Bootable HD Setup

[Guest]

I'm building an embedded system that will have only a hard drive storage device (no CD/no floppy, etc). To set this up, I installed the HD in another PC and created several partitions (I want to have the option to multiple boot). I then plan to create my XPE files on that machine, copy them to the HD and move it to the target machine. My question is how do I make the HD bootable? It's been a while since I've done this, but the old tools like FDISK /MBR are gone now apparently. This should be easy, right????? Anything I need to watch out for regarding making this multi-boot? I used the XP disk manager to partition the HD (4 partitions).

Cheers
Al

 

[KM]

GPSer,

First of all, fdisk and other old good tools are not gone!

Anyway.. Since you have partitioned and formated the drive from XP Disk
Manager, your system partition (hope you marked it as active and boot) is
bootable (with NTFS for sure and likely with FAT).

You can easy test it. Just put ntldr, ntdetect and boot.ini on your new
drive system partition. Make some timeout in the boot.ini to see the UI. And
try to boot on your taregt machine. If you see the NT Loader UI, you set
things up properly.
If not, let us know what error you see.

KM

I'm building an embedded system that will have only a hard drive storage

device (no CD/no floppy, etc). To set this up, I installed the HD in another
PC and created several partitions (I want to have the option to multiple
boot). I then plan to create my XPE files on that machine, copy them to the
HD and move it to the target machine. My question is how do I make the HD
bootable? It's been a while since I've done this, but the old tools like
FDISK /MBR are gone now apparently. This should be easy, right????? Anything
I need to watch out for regarding making this multi-boot? I used the XP disk
manager to partition the HD (4 partitions).

 

[Guest]

Pardon the long post, but I've spent considerable time messing with this so there's a lot to talk about...... My basic problem is I've got a little PC-104 x86 compatible processor with very meager capabilities. I can boot from flash (the eventual goal) or from an external IDE drive (but can't have both connected at the same time). It's possible, in theory, to boot from floppy, but I have not kludged that HW in. Bios does not support booting from CD (but I can hook up CD and HD at same time). I've built an embedded XP image that may work on my target, but can't get the HD to be bootable. I'm a telecommuter and have a laptop with XP (my company has the install CDs) and have a standard machine with Win2000 (I have the install CDs for that machine). I hooked the target's HD to the Win2000 machine, booted into WinPE from my XP embedded install CD and used DISKPART to make 4 partitions on the HD. #1 is about 2GB and is formatted as FAT. The other 3 are about 12GB each and formatted to NTFS. I made partition 1 "active". I copied the XPE image (created on my laptop) to partition 1 of the target HD along with the NTLDR and NTDETECT files from my laptop (remember, it's an XP machine). The image contained a BOOT.INI and WERUNTIME.INI (what's that???) files already. When I did the copy, the machine hosting the HD was the desktop machine which was running Win2000 at that time.

When I start the target with the HD attached, I see the initial dos-like (B&W) screen with the "Starting Windows" message and the windows progress bar. A message is immediately displayed "Windows 2000 could not start because of an error in the software. Please report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem."

The "Windows 2000" message gives me pause. It's not coming from BOOT.INI and I partitioned the HD with WinPE (running on the desktop machine that has only Win2000 installed). I avoided running Disk Manager in Win2000 in case there may be some incompatibility. Somehow my HD picked up a reference to Win2000, however.

Here's the BOOT.INI:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded" /fastdetect

I'm brand new at this, but just got back from DevCon where I had lots of hands-on in the lab sessions. These machines all had regular version of XP installed, however, and I never thought to ask about starting from scratch. For what it's worth, I'm using the eval version of XPE I got at the conference with the update to SP2 beta. I have the retail version coming, but it's not here yet.

As a recap, here's my machine summary and the steps I followed:

LAPTOP (WinXP/SP1 + XPE/SP2 eval version)
DESKTOP (Win2000) networked to LAPTOP
TARGET (x86 Geode)

Booted Desktop to WinPE using XPE install CD
Used DISKPART to clear the HD and create 4 partitions (2GB, 12GB, 12GB, 12GB)
Assigned drive letters to the partitions
Formated Partition 1 to FAT, others to NTFS (full format)
Marked Partition 1 as "active"
Rebooted the Desktop to Win2000
Created an XPE image on the laptop using "Standard PC", WinLogin, basic IDE, keyboard and such. Included both NTFS and FAT
Mounted the target HD over the network and copied down the XPE files along with NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from my laptop. Also included TA and TAP (I tried to boot the target from flash into its version of free DOS and run TA, but TA won't run.....).
Restrapped the HD as master and connected it to the target.
Rebooted and got the error described above.

I don't know if the issue is connected to the boot sector, the image I built or something else. Any thoughts????

Cheers
Al

 

[KM]

GPSer,

I got confused reading your message on how you dealt with the HD with W2K on it? Have you unplugged it when booting to XPe ?

