Loading drivers F6 method question

[shorterxp]

As the title suggests, is there anyhting prohibiting from using a USB floppy drive loaded with drivers (in order to facilitate installation via AHCI) via f6 method, if also booting from USB simultaneously? Something tells me this may be motherboard dependent, that is, whether a board can handle two concurrent usb connections at once or not.

I could just buy a USB floppy drive off ebay to see if this works but thought I'd spare the cash by asking you MSFN gurus first.

 

thanks in advance.

Edited June 6, 2019 by shorterxp

[jaclaz]

And the answer is yes/no (actually more BUT/BUT).

Most USB floppy drivers won't work.

BUT it is possible with some tweaks to the .inf file to have a USB floppy, see:

BUT there is actually no need for a "real" floppy for F6 use, you can use grub4dos to map an image to a virtual floppy, see:

911CD is no more, still:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090401085334/http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20543

and:

jaclaz

[shorterxp]

So in the end the solution would resemble this right?

 

[jaclaz]

Very loosely, yes.

But that is what is INSIDE the USB stick.

What you will obtain (after having mapped the floppy image to (virtual) device) should be that of having to all practical effects a "A:\" drive containing the floppy image contents.

Grub4dos can (or can not) be the "main" bootmanager on the stick, you can use *whatever* bootmanager or bootloader you normally use on the stick and chainload grub4dos (either grldr or grub.exe) from it.

For the record the motherboard BIOSes (normally) only have limited suppport for USB, basically ONLY allowing access to the USB boot device so you cannot normally have both a USB stick and USB floppy visible at BIOS level.

If using (again) grub4dos, its recent versions (of the 0.4.6a series) do have an own USB stack, so - maybe - it would be possible to access both devices, but due to the differences in the various motherboard BIOSes, it not a "universal" solution.

There is a whole section of the board dedicated to installing (XP) from USB, as a couple (or more) additional tricks are usually needed, you should become familiar with the various tested methods/tools there:

https://msfn.org/board/forum/157-install-windows-from-usb/

jaclaz

[shorterxp]

thanks alot

[shorterxp]

Would anyone recommend E2B (which I think is a bootloader/ variant of grub) to do this? On the main E2B website, there are two variants to download.

Easy2Boot_v1.B8A_DPMS.zip (has drivers inside) last edited 2019
Easy2Boot_v1.B8A.zip (doesn't)

Now, consider DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_1412115.7z  seperately (last edited 12/12/2014, which is good enough). While E2B seems complicated, that there may be a more straight forward approach; I say this because I accidentally happened upon WinSetupFromUSB It. has improved since I last tried it to make bootable XP USB; the latest version now has a DPMS folder (which can be made to have uptodate SATA drivers inside maybe). The readme (vaguely) alludes to placing some devcon.exe in FIRADISK directory (guess: DPMS/FIRADISK).
Heres a video of WinSetupFromUSB with updated drivers in DPMS:

Options 1 & 2 do nothing, returns back immediately. To fast to read the error also. Option 3 launches the XP setup, 4, launches existing install on hard drive. Really close to intent in OP but no CigaRrrrrrr.

Side observation: The obovementioned driver pack is 67mb. But loppy is 1.4meg max. right?

I discovered / tried out mtool and right enough it does not allow image beyond 1440kb:

C:\mtools-4.0.18-win32>mformat -C -f 67000 -v WINVBLOCK -i WinVBlock.img ::
Bad size 67000

Looking for any pointers thanks

Edited February 16, 2020 by shorterxp

[jaclaz]

Mtools can make larger volumes just fine.

Of course you need the "right" version of mtools and the right command options, you seem like having the "right" version:

http://reboot.pro/files/file/267-mtools/

http://reboot.pro/topic/14354-buidlingmodifying-floppy-images-with-mtools-as-replacement-for-winimageimdisk/

If you take the example "-f 1440"and use instead "-f 67000" it won't work because the "1440" is a known format, whilst "67000" is not.

You know like:

Quote

f

Specifies the size of the DOS file system to format. Only a certain number of predefined sizes are supported by this flag; for others use the -h/-t/-s flags. The following sizes are supported:

160

160K, single-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for 5 1/4 DD)

180

160K, single-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for 5 1/4 DD)

320

320K, double-sided, 8 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for 5 1/4 DD)

360

360K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 40 cylinders (for 5 1/4 DD)

720

720K, double-sided, 9 sectors per track, 80 cylinders (for 3 1/2 DD)

1200

1200K, double-sided, 15 sectors per track, 80 cylinders (for 5 1/4 HD)

1440

1440K, double-sided, 18 sectors per track, 80 cylinders (for 3 1/2 HD)

2880

2880K, double-sided, 36 sectors per track, 80 cylinders (for 3 1/2 ED)

Here you will find a small batch which can be useful to understand (and make more explicit) the parameters involved:

http://reboot.pro/topic/21664-makeiso/page-4#entry205455

jaclaz