Syslinux - Mar 2008 - Howto create hd image with bootable (Free)DOS system

Hello,

I have to update the BIOS of several hundreds of geographically
distributed PCs.
Since we are using PXELINUX for years to install the OS (Linux) on this
PCs PXELINUX is my
first choice for doing this job.

The vendor of this PCs provides a bootable ISO image for the update.
Because of the size of the
firmware it is not possible to use a FD image (not even 2.88MB).  But in
the documentation
of PXELINUX there's a hint that bootable hd images are also supported by
PXELINUX.

I've no success on creating such an image so far. Does anyone have
successfull created such an
image and can give me a short howto for this?

Kind regards,
Dominik

Dominik Fischer wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have to update the BIOS of several hundreds of geographically
> distributed PCs.
> Since we are using PXELINUX for years to install the OS (Linux) on this
> PCs PXELINUX is my
> first choice for doing this job.
> 
> The vendor of this PCs provides a bootable ISO image for the update.
> Because of the size of the
> firmware it is not possible to use a FD image (not even 2.88MB).  But in
> the documentation
> of PXELINUX there's a hint that bootable hd images are also supported
by
> PXELINUX.
> 
> I've no success on creating such an image so far. Does anyone have
> successfull created such an
> image and can give me a short howto for this?
> 
The easiest is usually to use a simulator, such as Qemu.

	-hpa

I have added some howto's to the syslinux wiki for this. The hard disk image
one is not complete (a few pieces are missing -- I haven't done this
myself). Also you might consider a non-standard FD image (I have used a 10MB
FD image without issues).

- Murali

On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 7:05 AM, Dominik Fischer <dom_fischer at web.de>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have to update the BIOS of several hundreds of geographically
> distributed PCs.
> Since we are using PXELINUX for years to install the OS (Linux) on this
> PCs PXELINUX is my
> first choice for doing this job.
>
> The vendor of this PCs provides a bootable ISO image for the update.
> Because of the size of the
> firmware it is not possible to use a FD image (not even 2.88MB).  But in
> the documentation
> of PXELINUX there's a hint that bootable hd images are also supported
by
> PXELINUX.
>
> I've no success on creating such an image so far. Does anyone have
> successfull created such an
> image and can give me a short howto for this?
>
> Kind regards,
> Dominik
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>

-- 
Murali

?????? ?? ??? ????, ???????? ??????
(What we know is only a handful, what we dont is the rest of the world)

Dominik Fischer wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have to update the BIOS of several hundreds of geographically
> distributed PCs.
> Since we are using PXELINUX for years to install the OS (Linux) on this
> PCs PXELINUX is my
> first choice for doing this job.
> 
> The vendor of this PCs provides a bootable ISO image for the update.
> Because of the size of the
> firmware it is not possible to use a FD image (not even 2.88MB).  But in
> the documentation
> of PXELINUX there's a hint that bootable hd images are also supported
by
> PXELINUX.
> 
> I've no success on creating such an image so far. Does anyone have
> successfull created such an
> image and can give me a short howto for this?
> 
> Kind regards,
> Dominik
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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.
> 
> 
> 
Out of interest, what vendor is this? (and what on earth bios is so huge?)

We use 2.88's fairly extensively to boot UNDI networked dos images to 
flash our bioses on our classroom boxes, so we can pull an uri in our 
install system before rebooting the machine.

I seem to remember some success making a vmware instance with a small 
hard disk image (say 40M), then booting it to a shell off the network, 
and using dd to make an image of the disk (bootloader and all) to feed 
memdisk.

However, it's a long time since I did this, so my memory might be faulty.

--
ian

Hello again,
thank you for the numerous answers to my question. I've decided to use
qemu for the creation of the diskimage. This works very well. I
sucessfully
updated my Thinkpad T61 with this image booted over pxelinux.

Regards,
Dominik

Am 12.3.2008 schrieb "Dominik Fischer" <dom_fischer at web.de>:
>Hello,
>
>I have to update the BIOS of several hundreds of geographically
>distributed PCs.
>Since we are using PXELINUX for years to install the OS (Linux) on this
>PCs PXELINUX is my
>first choice for doing this job.
>
>The vendor of this PCs provides a bootable ISO image for the update.
>Because of the size of the
>firmware it is not possible to use a FD image (not even 2.88MB).  But in
>the documentation
>of PXELINUX there's a hint that bootable hd images are also supported by
>PXELINUX.
>
>I've no success on creating such an image so far. Does anyone have
>successfull created such an
>image and can give me a short howto for this?
>
>Kind regards,
>Dominik
>
>_______________________________________________
>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.
>
>

Op 13-03-2008 om 14:26 schreef poorani:
> How to compile syslinux using mingw in windows.
> Tell me how to set path. Kindly help to compile syslinux
What about http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2008-March/009601.html ?


Cheers
Geert Stappers

P.S.
Visit http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2008-March/thread.html
to see how ugly it is to hyjack a mailthread.
(Please use a fresh E-mail for a fresh subject)