Multiple PE ISO's booted from HDD

[ptr727]

How to boot different PE ISO's from HDD using ramdrive?

I am trying to build a 2GB FAT16 partition that will allow booting DOS based diagnostics, the installed OS (on a different partition), the Recovery Console, and several WinPE ISO images using a ramdrive.

I have read several long and winding forum posts, e.g. Boot PE from Hard Drive, but a concise article reference would be much appreciated.

I am currently using WinPE 1.6, but will switch to WinPE 2.0 when released.

My test system is built by installing DOS on a 2GB primary active FAT16 partition. Then installing Win2K3SP1. Then installing the recovery console. Then adding DOS and the PE ISO references to boot.ini, etc.

I can boot DOS, the installed OS, PE or recovery partition, but not PE and recovery partition.

If I have winnt.sif in the root PE boots for both PE and recovery partition selection.

If I move the PE iso and the winnt.sif to a folder, PE fails with a corrupt txtsetup.sif warning.

Please provide insight, information, links, or questions.

(The tools and techniques used must be M$ legal friendly)

Regards

Pieter

[cdob]

There are limited possibilies with default 2003 SP1 setupldr.bin:

-create four primary partitions

-copy one image at each partition

-run boot code from each partition

or:

-copy different images at one partition

-use different a:\winnt.sif. Change floppy to boot different images.