Hot Topic: Multi-bootable N-in-1 Cd Howto

[khauyeung]

Lucky, just a short answer to your question:

Since your VS6 2in1 does not need to be bootable, the -b option, BOOT.BIN or other boot-image things are not necessary. Instead a good Autorun CD-Menu is preferred. You should not make changes to the original installers (setup.exe), instead you should employ a good CD-Menu maker to generate new Autorun.inf and/or Autorun.exe which provide the new CD-Menu to redirect your mouse/keyboard selection to execute the appropriate installer (setup.exe).

(I use MakeCDROM v4.21 from KillerSoftware at /www.makecdrom.com but it is not simple to use! May be the other members will have a better choice?)

screen, as I have mentioned, you have to find the cdimage yourselves or see if someone will share. I will keep my promise to my friend: not to leak it to public.



Last edited by khauyeung at Jul 20 2002, 10:06 AM

[[SiN]]

[quote:3a2dec3034][i:3a2dec3034]Originally posted by khauyeung [/i:3a2dec3034]
[b:3a2dec3034][b]Lucky[/b:3a2dec3034], just a short answer to your question:

Since your VS6 2in1 does not need to be bootable, the -b option, BOOT.BIN or other boot-image things are not necessary. Instead a good Autorun CD-Menu is preferred. You should not make changes to the original installers (setup.exe), instead you should employ a good CD-Menu maker to generate new Autorun.inf and/or Autorun.exe which provide the new CD-Menu to redirect your mouse/keyboard selection to execute the appropriate installer (setup.exe).

(I use MakeCDROM v4.21 from KillerSoftware at /www.makecdrom.com but it is not simple to use! May be the other members will have a better choice?)

[b:3a2dec3034]screen[/b:3a2dec3034], as I have mentioned, you have to find the cdimage yourselves or see if someone will share. I will keep my promise to my friend: not to leak it to public. [/quote:3a2dec3034]

Yep, after the hr I found that out lol.
And yeah, I wasn't changing any of the installers for the program, I was making my own in VB pointing to the install files. But I will try that app you said, sounds good.

And about keeping the promise to your friend, I think they can all respect that.

Thanks,
Lucky

[craftyc]

khauyeung, I respect your decision[quote:95b8e586cc]I will keep my promise to my friend: not to leak it to public.[/quote:95b8e586cc].

Lucky, can you post a link for this wonderful little program?

Hi, nice post thx for sharing.

[b:f3c19ae589]screen[/b:f3c19ae589] just 'google' yourself for a dozen pages and learn chinese !! You will find it.

Greetings
Req

[craftyc]

Here is a link to cdimage:

/http://www.chosun.ac.kr/cgi-bin/crbbs/upload/computer13/cdimage.exe

[khauyeung]

Side Orders

Before we go further, I would like to bring you some side orders. I have seen people who have obtained ISO CD-Image of a Bootable CD, they can easily extract all files/dirctories onto hard-drive with isobuster, winimage or daemon tools and make changes to it. But when they come to the burning time, they do not find a proper boot-image to burn the CD Bootable. But the correct boot-image is already right there in your original ISO, can we locate it in the ISO and then take it out? The answer is YES, but with proper tools (freewares): /http://members.rogers.com/khayftp1/mkbootcd.exe and /http://members.rogers.com/khayftp1/dd.exe)

Now you have got the tools, let us use the ISO we have just generated (E:CORP2IN1.ISO, Bootable CD Image) to learn how the boot-image can be located and extracted. Ready? Let's go:

In DOS Window, Enter the following command to locate the boot-image:

mkbootcd E:CORP2IN1.ISO

This is the output from mkbootcd:

mkbootcd - make bootable CD image(El Torito specification)
30-Mar-98 gigo@yk.rim.or.jp|imaizumi@nisiq.net V1.02
21-May-98 *BETA* Joliet Extensions petry@rbg.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de
26-Oct-00 fix/eltorito emulator support by Bart Lagerweij, bart@nu2.nu V1.02c

== Boot Record Volume Descriptor ==
Indicator:0
Identifier:'CD001'
Version:1
BSIdentifier:'EL TORITO SPECIFICATION'
BootCatLbn:0x00000013(Loc:0x00009800)
*Warnning - Some Garbage in stab1.

== Validation Entry ==
HeaderID:1
PlatformID:0x00 - 80x86
ID String:'Microsoft Corporation'
CheckSum:0x494c

== Default/Initial Boot Entry ==
BootIndicator:0x88 - Bootable
MediaType:0x00 - No Emulation
LoadSegment:0x0000 - 0x7C0
SystemType:0x00
SectorCount:4
LoadRBA:0x00000014(Loc:0x0000a000)

== Direct Mode Boot Image ==

1 Warning(s)
=== Verification Success ===

Watch the "LoadRBA" entry. It says the boot-image is at "Relative Block Address" 0x14 hex (=20 Decimal)

Now enter the following command to extract the boot-image from the ISO:

dd if=E:CORP2IN1.ISO of=E:CORP2IN1_ENBOOTWXP.BIN bs=2k count=1 skip=20

Within seconds, a boot-image BOOTWXP.BIN is generated in E:CORP2IN1_EN which is identical to the BOOT.BIN we previously used. In the above command, "bs' stands for Block Size, "count" stands for Total Number of Block occupied by the boot-image (1 for NT-type boot sector and 720 for Win9X-type floppy image) and skip is the Number of Block to Skip reading before the boot-image.

With these 2 Side Orders, you should be able to have the most updated boot-image coming along with your downloaded ISO. Smile!

New content segment has been put in [12-19-2001] (Part 4), Check it out...



Last edited by khauyeung at Jul 20 2002, 10:09 AM

[greypigeon]

Congratulations
the best thread I ever saw

[richardc2000]

You have lost me now, for the moment at least, [b:32d3a2b21f]khauyeung[/b:32d3a2b21f] , but it is still very interesting reading nonetheless.

[Dave]

Thanks again, excellent information.
I tried using CDimage before but had trouble figuring out the combination of switches to use since there is so little information given.
Your explaination is quite helpfull.

I would also be interested in an easy to use utility to make autorun menu's. Tried using auto play menu studio but it seems like a little to much then I really need.
Dave

[[SiN]]

[quote:7b4f6f9e19][i:7b4f6f9e19]Originally posted by khauyeung [/i:7b4f6f9e19]
[b:7b4f6f9e19][b]Lucky[/b:7b4f6f9e19],
(I use MakeCDROM v4.21 from KillerSoftware at /www.makecdrom.com but it is not simple to use! May be the other members will have a better choice?)
[/quote:7b4f6f9e19]

Well that one be too much stuff for me to do lol... Too many graphics to make, but none of the less a very good program to have (thanks)

Well my installer don't look as pretty as yours do, but they work. Was simple too, maybe you should look into it - you can get a lot fancier then what I did (I am lazy lol)

But you can take a look at what the UI looks like here:
hxtp://home.attbi.com/~tonyn2002/installer.jpg

And you can see the code if you are interested. Very simple, I did not add anything fancy. If you keep the code general and not to specific, you can use the code over and over (That is the reason for the amount of functions on mine). You can see that here:
hxtp://home.attbi.com/~tonyn2002/Code.txt

(copy and paste x=t)


And thanks for this thread, very helpful - I look forward to what you have in store for us next.