Booting XP/Vista/BartPE/WinPE from logical partition External links Options

[was_jaclaz]

Yep, definitely is some kind of hard-coded path pointing to (hd0,0) or similar, and for the record, why do you think that original Linux was called EXT2FS?

When it came out the idea was being able to install and run it from a logical volume inside Extended.

The only OS that actually needs being on First Primary is DOS, even Windows 9x/Me, with some tricks could be installed on an extended partition, (keeping of course IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM on C: )

FYI:
http://www.allensmith.net/OS/XOSL/II.htm#II1

How to install or run Windows 9x on a logical partition?

It's not possible to install Windows 9x on a logical partition directly because of the "SU 013 Error". But, wait, there are possibilities for that, although they are tricky

And a word of caution when using several Primary partitions and DOS/Win9x/ME:
http://www.allensmith.net/OS/XOSL/I.htm

Microsoft Operating Systems MS-DOS through Windows 98 or even Windows ME have a bug where, if the last logical partition in the extended partition is not a recognized file system type, and multiple visible FAT primary partitions exist, it will use the last logical partition as a FAT one in place of the next primary partition. But it will think the size of the partition is that of the primary partition. Data coruption can occur!

jaclaz

[ktp]

@jaclaz

The only OS that actually needs being on First Primary is DOS, even Windows 9x/Me, with some tricks could be installed on an extended partition, (keeping of course IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM on C: )

But by using grub4dos, I am able to boot DOS from logical partition (chainloading io.sys residing in a logical partition). Afterwards, this logical partition is seen as C by DOS.

I assume that in this case I cheat DOS somehow, isn't it ?

[was_jaclaz]

@jaclaz


But by using grub4dos, I am able to boot DOS from logical partition (chainloading io.sys residing in a logical partition). Afterwards, this logical partition is seen as C by DOS.

I assume that in this case I cheat DOS somehow, isn't it ?

Hmmm, maybe it's grub4dos that cheats DOS, , i.e. it automatically corrects the BIOS partition table.

I guess this is part of the "Update 9" of the grub4dos readme.txt

jaclaz

[ktp]

@jaclaz
I think you are right.

From grub4dos readme:

CODE

Update 9: Directly boot NTLDR of WinNT/2K/XP and IO.SYS of Win9x/ME and
    KERNEL.SYS of FreeDOS. Examples:

      chainloader --edx=0xPPYY (hd0,0)/ntldr
      boot

      chainloader --edx=0xYY (hd0,0)/io.sys
      boot

      chainloader --ebx=0xYY (hd0,0)/kernel.sys
      boot

    Hex YY specifies the boot drive number, and hex PP specifies
    the boot partition number of NTLDR. If the boot drive is
    floppy, PP should be the hex value ff, i.e., decimal 255.

    For KERNEL.SYS of FreeDOS, the --edx won't work,
    use --ebx please.

    The option --edx ( --ebx ) can be omitted if the file is in
    its normal place. But in some cases, those options are needed.

    If, e.g., the ntldr file is in an ext2 partition called
    (hd2,8) while you want it to think of the Windows partition
    (hd0,7) as the boot partition, then --edx is required:

      chainloader --edx=0x0780 (hd2,8)/ntldr

    For DOS kernels(i.e., IO.SYS and KERNEL.SYS), the boot
    partition number is meaningless, so you only need to specify
    the correct boot drive number YY(but specifying the boot
    partition number is harmless).

    The above PPYY can also be specified by using a root or
    rootnoverify command after the chainloader command. Examples:

      chainloader (hd2,6)/kernel.sys
      rootnoverify (hd0)  <-------- YY=80

      boot

      chainloader (hd0,0)/ntldr
      rootnoverify (hd0,5)  <-------- YY=80, PP=05
      boot

    Tip: CMLDR (the ComMand LoaDeR, which is used to load the
    Windows Fault Recovery Console) can be chainloaded as well
    as NTLDR.

    Bean has successfully decompressed and booted IO.SYS of WinME.
    Thanks for the great job!