Diskemu and bcdw boot not available in UBCD4?

[sonika]

Hey guys,

Contratz Victor on the latest system, which I assume is mainly so it can be transfered to a flash drive easier.

Only problem so far, is that there's a few images I've got (.ima .img and one ISO) which don't boot using memdisk. I had them all loading in 3.4, but now with the new system, I'm not sure what to use.

I understand that diskemu, or bcdw boot aren't compatible with syslinux, but that might be wrong. Any suggestions on what to do?

Cheers
Sonika

[Victor Chew]

I wish I could say there is a workaround for this, but there isn't, AFAIK.

diskemu and bcdw just aren't available for syslinux/isolinux.

Your only option is to try the raw, bigraw and safeint options for memdisk, and see if they help with your disk images.

[sonika]

Hi Victor, I had a feeling that was the case, but I thought I'd ask in case

I haven't really tried using the raw, bigraw and safeint options yet. Do you have any guidance on how and when to use them, as in which is most suitable for each situation?

Cheers

[Victor Chew]

I haven't really tried using the raw, bigraw and safeint options yet. Do you have any guidance on how and when to use them, as in which is most suitable for each situation?

Nah, it's mostly trial-and-error.

[freeballer]

so there isn't a way to boot .iso files directly in this version?

[mp3guru17]

I've been trying different ways to make diskemu work for ubcd v4 without any luck. syslinux just does not support diskemu natively. I've tried making syslinux load the boot sector for diskemu 1x (http://www.nu2.nu/diskemu/) with the following

LABEL ISOFile
MENU LABEL myISOFile
KERNEL /diskemu/loader.bin

I also have diskemu.cmd and diskem1x.bin in the root of the dvd.

Inside the diskemu.cmd file is:
run myISOFile.iso

Now, this method works in that it does load diskemu, but it does not work in that this version of diskemu does not support images that are in no-emulation mode. A google search showed that there is a diskemu 2.0 (http://download.pchome.net/utility/cdr/13360.html), but since i can't read chinese, i have no idea how to get diskemu 2.0. Any ideas?

(Yes, i know that the general way of integrating a bootable cd into ubcd would be to kernel or chain the modified boot sector of the cd you are integrating, but i have some tools that are pretty much impossible to modify the boot sector and make it work right.)

In ubcd v3.x diskemu worked perfectly in the above situation. I can understand why this project switched to syslinux but honestly, is it worth it to sacrifice functionality for a better gui?

[Victor Chew]

In ubcd v3.x diskemu worked perfectly in the above situation. I can understand why this project switched to syslinux but honestly, is it worth it to sacrifice functionality for a better gui?

Nope, I didn't switch over to syslinux for the menu system. Frankly, CDShell has a much more powerful menu system (a full-fledged scripting language actually).

I switched over to syslinux because CDShell's development has halted for a very long time (over two years already?), and its forum isn't very active at all. Plus it has problems booting on some newer machines (do a search on this forum or CDShell's forum and you will see what I mean).

syslinux has been under active development all along, and there is a great mailing list that you can join. So any problems or bugs has a higher chance of getting fixed. Plus syslinux is supported for USB devices, so theoretically it is possible to have a single code base for both the CD and USB version of UBCD, which is nice.

[tmike]

I've been trying different ways to make diskemu work for ubcd v4 without any luck.
...

Now, this method works in that it does load diskemu, but it does not work in that this version of diskemu does not support images that are in no-emulation mode.

Did you notice the comments re: the bootinfotable command?

A google search showed that there is a diskemu 2.0 (http://download.pchome.net/utility/cdr/13360.html), but since i can't read chinese, i have no idea how to get diskemu 2.0. Any ideas?

i downloaded that diskemu 2.0; it is an ISO with quite a bit of stuff on it (mostly looks like stuff to demo its operation, but like the web page it is mostly in chinese so quite unhelpful to me)

I was going to fiddle with this myself but after looking over UBCD 3 (which i never used), and reading your comments i was somewhat confused by what you said you had done to try to make it work. if you'd like a copy of what i downloaded, drop me an email temp549 at dallassub dot com