USB Multi Partition/Multi Boot

[elazar]

Hi,

I have been experimenting with multi-booting my SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 4GB using multiple partitions. Here is what I have done so far:

1. Created 3 primary partitions on the drive by using the Hitachi Microdrive driver from xpefiles.com so that I XP sees it as a fixed disk(if anybody knows of a utility for this drive to permanently flip the removable media bit, please share )

Partition 1: Various Linux distros

Partition 2: UBCD4Win (Windows 2003 Server Ent R2 SP2)

Partition 3: BartPE (Windows 2003 Server Ent)

2. Made all 3 partitions bootable using syslinux(syslinux'd each one)

3. I am using ldntldr.bin from GrubUtils loadbin(http://download.gna.org/grubutil/) to load setupldr.bin on the PE partitions.

Like this:

Main syslinux.cfg

kernel chain.c32

append hd0 2

2nd Partition syslinux.cfg: UBCD4Win

linux ldntldr.bin

append initrd=setupldr.bin

When I boot either of the PE partitions, I get a BSOD 0x0000007b in the middle of the boot logo. The interesting thing is, both of them booted fine when the drive was partitioned as a single partition. I am assuming that it is either an issue with the removable bit or maybe something to do with the USB driver load order(this really would not make sense though, because it would have never booted when everything was on a single partition if this was the issue). If anyone could shed some light on this, I would really appreciate it.

TIA,

Elazar

Edited January 10, 2008 by elazar

[jaclaz]

You need to hide partitions at boot time and/or swap partitions.

Here is an example:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Multiple-Partiti...11.html&hl=

Read these also:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=2568&hl=

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18846

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=20089&hl=

And this one for the newish Partnew/in-situ capabilities of grub4dos:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...amp;#entry25696

About the bit flipping utility, the Vid & Pid of your stick may help, see here:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15776

Most probably this one:

http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/DesignSupportTools/

http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/File/OEM/Des...b-test-tool.exe

will work, but of course NO WARRANTY implied, I have no idea if it even has the option to do the bit flipping.

jaclaz

Edited January 11, 2008 by jaclaz

[elazar]

Thanks jaclaz Im gonna work on this over the weekend. I did experiment with loading grub4dos from syslinux which worked nicely, but I still got 0x0000007b from BartPE, right before it BSODs I noticed that it does attempt to read from the machines harddisk, maybe it is a driver issue. Anyhow, I found that hiding the other partitions does not help and I get NTDETECT failed with map:

hd0 = usb

hd1 = harddisk

map (hd0) (hd1)

map (hd1) (hd0)

map --hook

rootnoverify (hd0,2) '3rd partition, bartpe

chainloader (hd0,2)/setupldr.bin

boot

Anyhow, I appreciate the help, I am going to try this same setup on a different drive and see what happens.

Elazar

[jaclaz]

Wait a minute, I never tried it but if the stick is seen as "Removable" you might need somehow to use the Hitachi Microdrive Filter (or the alternative dummydisk.sys) on the PE build as well:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=17701&st=4

The other workaround, as only hinted above, is to use the "makenew" and/or "makeactive" feature, in order to "place" the BartPE as the ONLY visible (without the filter) partition on the stick.

Do also have a look at this one:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...18031&st=20

as I love to say booting from USB involves some kind of magic....

jaclaz

Edited January 11, 2008 by jaclaz

[elazar]

Well, I bit the bullet. I went out and and picked up a Lexar Jumdrive Lightning2 2GB, used the USB format tool to flip the removable bit, I setup 2 partitions on it, one 500MB(Active,Boot) and the other the rest of the drive(1.38GB). I then made the drive bootable using syslinux, built UBCD4WIN using Windows 2003 Server R2 SP2, renamed i386 to minint and setupldr to ntldr, copied it to the 2nd partition and lo and behold! it booted just fine on my Thinkpad T42. So it is the removable bit after all, I called Sandisk, and for the record, I was told that they do not have a tool that will flip the bit in the firmware, which sucks because I really like my Cruzer. Anyhow, I started experimenting with turning the Hitachi driver into a plugin, I don't think it is going to work though because filter drivers such as that cannot be loaded by txtsetup. Anyone up for writing a disk.sys clone that ignores the RMB?

Elazar

[jaclaz]

Anyhow, I started experimenting with turning the Hitachi driver into a plugin, I don't think it is going to work though because filter drivers such as that cannot be loaded by txtsetup. Anyone up for writing a disk.sys clone that ignores the RMB?

Elazar

I am not really an expert on PE plugins, but it seems to me easier to try that way rather than re-write a NT Kernel driver.

However, being the "Hitachi Microdrive Filter" a driver like any other one, should be possible to add it like any driver:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/help/english/drivers.htm

This thread has a clear howto on how the .inf should be adapted:

http://www.ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?sh...=2531&st=10

The only person I know that could write a new disk.sys is Alter:

http://alter.org.ua/en/

http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/

jaclaz

[amir007]

Hi Alazar,

I just bought 8G sandisk cruzer and I don't know how to make it bootable for my laptop.

If you're living in Israel, can you please send me some instructions (in Hebrew if you can to ettyoo7@walla.com)

about it?

Is there any simple and "one button push" to do it ?

Thanks, Amir