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scriptable DOS-based partitioning


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Is there any tool that can do scriptable DOS-based partitioning ?

Its needed for win9x installs, so that the boot-sector will directly load-in the .BAT, and then the partitioning should create/initialise the partition, so that setup happens smoothly.

On a different plane, is there anyway to automate norton ghost?

I have ghost 8.0, running in DOS-mode, and need it to automatically execute specified image-restores.

Lastly, is there a command or an EXE to reboot in DOS? (to be able to reboot unattended)

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You can put diskpart-commands in a text-file and run it with diskpart /s <script>.

The switches for Norton Ghost weren't hard to find with Google :)Here they are.

You can use restart.com (included in ebd.cab on a win98 boot-floppy) to restart in DOS.

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Prathapml

Review these articles, they will tell you what you need to know to automate your partitioning, formatting, and reloading a ghost image by cd.

http://www.tech-forums.net/computer_articl...estore-disk.php

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost...dSection=1&Src=

As for the reboot utility, Tsunami is right, reboot.com works well. Google it, I'm sure you will find it.

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Oh I know what you need, I've been using it for years for the exact same purpose. The answer is gdisk.exe!

This is a free version of gdisk put out by the people that made Ghost (before symantec bought them and screwed them up like they do everything else). Run it from a real DOS prompt (with /? for instructions).

Example:

Wipe out all data on the 1st hard disk:

gdisk.exe 1 /mbr /wipe

Create a 1GB partition and quick format it FAT16

gdisk 1 /cre /pri /for /-32 /v:DOS622 /q

The nice thing is you can put both the above commands in the same batch file. With fdisk you had to repartition, reboot, and then format. It handles multipule drives and partitions, can set active partitions, does ntfs, does extended partitions -etc etc.

Expect to loose all your data playing around with it though :P - oh and it works fin in VMware.

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prathapml,

With what your doing you're not going to get Win98 to install seemlessly without rebooting. Not if you plan to repartition the install drive. Windows XP will repartition/format and continue with installation without rebooting. You will not get away with this in 98.

If however you are in aleigance with the ancient dark DOS Gods and get this to work - I will be very impressed. Very impressed.

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@nois3

looks like what I need! :) I have the original gdisk.exe and gdisk32.exe (taken from the install of my ghost 8.0). That will work, me thinks? :hello:

@GM

Thanks for telling my fave sentence right back to me! :P

Ha ha, its amazing how people have the same enquiries within days of each other.

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prathapml,

You are planning on sharing the final product with us now arn't you? I spent a good year perfecting my old Win98 autobuild boot-cdrom. Sadly, I seldom use it anymore, but it's been used to make literally over 1000 installations (yes legal ones, well mostly). I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

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In fact, I haven't yet started on this.

But if you've already done it, would be a *HUGE* time-saver if you posted exact step-by-step method of how to do it (or for the benefit of others, to even have the actual file itself downloadable). If you need hosting space for the auto-install boot-sector, I can host it.

I guess we can host the boot-sector, and then have instructions about:

1. The folder structure to be followed.

2. How to actually do the whole thing for your own image.

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Is there any tool that can do scriptable DOS-based partitioning ?

Its needed for win9x installs, so that the boot-sector will directly load-in the .BAT, and then the partitioning should create/initialise the partition, so that setup happens smoothly.

On a different plane, is there anyway to automate norton ghost?

I have ghost 8.0, running in DOS-mode, and need it to automatically execute specified image-restores.

Lastly, is there a command or an EXE to reboot in DOS? (to be able to reboot unattended)

Ghost when it restores can create/resize partitions in specific/relative/remaining sizes if you use the command line. It's quite powerful.

As for automating it, you could use autoexec.bat to pass it your command line (that's what I've been doing for years for "restore" CDs for many ppl).

Back when I still used FAT32 partitions (I don't touch 9x anymore), just to save time, I used to clone a empty (or empty but bootable) FAT32 partition to the disk (resizing to 100% usually). using FDISK wants to check drive integrity several times, and formatting without /Q is rather slow too, whereas ghosting did create & activate partition and even format it (bootable if I wanted to) in a couple of seconds.

If you wanted to, your almost "blank" FAT32 partition could also use autoexec.bat to setup a var for the CDRom and start setup by itself... (you can do just about anything)

Rebooting wise, ghost has a switch for that too. Otherwise, there's about a billion ways to do it. (a 2 byte .com file with int 19h, or the old jmp ffff:0000, you could even create them by textfile redirection to debug.exe like we used to do in the old dos days hehe)

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Hi,

I once made a bootable DOS 7.0 CD, doing following unattended:

- Boot DOS 7.0 from CD

- Auto Partition HDD > 32 GB

- Autoreboot

- Install full DOS 7.0 unattended + extra tools

- Install Win 3.11 unattended with caldera

All done without user intervention and done in minutes

You can expand this CD and put other automated tools on it

In combination of cdshell

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In addition of previous post, I found the info on following url:

http://newdos.yginfo.net/msdos71/

From there I made changes to do a fully automated install of DOS 7.1 (sorry, not DOS 7.0).

There are many enhancements, new features and bugfixes in MS-DOS 7.10 since MS-DOS 6.x. For example:

* FAT32 and FAT32X drives support (*very* important nowadays)

* Extended FAT16 (a.k.a. FAT16X, type 0E, usually being the primary partition) drives support

* Large hard disk and LBA ExtendedX (Int 13x) partition (type 0F) support (*very* important nowadays)

* Long File Names (LFN) support

* Full Y2K (Year 2000) compliant and supports 4-digit years (e.g. DIR /4)

* Large memory (>64MB) and XXMS 3.0 support

* Euro sign support (Code Page 850, Right Alt+5)

* The protection that keeps the stability of DOS

* Efficient use of UMB memory (The DOS kernel and COMMAND.COM are loaded high automatically)

* Extended commands in CONFIG.SYS to use UMB memory, such as FILESHIGH, BUFFERSHIGH

* Environments variables can be used in the DOS command line directly, e.g. ECHO %PATH%

* The maximum length for path variable is expanded

* Some new commands added, such as ACCDATE, LOGO(in CONFIG.SYS)

* Volume LOCK/UNLOCK feature added to protect data and LFN on the (hard) disks

* EDIT can be used to edit both text and binary files and multiple files

* REN can rename a directory as well as files

* The locations of DOS system files (especially IO.SYS) are much more flexible

* Dual-boot with older versions of MS-DOS (e.g. DOS 6.x) feature added

* Animated startup logo support by using a custom LOGO.SYS file

* You can decide whether to execute a command using Enter/ESC key now while using the step-by-step feature

* Support for loading Win9x GUI (including all versions from Win95/95A to Win98SE GUI) on top added

* Many undocumented but useful options and switches added, such as COMMAND /Z

* Updated and newer versions of DOS commands and tools included, such as MORE, MSCDEX, MSD

* And many more...

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