Topic: INFO: how to use BCDW _effectively_
started by: mionica
Posted by mionica on Mar. 23 2006,14:42
It is my oppinion that out-of-the-box support for the < Bootable CD Wizard > is one of the greatest improvements that could have been added to EasyBoot.By employing this extremely versatile tool, some things will change, regarding the way EasyBoot is used.
In this post, I'll stick to two of them.
1. Direct loading of SETUPLDR.BIN on multiboot CDs
Until BCDW support was added to EasyBoot, the common practice was to create a patched boot file, while also patching SETUPLDR.BIN on the disk. Patching, meant replacing 'I386' in both w2ksect.bin and setupldr.bin with another 4-letter name.
With BCDW, there is no more need for a patched boot sector (at all!), while also patching SETUPLDR.BIN is useless. The BCDW way of starting an NT OS setup is by using the simple command
| Code Sample |
| bcdw /i386/setupldr.bin |
- one is not required to patch anything;
- no more boot sector files are needed.
Disadvantages:
- It does not work for Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows Server 2003 R2, Norton SystemWorks 2006 Premium and Norton Ghost 10. As a general rule, it won't work on any OS which is based on WinPE 1.4+
2. Using MEMDISK without employing CDShell
Before BCDW support, using < MEMDISK > to load floppy images instead of the default run command required employing CDShell. It was quite a straighfoward experience though, unless you needed more images to be booted by MEMDISK. When the former effect was desired, one needed a different CDShell copy for each and every image to be loaded.
With BCDW, things can be done this way:
| Code Sample |
| bcdw /ezboot/isolinux.bin /ezboot/memdisk initrd=/ezboot/setup98.img |
Advantages:
- CDShell is no longer required;
- even if multiple images are to be loaded by MEMDISK, only one copy of isolinux.bin and memdisk is required.
Disadvantages:
- this method does not work when an ISOLINUX menu is needed; a good example would be integrating < INSERT > into the menu.
A helpful hint: images loaded by MEMDISK can be < gzip >ped to save both space on the CD and loading time. Extremely useful for 2880+ Kb floppy images.
If you had the patience to read this far, there's a bonus in it for you: check out the attachement, it contains a patched isolinux.bin which allows using files from hidden folders! (btw, this was formerly impossible). Enjoy!
Posted by xoben on Mar. 24 2006,01:20
Thanks mionica for your valuable information.One suggestion for your patched ISOLINX.BIN: change default folder from '/boot/isolinux' to '/boot/ezboot', then you can load an IMG file this way:
bcdw /ezboot/isolinux.bin memdisk initrd=setup98.img
Posted by mionica on Mar. 24 2006,09:08
I'll look into it. However, this may take some time, as I have to delve quite deep into ISOLinux' sources (the former .bin was a simple binary patch I did with HIEW).Anyway, I'll post in this thread the update when available.