE or whatever the equivalents are that are causing pain.

Either that or it has the FreeDOS bug and assumes "one disk with EBIOS = 
all disks with EBIOS" which is incorrect (and won't work with a 
controller on a card.)

	-hpa

dpetersen55 at new.rr.com writes:
> I'm trying to use this universal DOS TCP/IP boot disk available here:
> 
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~bdriver/bootdisk/
> 
> It requires an MS-DOS formatted disk created by Windows XP.  It
> works great as a floppy but doesn't boot at all with memdisk.
I do not know the answer to your question.

However...  If all you need is to boot DOS from the network and map
Windows shares, the Unattended project provides DOS network boot disks
for many network cards.  And it uses pxelinux+memdisk for network
booting.  See:

    http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

As long as you are using PXE to boot, you do not actually need to
worry about different network drivers.  A single "universal" driver
will do, because it can use the UNDI stack; you just have to give the
"keeppxe" option to pxelinux.  The undis3c.img disk image in the
distribution is what I use to get a network-enabled DOS shell booted
using PXE.

 - Pat

the problem in the "XP dos-floppy" is the kernel that is used: Windows
Millennium Edition 's diskette IO.SYS (msdos ver 8.00)

I have heared earlier about this "IO.sys + MEMDISK" bug, I think
somewhere in the 911CD forums [ http://www.911cd.net/forums/ ]
too bad, since the kernel supports LFN, fat32 and has the size of old MSDOS
kernels.

it SHOULD be possible to use FreeDOS by now.
however, it has another config.sys multimenu-style

a nice trick I'm using is bootdisk + syslinux -> load compressed
imagefile using memdisk (2.88MB for example).
this should eliminate any "I have to use a 220KB io.sys because MS decided
to include the bootlogo bitmap in my kernel" problem.
(same for emm386 for example).

Patrick, please see  
http://www.fdos.org/ripcord/beta9rc4/bugsolve/bootdisk.img

and test if you can use FreeDOS kernel by now for your unattended project.
this kernel.sys is a CVS release dated 22-12-2003 
I still have to test if I can install win98 with it (Bochs, Vmware).

be very afraid of the fdauto.bat I created :)

FreeDOS boots OK from a PXE server (I used the Windows TFTP server mentioned on
HPA's site). VMware 4.1 now has PXE (boot-from-lan) support.

I can't use any Etherboot project stuff since it requires a tagged image.
..which can only be done under Linux.

I'm still searching for a DOS TFTP client btw. I just need to retrieve one
file, so MS Client is a waste.
(boot from lan -> pxelinux -> dos bootimage -> tftp client ->
download ISO to harddisk -> mount it with a DOS tool -> install FreeDOS).

Bernd Blaauw

dpetersen55 at new.rr.com wrote:
> I'm trying to use this universal DOS TCP/IP boot disk available here:
> 
> http://members.iinet.net.au/~bdriver/bootdisk/
> 
> It requires an MS-DOS formatted disk created by Windows XP.  It works great
as a floppy but doesn't boot at all with memdisk.  The problem can be
simplified down to just the XP boot disk.  If you make an MS-DOS startup disk
with XP on a floppy, dd the floppy to an image file and try to boot it with
pxelinux/memdisk, it hangs.  It just says "Starting..." and won't
even respond to ctrl+alt+del.  I've booted lots of PC-DOS, MS-DOS, Linux,
and BIOS flash disks with no problems, but this one just won't run.
> 
> Any ideas how to debug this?
Yes - there's a whole plethora of DOS/Windows boot disks on the web
somewhere, and there's a FreeDOS bootdisk with SuSE Linux for example. All
of these images work fine with memdisk. 

XP? Uaaah. 

-- 
Rule 46, Oxford Union Society, London:
	Any member introducing a dog into the Society's premises shall
be liable to a fine of one pound.  Any animal leading a blind person
shall be deemed to be a cat.

At 11:00 AM 1/1/2004, you wrote:
>Did you read my earlier reply?
>
>If you are booting via PXE, then you do not need any kind of "network
>card auto-detection".  A single DOS network driver (undis3c.dos) will
>support *all* PXE-capable network cards.  (Not 60, or 100, but all of
>them, present and future.)  This is one of the beauties of PXE.
>
>  - Pat
Many of the PCs don't have PXE (or one that works properly), so I'm
looking
for a way to get it to work the same whether booted from a floppy, bootable 
CD, or PXE.  I could make one disk image and one PXE, but I'm trying to 
avoid having to maintain two different boot processes.

I've had some success using FreeDOS instead of the XP boot kernel, so that 
may be the way to go.  Thanks for your suggestion though, I'll keep that in 
mind when most PCs that need to be booted this way are able to use 
PXE.  We're getting there, slowly...