1. Launched via Launched via the UBCD FreeDOS image (fdubcd.igz)
2. Launched via Dell's own DOS image (from Win98)
Method #1 works, but takes so much longer to boot than method #2. Also, who knows how the diagnostic utility will be affected by all that extra stuff that fdubcd.igz loads (UBCD devs, chime in if I'm speaking nonsense). For these reasons, I spent fairly little time with this method. I'll post it in a future thread, if desired.
All of this was tested with UBCD v5.0b6. I used Sun VirtualBox to boot and test my UBCD ISOs.
Method 2 - Launched via Dell's own DOS image (from Win98)
This is my preferred method, as it boots as fast as the regular Delldiag CD itself! Software used:
* 7-Zip (for extracting ISOs and archive files, and creating compressed files)
* WinImage (for extracting/injecting files within floppy images) - This is shareware, which sucks, but I looked and I could not find a suitable free utility.
You'll need the UBCD's contents extracted to your hard drive somewhere. I'll assume this directory is called "myubcd".
Download the diagnostics utility from Dell - support.dell.com. It seems that you can't pick a specific version of Delldiag... you need to pick a specific model of Dell PC, and grab the utility meant for that machine. As other threads have mentioned, you want to download the "hard disk version".
The actual downloaded file will be a self-extracting EXE. I don't like to run random EXEs if I can avoid it, so I just used 7-Zip (my favorite free archive utility, available at www.7-zip.org) to indirectly extract the file's contents. Once you've extracted it to a new directory, you can delete the downloaded EXE - you won't need it anymore.
Create a new directory called "delldiag" under the myubcd\ directory. I will assume from here on that you're using Delldiag version A1102 (from the Pentium 3 and early Pentium 4 era), and it's extracted into a directory called "A1102", under \myubcd\delldiag\.
Since I had for quite a while been using the "handmade" Delldiag ISOs available from Bay-Wolf (http://www.bay-wolf.com/downloads.htm), this was my starting point.
Grab the ISO image of Delldiag A1102 from Bay-Wolf. Extract the .img file located in the [BOOT] subdirectory. This is the MS-DOS image that will be used to boot the utility. Rename it to dell1102.img. This will be necessary later on, because MS-DOS only supports filenames up to 8 characters, plus a three-character extension.
Next, you need WinImage to extract autoexec.bat from the floppy. Change its contents to read as follows:
Code: Select all
@echo off
@copy a:\command.com D:\>nul
set comspec=A:\command.com
REM [CD-ROM Drive]
MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD000 /M:20 /L:R
R:
CD DELLDIAG
CD A1102
cls
echo Loading Dell Diagnostics...
DELLDIAG
:end
Now. modify \myubcd\ubcd\custom\custom.cfg with a new entry that reads as such:
Code: Select all
LABEL -
MENU LABEL Dell Diagnostics A1102
KERNEL memdisk
APPEND initrd=/delldiag/dell1102.img
Enjoy!