Also, make sure that your system XPe partition (the one with NTLDR and NTDETECT) gets the NTLDR from XPe Repository (or from your XP
Laptop). There are known XPe backward compability problems with the ntldr from W2K. You mentioned you copied the NTLDR from the
Laptop but, again, sounds like you are booting with W2K loader.

--
Regards,
KM, BSquare Corp.

Pardon the long post, but I've spent considerable time messing with this so there's a lot to talk about...... My basic problem is

I've got a little PC-104 x86 compatible processor with very meager capabilities. I can boot from flash (the eventual goal) or from
an external IDE drive (but can't have both connected at the same time). It's possible, in theory, to boot from floppy, but I have
not kludged that HW in. Bios does not support booting from CD (but I can hook up CD and HD at same time). I've built an embedded XP
image that may work on my target, but can't get the HD to be bootable. I'm a telecommuter and have a laptop with XP (my company has
the install CDs) and have a standard machine with Win2000 (I have the install CDs for that machine). I hooked the target's HD to the
Win2000 machine, booted into WinPE from my XP embedded install CD and used DISKPART to make 4 partitions on the HD. #1 is about 2GB
and is formatted as FAT. The other 3 are about 12GB each and formatted to NTFS. I made partition 1 "active". I copied the XPE image
(created on my laptop) to partition 1 of the target HD along with the NTLDR and NTDETECT files from my laptop (remember, it's an XP
machine). The image contained a BOOT.INI and WERUNTIME.INI (what's that???) files already. When I did the copy, the machine hosting
the HD was the desktop machine which was running Win2000 at that time.

When I start the target with the HD attached, I see the initial dos-like (B&W) screen with the "Starting Windows" message and the

windows progress bar. A message is immediately displayed "Windows 2000 could not start because of an error in the software. Please
report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem."

The "Windows 2000" message gives me pause. It's not coming from BOOT.INI and I partitioned the HD with WinPE (running on the

desktop machine that has only Win2000 installed). I avoided running Disk Manager in Win2000 in case there may be some
incompatibility. Somehow my HD picked up a reference to Win2000, however.

Here's the BOOT.INI:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded" /fastdetect

I'm brand new at this, but just got back from DevCon where I had lots of hands-on in the lab sessions. These machines all had

regular version of XP installed, however, and I never thought to ask about starting from scratch. For what it's worth, I'm using the
eval version of XPE I got at the conference with the update to SP2 beta. I have the retail version coming, but it's not here yet.

As a recap, here's my machine summary and the steps I followed:

LAPTOP (WinXP/SP1 + XPE/SP2 eval version)
DESKTOP (Win2000) networked to LAPTOP
TARGET (x86 Geode)

Booted Desktop to WinPE using XPE install CD
Used DISKPART to clear the HD and create 4 partitions (2GB, 12GB, 12GB, 12GB)
Assigned drive letters to the partitions
Formated Partition 1 to FAT, others to NTFS (full format)
Marked Partition 1 as "active"
Rebooted the Desktop to Win2000
Created an XPE image on the laptop using "Standard PC", WinLogin, basic IDE, keyboard and such. Included both NTFS and FAT
Mounted the target HD over the network and copied down the XPE files along with NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from my laptop. Also

included TA and TAP (I tried to boot the target from flash into its version of free DOS and run TA, but TA won't run.....).

 

[Guest]

A couple more notes--

*I did add timeout=30 to the boot.ini. Don't see the boot menu so it must not be getting past there.
*Tried using the BOOTPREP utility. Didn't help.
*Made sure I had all the empty files found on my XP laptop (e.g. IO.SYS) on the HD with the same attributes. Didn't help.
I'm going to install Win2000 on this HD and try it from there.....

Pardon the long post, but I've spent considerable time messing with this so there's a lot to talk about...... My basic problem is I've got a little PC-104 x86 compatible processor with very meager capabilities. I can boot from flash (the eventual goal) or from an external IDE drive (but can't have both connected at the same time). It's possible, in theory, to boot from floppy, but I have not kludged that HW in. Bios does not support booting from CD (but I can hook up CD and HD at same time). I've built an embedded XP image that may work on my target, but can't get the HD to be bootable. I'm a telecommuter and have a laptop with XP (my company has the install CDs) and have a standard machine with Win2000 (I have the install CDs for that machine). I hooked the target's HD to the Win2000 machine, booted into WinPE from my XP embedded install CD and used DISKPART to make 4 partitions on the HD. #1 is about 2GB and is formatted as FAT. The other 3 are about 12GB each and formatted to NTFS. I made partition 1 "active". I copied the XPE image (created on my laptop) to partition 1 of the target HD along with the NTLDR and NTDETECT files from my laptop (remember, it's an XP machine). The image contained a BOOT.INI and WERUNTIME.INI (what's that???) files already. When I did the copy, the machine hosting the HD was the desktop machine which was running Win2000 at that time.

