USB Flash + WinXP + ERD Commander + *nix

[broknindarkagain]

SOLVED

I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the right place or not - but I couldn't think of a better place for it...so if its in the wrong forum, can a mod please move it?

I'm new to this site, and I was hoping that someone could give me a little advise.

I'm trying to figure out how to make somewhat of a custom USB Flash boot disk. I've looked all over the internet and I can't really find anything helpful. This is basically suppose to be an "all-in-one" diagnostics and repair tool. This will be something I use on my own PC as well as other PCs - so any config needs to remain on the flash drive.

I have an 8gig PNY Attache USB flash drive. When booted off the flash - I want a menu of the following options :

1 - Boot Windows XP from local hard drive (c:/)

2 - Boot ERD Commander from USB Flash

3 - Boot **** Small Linux from USB Flash (this is up in the air - I'm not sure if I will include *nix yet)

I've been able to to get the USB flash to boot into ERD Commander....but no option screen for what I want to boot....It just goes right into it.

I was thinking of doing something with a boot loader like Grub.....but don't even know where to begin with it since I have next to no experience doing anything with boot loaders.....especially USB Flash boots.

Does anyone have any advise that they can share with me? I've scoured the net for a few days now and I've come up empty handed...I don't know if its been done or not....I'm sure there is a way to do it....

Thanks for any help

Edited April 4, 2009 by broknindarkagain

[Ponch]

.....but don't even know where to begin with

... I've scoured the net for a few days now and I've come up empty handed...

Rejoice, you're almost there.

Check USB_Multiboot_10 from the "Install XP from USB" sub forum. It has plenty of options and possibility that will get you even closer to what you want.

-running XP from local HD (though you don't need a stick for that, do you )

-running IMA files

-running DOS

and others

[Andromeda43]

Brokn------

With the right software and a little knowledge of DOS, what you want to do is about a ten minute job.

Starting from scratch......

first you need to make the Flash Drive (FD) bootable.

The little program from HP does that in seconds.

here it is: http://www.box.net/shared/static/nkibqo9jvs.exe

Then you need the DOS boot files. The easy way is to let the

program get them from a DOS boot floppy, but hey....

if you don't have a boot floppy or a floppy drive at all, then

you can download the three files needed, here:

http://www.box.net/shared/q2pe2jetfz

Unzip these files into a new folder and point the Format Tool

to that folder when it asks you where it should get the dos boot files.

I believe the dos files are in a self extracting 7zip file. Just drop it in a new

folder and click the file to start the extraction process.

OK....once the Flash Drive is bootable to a DOS prompt, you need to write several

files. First you need to create an "Autoexec.bat" file, to load a DOS menu.

The simplest DOS menu is a text file, like this:

1. Run Memtest86

2. Run NTFS4DOS

3. Run Ghost

4. Run Spinrite6

Type a number and press ENTER key.

Each number is a little batch file, that actually runs the selected program and returns you to the menu when the program ends.

Then you just need the Menu.bat file to clear the screen and print the menu.txt file to the screen.

With all the expertise in this forum, I know someone will come up with something else, but I've

been doing these DOS menus since about 1980 and they just work great.

Here's the menu from my Windows ME boot disk. I have this on a floppy, a Flash Drive and even a CD.

Life is so much simpler when you have a floppy disk drive.

To get the above floppy, shown in the color photo, onto a Flash Drive, I formatted my FD

using the program linked to above, then I just copied all the files

from my DOS boot floppy to the FD and then I could add more programs

onto the much larger FD than would fit on the floppy disk.

Once the FD was just the way I wanted it, I used NERO to burn the FD to a CD.

It's all 'Do'able' ,,,, and once you've done it.....it's so easy to edit your menu.txt file and add

more programs.

A bank pres. in a small-town bank, showed me how to do this stuff, OH SO Many Years Ago.

Good Luck,

[jaclaz]

@Andromeda43

I am failing to see ANY flavour of DOS among the requested items:

I have an 8gig PNY Attache USB flash drive. When booted off the flash - I want a menu of the following options :

1 - Boot Windows XP from local hard drive (c:/)

2 - Boot ERD Commander from USB Flash

3 - Boot **** Small Linux from USB Flash (this is up in the air - I'm not sure if I will include *nix yet)

and your approach seems "DOS" only...:whistling:

@broknindarkagain

As suggested by Ponch, have a look here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157

particularly here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=111406

then jump to here :

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089

and if you want to learn more about grub4dos (which is not "legacy" GRUB), go to it's Forum:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=66

jaclaz

[broknindarkagain]

edit : its working now. I'll post details and a tutorial on how I did it if anyone is interested. There is not a tutorial for what I did anywhere on the net....

OK - I've gotten somewhere with this...but ran into a bit of a problem.

I have the stick formated as NTFS....and both ERD and DSL are having problems reading the NTFS - so they shoot me back errors. I've been able to get a menu using the grub and it worked just fine.

If I format to FAT, I'll loose 6gigs of my drive to unpartitioned space (8gig FD....2gig FAT limit right?). If I do multiple partitions, XP will only read the first one right?

I've read a little bit about making the FD into a fixed disk in windows - that way all partitions are seen by Windows... but I still need it to be removable (safely remove hardware option)....

I used the HP utility and it screwed up the partition table on my FD. For some reason, it formats to a 3.5gig partition and leaves the rest unallocated....so the HP utility is out of the question. PEtoUSB won't do anything with the drive either....I'm guessing cause its larger then 2 gig.

Edited April 4, 2009 by broknindarkagain