Custom IMA may or may not boot depending on hardware

Try looking for help here if you are having problems with the Ultimate Boot CD.

Moderators: Icecube, StopSpazzing

Locked

Does my post make sense to you?

Yes
1
50%
No
1
50%
 
Total votes: 2

Message
Author
Schultz
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:36 pm

Custom IMA may or may not boot depending on hardware

#1 Post by Schultz » Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:06 pm

I have UBCD v3.4 full and have customized a boot menu using the F5 function. I have 16 different IMA files. 8 of these images are ghost boot disks (for a given NIC) for ghost cast server 7.5 and the other 8 load the same NIC drivers but have the ghost cast 8.x executable. Everything works just great with certain hardware. Boots without a problem to my image every single time - lets just pick on my Pro100 drivers and leave the other 7 types of NICs out of the conversation. I always get all of the UBCD menus without a problem, however on some hardware when I choose to boot my Pro100 images (ghost cast 7.5 or 8.x) I get a lovely black screen (sometimes with a blinking cursor in the upper left). For weeks I tried everything I could think of. Then I finally extracted all of my images and sysed them with Win98SE system files. They were all originally PCDOS boot disks (which is Symantec's default). Amazingly after I did this and recreated my IMA files I was able to boot to more (almost all) of the different workstations we have in house. I was thrilled and jumping up and down for joy (not really). Anyway, I then ran into a snag today with one of our Compaq n800v notebooks. For the life of me I can't get my Pro100 IMA file (or any IMA for that matter) to boot. (Yes I’ve tried it on more than one n800v and even multiple DVD-ROM drives in each.) I move my custom UBCD over to a different model Compaq n160 and voila it will boot any IMA file w/out a problem (prior to changing everything to MSDOS from PCDOS these systems wouldn’t boot an IMA either). WHAT GIVES? Any ideas on how to get my IMA files to boot on all hardware? I'm thinking this problem is CD/DVD ROM specific, but I can't prove this theory because these older notebooks won't boot from my USB DVD/CD burner. I have exhausted all of my troubleshooting abilities and thus I turn to the community for help.

BTW: I am using diskemu to launch the IMA files from custom.scr. Should I be using bcdw?

Schultz
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:36 pm

Ahh Yes

#2 Post by Schultz » Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:52 pm

Well all I figured it out. Instead of running diskemu I am now using memdisk and voila! everything is working as it should (so far anyway). I haven't had a chance to test it on all of our equipment, but if it fails I'll be back to post more.

BTW: Thank you for putting this spectacular set of tools together! Now we can finally rid ourselves of 3.5" floppies.

Locked