When I start the target with the HD attached, I see the initial dos-like (B&W) screen with the "Starting Windows" message and the windows progress bar. A message is immediately displayed "Windows 2000 could not start because of an error in the software. Please report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem."

The "Windows 2000" message gives me pause. It's not coming from BOOT.INI and I partitioned the HD with WinPE (running on the desktop machine that has only Win2000 installed). I avoided running Disk Manager in Win2000 in case there may be some incompatibility. Somehow my HD picked up a reference to Win2000, however.

Here's the BOOT.INI:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded" /fastdetect

I'm brand new at this, but just got back from DevCon where I had lots of hands-on in the lab sessions. These machines all had regular version of XP installed, however, and I never thought to ask about starting from scratch. For what it's worth, I'm using the eval version of XPE I got at the conference with the update to SP2 beta. I have the retail version coming, but it's not here yet.

As a recap, here's my machine summary and the steps I followed:

LAPTOP (WinXP/SP1 + XPE/SP2 eval version)
DESKTOP (Win2000) networked to LAPTOP
TARGET (x86 Geode)

Booted Desktop to WinPE using XPE install CD
Used DISKPART to clear the HD and create 4 partitions (2GB, 12GB, 12GB, 12GB)
Assigned drive letters to the partitions
Formated Partition 1 to FAT, others to NTFS (full format)
Marked Partition 1 as "active"
Rebooted the Desktop to Win2000
Created an XPE image on the laptop using "Standard PC", WinLogin, basic IDE, keyboard and such. Included both NTFS and FAT
Mounted the target HD over the network and copied down the XPE files along with NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from my laptop. Also included TA and TAP (I tried to boot the target from flash into its version of free DOS and run TA, but TA won't run.....).
Restrapped the HD as master and connected it to the target.
Rebooted and got the error described above.

I don't know if the issue is connected to the boot sector, the image I built or something else. Any thoughts????

Cheers
Al

 

[KM]

GPSer,

You did definitely pass to the boot.ini (ntldr). Otherwise you wouldn't have seen the loading progress bar ("Starting Windows") and
later screens.
The question is what ntldr and boot.ini you used? Seems like you use the files from W2K hard disk. Is it possible?

You do not absolutely need files like io.sys, msdos.sys, etc. (this is from DOS or Win95/98/Me OS if you had it installed
previously). You can safely delete these files.

--
Regards,
KM, BSquare Corp.

A couple more notes--

*I did add timeout=30 to the boot.ini. Don't see the boot menu so it must not be getting past there.
*Tried using the BOOTPREP utility. Didn't help.
*Made sure I had all the empty files found on my XP laptop (e.g. IO.SYS) on the HD with the same attributes. Didn't help.
I'm going to install Win2000 on this HD and try it from there.....

is I've got a little PC-104 x86 compatible processor with very meager capabilities. I can boot from flash (the eventual goal) or
from an external IDE drive (but can't have both connected at the same time). It's possible, in theory, to boot from floppy, but I
have not kludged that HW in. Bios does not support booting from CD (but I can hook up CD and HD at same time). I've built an
embedded XP image that may work on my target, but can't get the HD to be bootable. I'm a telecommuter and have a laptop with XP (my
company has the install CDs) and have a standard machine with Win2000 (I have the install CDs for that machine). I hooked the
target's HD to the Win2000 machine, booted into WinPE from my XP embedded install CD and used DISKPART to make 4 partitions on the
HD. #1 is about 2GB and is formatted as FAT. The other 3 are about 12GB each and formatted to NTFS. I made partition 1 "active". I
copied the XPE image (created on my laptop) to partition 1 of the target HD along with the NTLDR and NTDETECT files from my laptop
(remember, it's an XP machine). The image contained a BOOT.INI and WERUNTIME.INI (what's that???) files already. When I did the
copy, the machine hosting the HD was the desktop machine which was running Win2000 at that time.the windows progress bar. A message is immediately displayed "Windows 2000 could not start because of an error in the software.
Please report this problem as: load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem."desktop machine that has only Win2000 installed). I avoided running Disk Manager in Win2000 in case there may be some
incompatibility. Somehow my HD picked up a reference to Win2000, however.

Here's the BOOT.INI:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Embedded" /fastdetect

I'm brand new at this, but just got back from DevCon where I had lots of hands-on in the lab sessions. These machines all had

regular version of XP installed, however, and I never thought to ask about starting from scratch. For what it's worth, I'm using the
eval version of XPE I got at the conference with the update to SP2 beta. I have the retail version coming, but it's not here yet.

 

[Guest]

hello there
i have aproblem with xpe
icannot setup the disk1 of the xpe sp1
i down load it ,and when i double clik on the setup icon it says no disk1 in
removable drive?!
i copy the content of the folder disk1 on cd ,and tray again it says pleas
insert the disk1:windows xpe sp1 setup
so what i can do to setup this file on my pc
thanks