Syslinux - Aug 2010 - Odd question: memdisk emulate multiple drives?

Is it possible to have memdisk emulate multiple drives?

Here's why I'm asking: I have a Dell server that I replaced the
motherboard.  I want to reset the service tag to the correct tag for the
system, and the only way to do that is to run a Dell tool under DOS.  I
have downloaded the tool, but it is doubly-wrapped: a self-extracting
ZIP file (which I unzipped under Linux) which contains a "Disk eXPress
Self-Extracting Diskette Image".

My server has no floppy or CD, so I am PXE booting a DOS image with
memdisk.  I put the second self-extractor in the image and booted it,
but it deletes all the files on the floppy except for the extracted
file(s), leaving me with the old DOS prompt looking for COMMAND.COM.

I was thinking that if memdisk could emulate both drives, I could point
the extractor at the second drive (okay to delete everything), and then
run the extracted tool.

Any ideas?
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
wrote:
> Is it possible to have memdisk emulate multiple drives?
>
> Here's why I'm asking: I have a Dell server that I replaced the
> motherboard. ?I want to reset the service tag to the correct tag for the
> system, and the only way to do that is to run a Dell tool under DOS. ?I
> have downloaded the tool, but it is doubly-wrapped: a self-extracting
> ZIP file (which I unzipped under Linux) which contains a "Disk eXPress
> Self-Extracting Diskette Image".
>
> My server has no floppy or CD, so I am PXE booting a DOS image with
> memdisk. ?I put the second self-extractor in the image and booted it,
> but it deletes all the files on the floppy except for the extracted
> file(s), leaving me with the old DOS prompt looking for COMMAND.COM.
>
> I was thinking that if memdisk could emulate both drives, I could point
> the extractor at the second drive (okay to delete everything), and then
> run the extracted tool.
>
> Any ideas?
> --
> Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
> Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
> I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
>
Chris:

The last time I needed to solve a problem like this I found that it
was next to impossible.  Memdisk loads the information about the first
disk which will need to be your dos image.

Then dos drivers load and will likely clobber everything that memdisk
had in memory.  Its a common problem with no fix since the problem
isn't strictly with memdisk at all.

I finally had to give up and go get a usb floppy drive and two real
floppy disks and make two real disk images.  After re-reading the
memdisk documentation on the matter, I suspect that you might be out
of luck.


However, I do have a hint or two that you can try.  If the dell disk
image creator creates a disk image with enough available space, you
could try adding the missing command.com files and such and just boot
the one image with the minimal tools you need.

One other possibility is create a hard disk image that is dos
bootable, then copy the files from the dell disk image to the hard
disk image and boot the hard disk image with memdisk.

YMMV

HTH

Rance

On 08/05/2010 08:40 AM, Chris Adams wrote:
> Is it possible to have memdisk emulate multiple drives?
> 
> Here's why I'm asking: I have a Dell server that I replaced the
> motherboard.  I want to reset the service tag to the correct tag for the
> system, and the only way to do that is to run a Dell tool under DOS.  I
> have downloaded the tool, but it is doubly-wrapped: a self-extracting
> ZIP file (which I unzipped under Linux) which contains a "Disk eXPress
> Self-Extracting Diskette Image".
> 
> My server has no floppy or CD, so I am PXE booting a DOS image with
> memdisk.  I put the second self-extractor in the image and booted it,
> but it deletes all the files on the floppy except for the extracted
> file(s), leaving me with the old DOS prompt looking for COMMAND.COM.
> 
> I was thinking that if memdisk could emulate both drives, I could point
> the extractor at the second drive (okay to delete everything), and then
> run the extracted tool.
> 
> Any ideas?
Some people have run memdisk inside memdisk, which makes this possible;
it's not exactly convenient, though.

However, I would suggest that a better way to do what you need is to run
the self-extractor thing inside a virtual machine (KVM, VirtualBox,
Vmware) on another system and when you have the final floppy image
*then* you memdisk it on your target system.

	-hpa

I had a similar issue with the desktop version (which is probably the
same one) of the Dell Service Tag. I ended up using a desktop to extract
the disk image onto an emulated floppy disk
(http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html). I looked to see
what was on it and the disk image was a typical DOS boot disk with 2
additional files: ASSET102.EXE and ASSET209.COM. I'm not sure If I moved
those 2 files to a separate image or just made a new image from the
emulated disk, but I ended up with a flat disk image with both those
files and without the extra compression. Hopefully you can do the same
in your situation.

Jeremy Collins
Technical Specialist 3
Rancho Santiago Community College District


-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Chris Adams
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 8:40 AM
To: syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: [syslinux] Odd question: memdisk emulate multiple drives?

Is it possible to have memdisk emulate multiple drives?

Here's why I'm asking: I have a Dell server that I replaced the
motherboard.  I want to reset the service tag to the correct tag for the
system, and the only way to do that is to run a Dell tool under DOS.  I
have downloaded the tool, but it is doubly-wrapped: a self-extracting
ZIP file (which I unzipped under Linux) which contains a "Disk eXPress
Self-Extracting Diskette Image".

My server has no floppy or CD, so I am PXE booting a DOS image with
memdisk.  I put the second self-extractor in the image and booted it,
but it deletes all the files on the floppy except for the extracted
file(s), leaving me with the old DOS prompt looking for COMMAND.COM.

I was thinking that if memdisk could emulate both drives, I could point
the extractor at the second drive (okay to delete everything), and then
run the extracted tool.

Any ideas?
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

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