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Newbie to UBCD

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:20 am
by mhtaylor
Hello!
I have just DLed, extracted & burnt to CD the basic version of UBCD.
I just need some initial help in understanding UBCD & then I hope to be able to proceed on my own.
What first confused me is that, after burning, my CD opens to what appears to be just information-only about programs, sources for webpages in HTML, XML or CSV. Does the UBCD have the programs/tools, etc themselves or is it just a ready source of downloadable programs?
I know I can customize the CD; that will be a later project. At the moment I'd just like to learn what I can do immediately, as it were, with the results of the burned-to-CD ISO file.
With TIA and
Kind regards,
Malcolm

Newbie to UBCD

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 10:08 am
by bldrdash
Malcolm:

The CD is designed to be a bootable CD; you burn the ISO,
make sure your BIOS is set to boot from CD, and then boot
into it. Within another operating system, such as Windows,
it won't do much but allow you to browse documentation.

UBCD is primarily a system testing/recovery CD; there are no
Windows programs on it.

So, assuming you burned the CD correctly (it sounds like
you did, but here's info if you didn't:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/faq.html)
restart your computer with the CD in the drive and it should
come up. If it doesn't, it means the CD wasn't burned correctly
or your BIOS is not setup to boot the CDROM before the hard drive.

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 10:21 am
by mhtaylor
Many thanks, bldrdash! I'll give it a go directly; thakyou for the clear& concise guidance.
Whilst waiting for someone to post, I've been reading up on the customization of UBCD. The editing of the scn file seems a bit tricky even with the docunentation; I may have to post back!
Thanks again,
Malcolm

Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2005 12:03 am
by mhtaylor
Well, I've had a try at customizing my UBCD, just with PM8 this time as a learning exercise, but I have 9 floppy images that I wish to include when I know how!
My troubles are mostly with editing the custom.scn.
So far I've
* setup a c:\ubcd direcory
* copied into it all the files from the UBCD
* copied the mkisofs.exe to this same directory
* made images of my floppies using the FLOPPY IMAGE program
QUESTION 1: Where do I put my floppy images?
* In the "Customizing UBCD" tutorial it says to put them into c:\ubcd\images
* But the Partition Magic 8 tutorial says to put the PM8 image in the directory one is asked to create - "a subdirectory called rescue under the ubcd root directory
* Is this a special circumstance for PM8 or do my personal images go there as well?
QUESTION 2: What file extension is right for my personal floppy images?
*following to the "Custonizing UBCD" tutorial they get an IMZ extension from the FLOPPY IMAGE program
* but in the PM8 example one is told to change it to IMA
* do I need to change my floppy images to IMA as well?
QUESTION 3: How do I edit the custom.scn file?
* I've read the documentation but am having difficulties.
* Do I make a separate scn for each of my floppies or one composite one?
* How much can I use the PM8 example in my editing? I've no idea whether it's still [F!] after print " and what to put after the "if ($lastKey == key).
* One of my floppy images is saved as "haletc.imz" - it'd be tremendously helpful for a miserable DOS-limited and LINUX-limited Aussie if someone could spell out the edit!!!! Then I should be able to do it for the other floppies (I hope).

This has been more than three questions, I guess!
Hoping someone can steer me right, with
Kind regards,
Malcolm

Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2005 6:49 pm
by Victor Chew
QUESTION 1: Where do I put my floppy images?

Anywhere you like, actually. :D The default floppy images that come with UBCD resides in "images", and the original customization instruction says to put your floppy images there also.

But later, someone suggested that it is better to create a different subdirectory for your own images so that you can upgrade to a new version of UBCD easily without losing your custom apps. So the instructions for PM8 suggests "recuse", though you could just as well choose to create a subdirectory like "custom".

QUESTION 2: What file extension is right for my personal floppy images?

The extension does not matter at all, as far as I know. You can call it IMG, IMA, IMZ etc. It does not matter, though by convention, UBCD uses IMG for normal images, and IGZ for gzipped compressed images.

QUESTION 3: How do I edit the custom.scn file?

Something like the following should do the trick:

Code: Select all

if ($lastKey == key[f1]); then memdisk /custom/pm8.img

Newbie to UBCD

Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:35 am
by mhtaylor
Many thanks, Victor, for your consideration of all my questions. I think it may mean that I have made the customized CD properly.

However, now I've got to the stage where two only of my nine floppy images work. I boot from the UBCD, press F5 for User-Defined Tools and at the "/boot/menus>" prompt I enter "Memdisk \rescue\filename.img" but this only works for two of my images.
I suppose that's something - before all I got was "Error:File not found".
Regards,
Malcolm

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2005 12:32 pm
by Victor Chew
Another to take note of is that the image filenames must be in 8.3 format. Long filenames cannot be used. That might be the problem.

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 7:55 am
by mhtaylor
Thanks, Victor, but no, all images have 8.3 filenames.

Regards,
Malcolm[/img]