XPe El-Torito vs XP El-Torito

[Stefan Klein]

Hallo,
i'm trying to deploy a 300MB XPe run-time image to a Liteline/Mitac 5033
Notebook (AMD K6-2 400MHz, 160MB Ram, 5GB HDD, Toshiba XM-7002B CD-ROM).
I created a XPe bootable El-Torito CD that does work on another (more
modern) pc but doesn't bootup at the notebook. It just skips the cd-rom
and goes on booting from HDD (standard Windows XP). XP Professional
Setup CD boots up fine so boot order should be ok.

So, is it possible that the XPe bootable El-Torito cd maybe checks for
already installed os'es and skips booting from cd?

The cd media is readable. The currently installed XP shows the cd name
in explorer. The disc itself is empty in explorer (by design like stated
in xpe docs).

The notebook is capable of booting the windows xp setup cd so why
doesn't it boot the xpe boot cd-rom? Don't they both have the same
El-Torito standard based mechanism to start the cd? I'm not sure if i
should remove the active flag from the hdd partition to force a cd boot
(in case its a boot order problem). It needs more than 10min to boot
into recovery console with XP setup cd to change that (with that notebook).

I'm currently out of ideas how to deploy the image. My first idea was to
use a live cd, set the partition active and copy the image by file copy
(winrar or similar) or with Winhex sector based. But i cannot get any
live cd running. VistaPE needs 256MB ram (at least the current
WinBuilder v12 edition) and i tried LiveXP but don't know anymore why i
dropped that. Maybe i preferred to create a XPe bootable at that time.

Another attempt would be an 2.5"->3.5" HDD adapter to connect the hdd
directly to another system but i would prefer to not use that method.

Any idea why the cd doesn't boot? Is it possible that the notebook is
not capable of booting El-Torito or the specific XPe format?



Btw, when the cd boots up on another system you can hear heavy
sequential accesses. The laser jumps very often like a real HDD would do
probably. Is there a caching component like 'smartdrive' or something
available to improve cd-rom reading?

 

[Dave R.]

Hallo,
i'm trying to deploy a 300MB XPe run-time image to a Liteline/Mitac
5033 Notebook (AMD K6-2 400MHz, 160MB Ram, 5GB HDD, Toshiba XM-7002B
CD-ROM). I created a XPe bootable El-Torito CD that does work on
another (more modern) pc but doesn't bootup at the notebook. It just
skips the cd-rom and goes on booting from HDD (standard Windows XP).
XP Professional Setup CD boots up fine so boot order should be ok.

So, is it possible that the XPe bootable El-Torito cd maybe checks for
already installed os'es and skips booting from cd?

The cd media is readable. The currently installed XP shows the cd name
in explorer. The disc itself is empty in explorer (by design like
stated in xpe docs).

The notebook is capable of booting the windows xp setup cd so why
doesn't it boot the xpe boot cd-rom? Don't they both have the same
El-Torito standard based mechanism to start the cd? I'm not sure if i
should remove the active flag from the hdd partition to force a cd
boot (in case its a boot order problem). It needs more than 10min to
boot into recovery console with XP setup cd to change that (with that
notebook).

I'm currently out of ideas how to deploy the image. My first idea was
to use a live cd, set the partition active and copy the image by file
copy (winrar or similar) or with Winhex sector based. But i cannot get
any live cd running. VistaPE needs 256MB ram (at least the current
WinBuilder v12 edition) and i tried LiveXP but don't know anymore why
i dropped that. Maybe i preferred to create a XPe bootable at that
time.

Another attempt would be an 2.5"->3.5" HDD adapter to connect the hdd
directly to another system but i would prefer to not use that method.

Any idea why the cd doesn't boot? Is it possible that the notebook is
not capable of booting El-Torito or the specific XPe format?



Btw, when the cd boots up on another system you can hear heavy
sequential accesses. The laser jumps very often like a real HDD would
do probably. Is there a caching component like 'smartdrive' or
something available to improve cd-rom reading?

El-Torito in older hardware can be a bit finicky, especially when
combined with CD-R media (which is likely the reason the XP Pro CD works
where yours doesn't). I would try burning the CD at a slower speed and
see if that fixes the problem. I've often had to drop my burner down to
8x or even 4x to get El-Torito CDs to boot properly, even on new
hardware.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Stefan Klein]

1) To be more precise its a cd-rw media and i think it does work
properly. I recorded the XP setup cd to it and it worked flawlessly. I
think its a software/format issue.

I will start bug hunting by trying to find an alternative solution for
hd2iso to master the (post-FBA) image. Maybe i just need to add the iso
9660 filesystem with some dummy files. I think both (XP and XPe) use the
same El-Torito method ("No Emulation") but differ by missing ISO file
system (XPe). Its worth a try.

2) Is it possible to optimize such bootable cds? Not sure but maybe its
possible to process prefetch data (rundll32.exe
advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks) and use 'defrag' with 'Layout.ini' on the
post-FBA image (on hdd) before recording. Anyone tested this yet?


Correction:
I my previous post it should read 'heavy random access' not 'heavy
sequential access'.

 

[Stefan Klein]

Looks like XP uses 'No Emulation' El-Torito method whereas XPe uses 'HDD
Emulation' and the notebook doesn't seem to support it. :-(
Unless i find a bios update i can't do anything here i think. I need to
find another way to deploy.