How to add Win98 into Boot.ini ?

[ruthan]

I have different view, you often glut people with lots of information which are not really needed and mislead / lure them to some complicated dead ends / wrong way or good end but through very complicated ways. 

 Im grateful for the help, but.. It seems that whole boot sect theory was probably wrong end and problem was really one wrong IDs which lots partition tools can fix through few clicks.

 It seems similar with Grub4DOS boot.. i need rewrite MBR code to point to grldr, i dont thing that i need to anything with bootsector, solution should be some simple way to rewrite MBR code to point it too right binary. I made it already for FAT32 Win9x ( bootlace 0x80 command ) and DOS and same thing is needed for XP and NTFS.

  When i thinking about it logically, start its booting process is most essential / basic thing what every OS such do, so if its complicated its just wrong same with solutions. 

  I love one Einstein adage: "If you can explain it simply you dont understand that" I would say, that you are understand it for sure, but problem is often transfer of that knowledge to some quick solutions for others.

  I would care about it, but started to mentoring me, otherwise i dont have problem just choose which hint i will use and which not, so im i need to tell people what to do..

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by ruthan

[ruthan]

Ok, i fixed even not Grub way, with fixed partition type IDS bootpart worked fine, i dunno if it would really necessary, or only right boot.ini after partition id fix were necessary. 

  Regardless of different views, thanks for help, i mean it, without point to partition type id, i wouldnt solve it., withou some reinstall that would probably change it too.

Edited June 15, 2020 by ruthan

[jaclaz]

No problem, happy to have helped even if it was boring to you.

You see, the point is - specifically - that you do not know what you are talking about, which is perfectly fine, but also refuse to learn about the topic and prefer to do random things with random tools, which is also fine. of course. 

Of course any number of tools can change a single byte in the MBR partition table, the "difficult" part is understanding that that (in this case) is what is needed, and to do so you need to understand the processes involved, and of course know what is the correct value to write.

BTW, it is not like overnight little green men accessed your MBR partition table and changed the 0x0C to 0x07, that is the result of some of the random thing you did with some random tools earlier.

Just for the record there is no such thing as rewriting MBR code to point to grldr, you need to write this code (which is grlrd.mbr) to the MBR and several sectors after it, then this code does not "point" to grldr, it searches for it (it is not the same thing).

But if you want to have some code that points to grldr (and fits in the MBR) it exists alright, it is called UMBR (technically it can point to the extents where grldr resides):
http://reboot.pro/topic/21856-cant-install-grub-with-bootice/

Still the best (IMNSHO) approach if you have in the multiboot a Windows NT is to leave everything "standard" and add grldr in BOOT.INI or grldr.mbr in \boot\BCD.

jaclaz

Edited June 15, 2020 by jaclaz

[ruthan]

Well, i found solution how to write Grub4dos code to MBR and its "my bad way" which i prefer - 1 minute long Youtube video, it using Bootice and its working for WinXP too. Its other magic option of Bootice, which dont know yet.
  Its really effective and giving me that level of knowledge depth which i prefer, if would stuck on step, i can simply give deeper.

  It wasnt boring, it was helping and but yeah too complicated and too much strong words for my taste.

  Fairy tale about my random tools.. My guess is that this partittion type change happen through WinXP or Win2000 install when i had some partition hidden (to install it to as C letter), or its Acronis bug, but my guess is 1st thing, i vaguely remember that i had exactly same problem which same setup 12 years ago. 
   This is classic problem bad user vs bad developer, i believe that problem is in not in user. 

  If i really trying to thing your recommend way its madness, really can control / understand everything that is illusion, every program has own services, which are blackboxes, own code which black box, writing lots of keys to registry - which function is are not often clear. Random specialized tools and searching for them have flaws too, but as overall strategy it make more sense. There is couple of things which i care low level as possible, but OS as for me just tool, which supposed to work and be easily customizable and easy to use.

    I dunno if ever heard about ERP + TOC, but its similar strategy which im using to approach these things. I have few main goal and dont want to be lost in some minor problems analysis, if there is way around.

Edited June 15, 2020 by ruthan

[jaclaz]

Sure , that is the "normal" way to install grub4dos, and generally speaking just fine  , but  - in some cases - potentially destructive, as it writes the grldr.mbr code to the MBR and to several of the following "hidden" sectors, (15 of them in latest releaes, 17 in older ones).

Usually doing that is perfectly fine , but there are possible issues:

1) some Commercial DOS and Windows programs casually use one of those hidden sectors to store their authentication code
2) some (BTW bad, really bad) BIOS simply do not "like" grub4dos code in the MBR and won't boot[1]
3) in case [2] of a GPT disk/hybrid boot disk it will destroy the GPT partition table 

In any case, the message is the following:
1) the MBR is one single sector, first absolute sector of the disk or LBA0
2) the grub4dos grldr.mbr code is 16 sectors long (used to be 18) so it is NOT installed to the MBR but rather to the MBR and several sectors after it
3) you better be very sure that these hidden sectors are not used by anything else

Everything will work out just fine in 99% of cases, now you know what can happen in the remaining 1%.

jaclaz 

[1] the number of these has been reduced greatly in grub4dos 0.4.5c latest versions and in grubdos 0.4.6a
[2] rare, but you never know

Edited June 16, 2020 by jaclaz