Create DOS boot from Winpe using diskpart & format /fs:fat

[cswaters1]

Hi,

This is a bit of a strange question but, well I'm using winpe to create a build process but I've reached a point where I can use all the winpe /win32 tools to create a partition < 2048MB and format it as a FAT16 disk, I would really like to just copy the COMMAND.COM, IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS files across and then use some kind of utility MBR? kind of thing where I can make the partition bootable to COMMAND.COM all form within WinPE.

What do you think, am I mad? is this possible? It will be used to build quite a lot of servers so it needs to be command line based so I can perform this from a script?

I tried using MBRFIX and copying a .BIN from a disk/partition formatted using FDISK, FORMAT and SYS etc, and tried restoring this to the new winpe diskpart / format partition but no joy, any help would be really appreciated.

Many thanks,

Craig.

[Albuquerque]

I know someone is going to laugh, but to tell you the truth, I did it the most simplistic way possible... I keep a copy of GHOST32.exe on my PE image folder structure, along with an absolutely tiny image of a DOS bootable partition. The ghost image for a DOS boot is like ~200kb when compressed. This saves me from having to create partitions, format, blah blah blah -- I just "ghost and go".

If Ghost isn't an option, maybe make sure you're using DISKPART to set that primary partition active. Your diskpart script should be something like this:

SEL DISK 0
CLEAN
CRE PAR PRI SIZE=2000
SEL PAR 1
ACTIVE
ASSIGN LETTER=C:

Now you can format C: /q /x /fs:FAT

Now you can copy in IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, and Command.Com (in that order) and set the first two for attributes +S +H +R. That should fix you up.

Edit: I just tried my second method and it didn't work. Not sure exactly how you could do it manually, although I'm sure there's a way that I'm just not thinking of. I *think* you can do it that way, but I just don't recall how...

Edited April 25, 2006 by Albuquerque

[cswaters1]

Thanks for the Ghost32.exe info, this does work!

I also found drvspace.bin is in the c:\ dos partition after fdisk and format /s is performed. I've tried using about 5 different utilities to tray and copy the MBR information from a working computer to this server but, nope not wanting to play, just get 'error missing operating system'...

This is really doing me in, I can go the ghost way, but would really just prefer to use a command line utility to sort the MBR out...

Any other suggestions please!

Cheers for your help!

[Albuquerque]

DRVSPACE.BIN isn't required unless you plan on eventually using Microsoft's DriveSpace utility to compress that disk. I wasn't able to find a way to make it work through a command line just by doing raw file copies and setting attributes.

I'm of the mind that you'll need to use some sort of third party utility to get this done; more than likely Ghost will be easiest to implement in my opinion.

[yogger]

I think you would need something to create a boot sector on the hard drive. Just copying files won't work. The format /s does create the boot sector though. Although the idea of a small ghost file sounds better to me and if you need any additional files added later, you can just update the ghost image instead of rewriteing any copy scripts.

[Albuquerque]

Best thing about the Ghost option is that FAT / FAT32 images can be directly manipulated (files dropped in, files deleted, et al) unlike NTFS images that are read-only. THus, you can maintain one "standard" ghost image on a network somewhere and always pull it down, and make updates to it whenever you need.

[cswaters1]

Thanks for the input!

Today I am using ghost32, but I would sure like to adjust that boot record... Ghost is good but I want the info on the DOS partition to be copied from a central repository and be managed from there.

I have found the following information:

When I use FDISK and FORMAT from a 622 disk the maximum size of the partition is 2044 where as when I use diskpart the max can be as big as you like but I'm using 2047 to squeeze fat16 in. I tried dsfo /dsfi \\.\c: 0 512 filename.dat, but I am wondering if all I am copying is some raid disk information or something.

This is HP Proliant server hardware, HP/Compaq store raid configuration of the server locally on the disk, not on the raid array.

So ghost it is today.

Thanks again for your suggestions!