Multiboot key in Linux

[redxine]

I've been trying to get grub running on my flash drive with grub4dos in Ubuntu Linux. I downloaded the zip archive and found that bootlace.com is a native executable. So after formatting it as FAT32 I ran

bash$ sudo ./bootlace.com /dev/sdb
Disk geometry calculated according to the partition table:
        Sectors per track = 63, Number of heads = 255
Success.

and then copied the grldr to the root directory, created a new menu.lst file and threw it into my desktop to boot up and get:

Press hot-key to boot previous MBR, any other key to start GRUB...
Timeout : 0
Try (hd0,0): EXT2:
Try (hd0,1): EXT2:
.......
Try (hd2,3): invalid or null
BIOS: Drive=0x0, H=2, S=18

where it continuously reads/writes to the flash drive from there, but nothing else happens. What is being done wrong? I tried loading grub with grub-install but that didn't help any. I'm guessing it's an action handled by PEtoUSB, but I could be wrong. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Sorry, this should have been under questions.

[m0u53]

I've been trying to get grub running on my flash drive with grub4dos in Ubuntu Linux. I downloaded the zip archive and found that bootlace.com is a native executable. So after formatting it as FAT32 I ran

bash$ sudo ./bootlace.com /dev/sdb
Disk geometry calculated according to the partition table:
        Sectors per track = 63, Number of heads = 255
Success.

and then copied the grldr to the root directory, created a new menu.lst file and threw it into my desktop to boot up and get:

Press hot-key to boot previous MBR, any other key to start GRUB...
Timeout : 0
Try (hd0,0): EXT2:
Try (hd0,1): EXT2:
.......
Try (hd2,3): invalid or null
BIOS: Drive=0x0, H=2, S=18

where it continuously reads/writes to the flash drive from there, but nothing else happens. What is being done wrong? I tried loading grub with grub-install but that didn't help any. I'm guessing it's an action handled by PEtoUSB, but I could be wrong. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Sorry, this should have been under questions.

the reason this fails is because:

PeToUSB is a GUI Win32 application that will partition, format

and makebootable to XP/W2K3 a USB Flash Disk (UFD). A lot of

utilities that say they can do this, actually cant.

PeToUSB does not make the device DOS bootable, it makes it XP

bootable (ie: the bootstrap code will look for NTLDR).

this was taken from the GoCoding Page...idk if there is a *nix equivelint...hopefully there is because i no longer own anything windowz...except my xbox

EDIT: just tried it with wine...dosent pickup the drives..was afraid of that..im not really sure what else to try..maybe a grub tutorial will work

:/

[redxine]

# Please install GRLDR boot strap code to MBR with the bootlace.com
# utility under DOS/Win9x or Linux.

It appears that it works with this utility, but I can't get it going. I've tried 4 different tutorials that all end in different BIOS errors like "Disk is not bootable - insert system disk" or "BOOT ERROR". I've also tried install-mbr on the disk with no success.

[m0u53]

well ive managed to get imgs working through a manual grub install

i think its alot better to do it manually

im going to work on isos..just got home from work ^^

ill keep everyone updated im sure i can boot almost anything given syslinux lil MEMDISK and ISODISK ^^

the real problem would be persistance

[Netshroud]

Any idea how to chainload ISOLINUX or SYSLINUX?

[m0u53]

well acording to many forum posts doing something like

find --set-root --ignore-floppies /boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin
chainloader --force /boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin

should load you into isolinux

and you can also do the oppsite..if you chose syslinux as your bootloader to get into grub

KERNEL /boot/grub/grub.exe

however im not sure if this is only for the windows version of grub..should work with the *nix version aswell

i also noticed that in the episode(newest) darren uses Pe2Usb which basicly make the mbr search for ntldr and grub4dos which im guessing acts as the ntldr or the gldr doing the exact opppisite should yeild the same results however all is needed is grub and the imgs ive also noticed that it is possible to boot direct ISO's however the problem remains that changes are not persistant and you must extract the initrd from the said iso i was thinking that maybe if we could boot into a program that would open the said iso and extract the img files required and place them somewhere on the disk...then CHAINLOAD into grub or something(maybe back to grub) so we could load it..just theroy

[Netshroud]

except it refuses to load isolinux, as the isolinux binary is not on a cd.

[m0u53]

hmm ill look into it...using something like what darren did

title Kon-Boot-test
map --mem /FD0-konboot-v1.1-2in1.img (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
map (hd1) (hd0)
map --hook
rootnoverify (fd0)

however i cant find an entry for --hook in the gnu dox so idk wtf is does

[Netshroud]

--hook is a Grub4DOS-only command. I uploaded the Grub4Dos bootsector (446B) to http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Z9AN8XM1 so try that. You just need to dd it over.

[m0u53]

ive never used dd to be honest how would i use it?

[Netshroud]

dd if=grub4dos_bootboot.bin of=/dev/sdX

[m0u53]

alright after that grub fails im missing the point to putting the g4d bootsector on the usb like what am i supposed todo next

[Netshroud]

continue as normal - FAT32 it, throw on grldr and menu.lst

[m0u53]

ah alright was kinda lost in the steps *crosses fingers*

[m0u53]

that dosent work at all ...all i get is stage 1.5 failed error 15

[m0u53]

also OP:

Timeout : 0
Try (hd0,0): EXT2:
Try (hd0,1): EXT2:
.......

this means its trying to find the mbr which requires FAT32 and you have EXT2 you might wanna fix it and see what happens

i finally got a windows box..my dads vista machine...followed the tutorial like normal

another way wasto follow the tutorial on this site:

and install syslinux and using that boot grub4dos

http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/install_linux.htm

[brenix]

I had similar issues to this. Here were my steps to resolve the issue:

(IN LINUX)

1. Format the drive FAT32 using fdisk

2. Use grub-install /dev/sdb #be careful you dont do this on your main drive..

After this step, I had different problems, so I went back to windows and did the following:

(IN WINDOWS)

3. Run grubinst_gui.exe as mentioned in the episode

4. Copy grldr over and create menu.lst

After those four steps, my drive booted properly and I was prompted with the grub menu..

Hopefully this helps. Good luck!

[m0u53]

that dosent help because you then did it in windows we were searching for an linux only solution..atleast i think thats what we were doing

also i noticed when grub4dos boots it takes almost 4 seconds more then just plain grub and the interface looks alot uglier...kinda sucks normal grub dosent work as good as grub4dos

i was thinking of trying the beta grub2 becuase the functionaility is almost double what normal grub is

however i dont wanna fuck up my current setup lol

[redxine]

that dosent work at all ...all i get is stage 1.5 failed error 15

I just tried it with no luck. All it boots to is a the _ cursor. Nothing else. brenix's solution Doesn't seem to work for me - The USB drive just falls through in the boot process and goes on to boot the hard drive. I've got nothing on the Ubuntu forums for 2 days. You'd think it would be really simple in an OS that already uses grub. Maybe we're caught up too much with grub4dos and need to look towards plain grub for computers.

[Netshroud]

M0u53: I tried GRUB2, and its quite fast, but some things like Konboot dont work, or at least I cant figure out how to do it, because of the new commands.