Syslinux - Mar 2010 - USB Thumbdrive + dos ghost boot image + drive too small = confusion

I will really hate myself if this has already been solved, i searched
the archives but didn't really find anything pertaining to it.

I have a 2.88mb dos boot floppy image, with ghost.exe, dos nic
drivers, and dos system files. It works fine when burnt to a cd.

As for the thumbdrive when trying to configure this hpghost.ima file
to run from my syslinux.cfg menu, it works and boots up fine
but as the computer contacts the ghostcast server and before
downloading the image it says the destination drive is too small.

So it appears as though, ghost is "trying" to copy my ghosted image to
the thumbdrive and not the local hard drive, I don't suppose
someone could lend a helping hand with my syslinux.cfg would you.

Syslinux.cfg contents:
#DEFAULT vesamenu.c32
DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 200
ONTIMEOUT private
MENU TABMSG private

MENU BACKGROUND splash.png
MENU TITLE private

MENU COLOR screen   37;40
MENU COLOR border   30;44
MENU COLOR title    1;36;44
MENU COLOR unsel    37;44
MENU COLOR hotkey   1;37;44
MENU COLOR sel      7;37;40
MENU COLOR hotsel   1;7;37;40
MENU COLOR scrollbar    30;44
MENU COLOR tabmsg   31;40
MENU COLOR cmdmark  1;36;40
MENU COLOR cmdline  37;40
MENU COLOR pwdborder    30;47
MENU COLOR pwdheader    31;47
MENU COLOR pwdentry 30;47
MENU COLOR timeout_msg  37;40
MENU COLOR timeout  1;37;40

MENU WIDTH 80
MENU MARGIN 10
MENU PASSWORDMARGIN 3
MENU ROWS 12
MENU TABMSGROW 18
MENU CMDLINEROW 18
MENU ENDROW 24
MENU PASSWORDROW 11
MENU TIMEOUTROW 20

LABEL private
MENU DEFAULT
MENU LABEL ^1. Private PE
BSS vista.bss

LABEL hpghost
MENU LABEL ^2. HP DC6005 GhostCast Client (Broadcom BCM5761 chipset)
KERNEL memdisk
append initrd=hpghost.ima

LABEL memtest
MENU LABEL ^3. MemTest86+
KERNEL /syslinux/memtest

LABEL gdisk
MENU LABEL ^4. DBAN - Wipe Disk
KERNEL dban
APPEND initrd=dban.gz root=/dev/ram0 init=/rc nuke="dwipe --autonuke
--method dod522022m" floppy=0,16,cmos silent

LABEL INPD
MENU LABEL ^5. Initialize Primary Disk Drive
KERNEL memdisk
append initrd=INPD.ima

LABEL win98
MENU LABEL ^6. Win98 Boot Disk
KERNEL memdisk
append initrd=win98.ima

LABEL RECO
MENU LABEL ^7. RECO PointSec Recovery Tool
KERNEL memdisk
append initrd=reco.IMZ

LABEL boothd
MENU LABEL ^8. Boot First Hard Drive
COM32 chain.c32
APPEND hd1 swap

I'm assuming i'm going to try to have to use that chain thing and
still utilize memdisk or something, once i get to chain i get
confused, any help would be appreciated.

Matthew Holevinski

Matthew Holevinski wrote:
>
> ...So it appears as though, ghost is "trying" to copy my ghosted
image to
> the thumbdrive and not the local hard drive, I don't suppose
> someone could lend a helping hand with my syslinux.cfg would you...
>
This reads quite true.  You wish to boot a MEMDISK floppy and to swap 
BIOS drives 0x80 (your USB when booted from USB) and 0x81 (your HDD when 
booted from USB).

MEMDISK is a combo of {establish RAM disk, boot RAM disk}.

chain.c32 can establish a swapping hook, but chain.c32 also tries to 
boot, as that is its primary purpose.

It might be nice to split these functions apart in Syslinux someday, but 
I don't believe it's currently possible.

Having said that, the responsibility for your drive ordering is the 
BIOS' doing, so any capability Syslinux might offer is a work-around.  
Here's a work-around:

LABEL ghost
  KERNEL memdisk
  INITRD ghost.vfd
  APPEND drive=1

In your ghost.vfd floppy image, use an as-yet-unofficial MDISKCHK.COM[1] 
as part of your AUTOEXEC.BAT startup process:

...
rem Default drive is 0
set DRIVE=0
echo @echo off>setenv.bat
mdiskchk.com -b>>setenv.bat
call setenv.bat
rem setenv.bat might have overridden which drive to use
...

Calling this generated setenv.bat will populate environment variables 
based on kernel arguments to MEMDISK.  You will end up with the 
envionment variable DRIVE=1.  You can then use this in your batch file 
that starts Ghost and pass Ghost the %DRIVE% parameter to choose the 
correct drive.  Be sure to test. :)  Incorporating this allows you to 
use the same floppy image no matter your original boot media; the 
difference will be in your syslinux.cfg file.

- Shao Miller

[1] 
http://git.etherboot.org/?p=people/sha0/syslinux.git;a=tree;f=dosutil;h=1775526ad61d70e52981ce851cfbdae3b40dc7df;hb=9d93d1c005a56842c6026cac7c25af89ae4b241a