China DOS Union

The specific idea is: When booting, an installation option appears:
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Advance Server
After selection, the corresponding installation starts.
The above three options are implemented using GRUB for DOS instead of diskemu.

Wengier guided me to see this post. However, it seems that I am not a suitable person to reply to this question. The reasons are:

1. I am not familiar with Windows 2000, especially I don't know what characteristics its startup method has.

2. I am not familiar with diskemu, I don't know what it is used for. Judging from the name, it seems to be disk emulation.

But I still express a point of view. If it is not useful, please don't adopt it.

For now, GRUB for DOS only has two major advantages:

1. Can run from DOS.

2. Can use an img file on the hard disk to emulate a floppy disk.

I can't see how these two major advantages can be used to boot the installation program of win2000.

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Assuming that the installation program of win2000 is a 1.44M img image, if it is on the hard disk, it may be started with grub, but if it is on the CD, it cannot be booted with GRUB at present; but it will be possible in the future, GRUB will support the CD in the future. Not only that, in the future GRUB also supports the hard disk image .

I'm looking forward to the new version of GRUB. Can I boot from the CD and then run GRUB from the CD, and then use GRUB to call the image in the CD?

The boot method of Windows NT/2000/XP installation CDs can be seen in the following link:

http://www.liaokai.com/expert/nt40.htm

The boot method for 2000/XP is the same as that for NT. It is not the img method, but the emulated BIOS method.

Please take a look, brother.

I think if GRUB for DOS can be added to the CD, just like adding it to the boot sector of a floppy disk and the MBR area of a hard disk. Since the CD is non-writable, I estimate that the implementation method must be: process the ISO file, write stage1 and stage2 to the relevant sectors of the ISO file, and then burn the ISO to the CD to be able to use GRUB to directly boot the CD (that is, non-IMG method)

Here is the description of the method to implement a 3-in-1 bootable CD installation disc using diskemu:

http://www.fixdown.com/article/article/113.htm

The following is a quote from cba-xyz on 2003-10-27 21:31:44:
Looking forward to the new version of GRUB very much. Can we boot from the CD-ROM and then run GRUB in the CD-ROM, and then use GRUB to call the image in the CD-ROM?

Once GRUB supports CD-ROMs, of course all these will be supported. However, crossing from the hard disk to the CD-ROM is indeed not easy. This topic has been discussed before, and this is not a function that can be implemented immediately.

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Thanks to brother chengbing for providing the information, I have collected it and will study it later.

There is a patched grub that has long supported CD - ROM booting. And there are foreign - made Linux CDs booted by grub. It seems to be called topogo linux (can't remember exactly). Booting Windows with grub should be similar, right?

Is it TurboLinux? I've used it, and I've never found that it can boot from a CD. If you remember where you found the patch, please look for it again. I'm a bit interested in this.

The following is a quote from BUDING in 2003-10-30 15:27:50:
If the older brother remembers where the patch was found, please find it again, I am a little interested in this.

Re: Creating a bootable cdrom that includes Grub.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Thierry Laronde
Subject: Re: Creating a bootable cdrom that includes Grub.
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 22:22:55 +0200
User-agent: Mutt/1.2.5i

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Hello,

On Sat, Jul 20, 2002 at 11:35:18PM +0900, umidori kamome wrote:
> Hey Yo Hoh, Thierry!
>
> > The problem is that the emulation doesn't survive
> > for Linux, that is,
> > what was for GRUB under El Torito emulation (hd0)
> >
is no more accessible to Linux, since
> > Linux doesn't use
> > directly the BIOS for that.
>
> Thank you for trying to solve this - but as far
> as i am concerned this does not help yet. (Or
> perhaps i got it wrong?)
> Isnt there a possibility of booting a cdrom like
> you would boot a floppy (chainloader (fd0)+1)?

If your BIOS allows this --- one of my machine BIOS does --- and you
insert at booting time an El Torito CD, but switch to "normal boot",
your "true" floppy becomes (fd1) and the El Torito floppy image becomes
(fd0). In this case, if, without using actually the El Torito entry,
your BIOS still "present" the El Torito image this should work. If not,
there is no code in GRUB at the moment to try to detect an emulated
image. I have made some patches for the support of El Torito, but mainly
devoted to allow GRUB to be used even on EL Torito images, keeping the
info that we are under emulation (patches are here:

http://alpha.polynum.org/misc/grub-0.92.a_cd+ef.diff.gz
).
> The thing is - i wanted to install an old win98
> (do not ask why ) onto (hd0,3) so grub seemed
> the way to go - remap partitions and boot the
> cdrom.

If and only if you "escape" the El Torito boot on initialization (floppy
or hard disk image found, 0 to boot it, escape for normal boot
blahblah...) AND the BIOS has still swapped the devices (the El Torito
images are still presented by the BIOS --- doing `root (' will list
the devices; if there are (fd0) (fd1) (hd0) and you have only one floppy
drive, then the floppy El Torito emulation is (fd0); if there are (fd0)
(hd0) (hd1) and you have only one hard disk, then (hd0) is the El Torito
hard disk emulation; if there are only the normal devices, you are out
of luck...), then hiding the partitions, swapping the disks (the correct
ones!) and chainloading first sector of the El Torito image should work.

But there is no magic in GRUB for that, everything relies on the BIOS
being smart.

>
> What are cdroms called under grub?

If the emulation works (GRUB relies on BIOS) a floppy image becomes
(fd0), a hard disk emulation becomes (hd0)

>
> what is this "hard disk emulation"?

You can create an image that is either a floppy (1.20, 1.44 or 2.88 Mb),
or an image that is a virtual hard disk (no specific size limit --- well
the size of the CD...). There are some explanations in the comments of
the script `mkbimage':

http://corpus.polynum.org/admin/mkbimage

>
> i got "some" error-msg containing "cdrom" when
> installing grub - might that be the prob.

It's hard to answer without knowing what version of GRUB you use
(vanilla, patched? What version number?), but GRUB doesn't recognize
something as "cdrom". Under El Torito emulation, the images are like a
floppy drive, or a hard disk drive.

Cheers,
--
Thierry Laronde (Alceste)
Key fingerprint = 0FF7 E906 FBAF FE95 FD89 250D 52B1 AE95 6006 F40C




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Thanks, Brother Roy.

But I can't understand the patches and methods mentioned here. I don't know what problem he is trying to solve, what the essence of his patches and software is for, and how to use them.

The following is a quote from Budian on 2003-10-30 15:27:50:
Is it turboLinux? I have used it, and I never found that it can boot from the CD. If you remember where you found the patch, please find it again for me. I am a bit interested in this.

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