China DOS Union

Please quickly and comprehensively test the latest release on http://grub4dos.jot.com/ (you can judge which is the latest test version by looking at the file date). Report bugs promptly. If everything goes well, the 0.4.2 official version will be released at the end of July, and at the latest by early August. Please hurry up and test, don't leave regrets for this release. Thanks. The next series is 0.5.x, which is prepared to focus on dealing with CDROM-related issues.

The grub_for_dos-2006-06-30.tar.gz has been tested and no abnormalities were found.

Thanks! Version 0.4.2 brings many new features. For example, after running GRUB.EXE under DOS, you can use the QUIT command to return to DOS; GRUB.EXE can also be started under EMM386; the function of starting GRUB with device=grub.exe --config-file="embed a menu command close to 4KB" in CONFIG.SYS; and the new functions of the DEFAULT and SAVEDEFAULT commands, and so on. All need to be tested to find problems as soon as possible. There is only one exception: the function of directly running GRUB.EXE under WIN98/ME does not need to be tested because I know this function is unstable. This function probably works normally on old machines, but on some new machines with poor compatibility BIOS, it does not run well.

Now it's the holiday, and I estimate that we lack testers. So I hope you all can take more responsibility to ensure that the new release is safe. Thanks again!

[ Last edited by 不点 on 2006-7-9 at 21:10 ]

The following problems were found (also exist in previous versions):

1: When there is a network drive under DOS (such as a network drive mapped with MS Client 3.0), if you run GRUB.EXE and then use the QUIT command to return to DOS, then accessing these network drives will immediately cause a system crash.

2: When using GRUB.EXE to restart DOS from a DOS that has installed a UMB memory manager, the UMB memory manager will not be able to load and use normally.

Are these considered bugs?

These two problems seem to be unable to be solved at present.

1. Network drives may very likely use special hardware (such as PCI configuration space) or special memory (such as extended memory), which makes it impossible to completely restore the scene after QUIT. When entering GRUB, part of the extended memory is damaged. For example, the 640K at 2M is used to store the real-mode conventional memory of DOS, so the content of the original extended memory here is damaged.

2. This seems to be able to be regarded as (I think it should be regarded as) a BUG of the UMB memory manager. It may or may not be a BUG of GRUB4DOS.

Ask:

Adjust BIOS, set the third hard drive as the boot device

The second partition of the third hard drive (primary partition, active partition. The first partition is inactive) is XP, failed, saying NTLDR IS MISSING (can display this, may indicate that this partition's DBR has been read...), but the system files are on it, no problem.

(Unplug the first two hard drives too)

Of course, using GRUB's MAP is the same.

I don't know the reason?

Originally posted by GOTOmsdos at 2006-8-14 01:06 AM:
Ask for advice:
Adjust BIOS, set the third hard disk as the boot device
The second partition of the third hard disk (primary partition, active partition. The first partition is inactive) is XP, failed, saying NTLDR IS MISSING (can display...

After you set the bios, in grub, is the third hard disk (hd0) or (hd2)?

"After you set up the BIOS, is the third hard drive (hd0) or (hd2) in GRUB?
I don't understand what you mean..

(My third hard drive is PRIMARAY's MASTER)
Whether it's PRIMARY or MASTER, the third hard drive is (hd2) in GRUB anyway.
This shouldn't matter, right?

Then I simply unplugged all other hard drives and connected this third hard drive to the first hard drive's cable, but it still didn't work! Before that, I compared the NTLDR on drive C and the NTLDR on the boot partition of this third hard drive using FC /B under DOS, and they were exactly the same! (Under DOS)

So, extremely confused!
(If I copied the entire first partition of the first hard drive to the second partition of the third hard drive using sector copying, it might cause a problem with the CHS position matching, but the error it gives is NTLDR IS MISSING, which means it has correctly read the DBR of this partition, but it has a problem finding NTLDR. However, this NTLDR is clearly present and the file data is correct!)

So, extremely confused!!!

[ Last edited by GOTOmsdos on 2006-8-14 at 11:33 ]

Originally posted by GOTOmsdos at 2006-8-14 01:06:
Adjust BIOS, set the third hard disk as the boot device
The second partition of the third hard disk (primary partition, active partition. The first partition is inactive) is XP, failed...

It seems that Brother GOTOmsdos is powerful! There are actually 2 primary partitions on the third hard disk. How many systems have you installed?
The prompt "NTLDR IS MISSING" should have nothing to do with grub. It's a failure to boot NTLDR. I once used a complete gho file from the CD to restore to other hard disks and also encountered the "NTLDR IS MISSING" prompt. In the end, I still used the installation CD to repair BOOT. It might be that the recorded cluster size is different, resulting in inability to read NTLDR. I don't know for sure....

I played before and installed several mainstream operating systems:
DOS6.22
WIN98
WINME
WIN NT4.0 WORKSTATION
WIN 2K
WIN 2K SERVER
WIN XP
WIN 2003

REDHAT 9.0
REDHAT 9.0 (backup)
REDHAT FC3
REDHAT FC3 (backup)

************************
The cluster size you mentioned is the same as the original one because the entire partition is exactly the same. After copying, I modified the partition table a bit.
(Found that there is an item in this DBR where the hard disk number is 80. All the DBRs of all partitions of my three hard disks are 80. Let's see if this is correct, but there are no problems in DOS, 2K/XP. It's a bit strange..)

Strange, according to reason, if the boot from the third hard disk is set in the bios, (hd0) and (hd2) should be swapped, that is, the third hard disk in grub should be (hd0).

Since ntldr, boot.ini can only be placed in (hd0) (placing it in other hard disks will not be found), so manually swap the disk numbers of the two disks in grub, and then start.

map (hd0) (hd2)
map (hd2) (hd0)
map --hook
chainloader (hd0,0)/ntldr
boot

Note that before this, change the
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS
in boot.ini to
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

Maybe you didn't notice: I'm the second-- (not the first) partition of the third hard disk

Also, does this have nothing to do with BOOT.INI? Because only when NTLDR is read correctly will BOOT.INI be executed...

I have tried, and successfully transferred the DOS system to this partition..
Maybe NT system doesn't support non-first primary partitions?

I want to learn about grub, may I ask, can it call the ghostxp system iso disc downloaded from the internet?