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Easy way to add just about any bootable to multiboot


Jadestar

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So after a long week of testing I found a very simple way of adding just about any bootable image to a multiboot dvd using cdshell and the process is quite easy once you figure out the steps.

There are ways out there to figure out how and if it's been posted here then I apologize for the double post, but it took me quite some time to find this solution.

here's what you need

Already functioning multiboot dvd using cdshell

iso images of bootable things (windows xp, ultimate boot cd things, harddrive or ram testers)

So it's just a few steps. Load your image into something that can load iso's and extract the boot file. I use either magicISO or PowerISO but any will work. Extract the boot info to a file.

For most images, you'll get one of two types of files. One file is usually very small and less than 64kb. These usually come from windows installs. The other type will be the size of a floppy disk or more. It's important to note which one you have here but the basic rule of thumb is this; any boot file that is bigger than 64k has to use the memdisk option instead of chain.

Oh also, wherever your boot file is is what we consider the root of your drive which is where you should extract your image contents aswell.

Chain method: so if your boot file is less than 64k then you can use the simple chain method in cd shell. The method is generally this. Take the boot file you saved and rename the file extension to .dat (so if it was file.bif then rename it to file.dat)...to be honest I'm not sure if the renaming is neccessary but this is what I read on tutorials.

cd \(or to whatever directory you have the .dat file in)

chain file.dat

That's it..it should load the image of whatever disc it was and continue from there

Memdisk method: if your boot file is larger than 64k (and typically 1.44mb) then you just have to use memdisk instead. Rename your boot file to have the .ima extension (so if it was file.bif, rename it to file.ima)

cd \ (or wherever your .ima file and source folders are)

memdisk file.ima

Again, that's all there is to it.

YOu can generally use this to load just about any bootable image into a multiboot in cdshell and it's amazingly easy. Also note, any time you use memdisk you'll notice that whatever boot image yuo're loading up is insanely fast. That's because memdisk loads the image straight into ram and goes from there.

Any errors or problems, questions? Post away.

if you run into any errors with cdshell, post the exact error message you get and I can try to help

I'm still learning this stuff as i go.

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