[Fixed] Operating System install CD detection/correction

[Falcon]

Hey,

 

I'm curious as to what the prompt asking:

"Your image contains a 'I386' folder in the root directory so I'm going to assume it's an Operating System installation disc.

 

That's fine by me, except you have some conflicting settings that could stop it from working properly.

 

Would you like me to adjust the settings for you?"

... actually does.

 

I do a bit of Windows CD burning (every time I install Windows on a computer, I make a custom disc for it with nLite). Usually, I leave the task to nLite itself, because it knows what it's doing most of the time. Sometimes I make an ISO with nLite than burn it with ImgBurn. But whenever I use ImgBurn's "Build" mode to make it, even after setting up the boot options (boot using the boot sector, load 4 sectors, no emulation), I end up with a coaster. Thank goodness I use CD-RW.

 

I figure that the prompt would correct differences between burning a DVD-Video disc and a Windows disc, like ISO+UDF filesystem and ISO+Joliet filesystem. I don't know the exact options needed for making a Windows bootable CD (it's always been a dark art to me, CD filesystems...) so I would have hoped the question about CD options would fix that. However, it didn't change a thing when I answered "Yes". It left it as ISO+UDF and burned me a disc that boots, but gives "NTDETECT failed" (or something like that) when it goes to load Setup.

 

What's it supposed to do? =\

Edited April 5, 2008 by Falcon

[mmalves]

When you confirm it's an OS disc, it corrects the settings at the time of burning (i.e. it doesn't change the settings in the interface you see). If I recall correctly there is a problem in creating bootable discs with the current version, so you might want to use nLite for creating the images for now

[Falcon]

Well, I was saying it didn't do shit, because in that confirmation dialog overviewing the settings (after telling it to make the corrections), it still said ISO9660+UDF and all the old settings, which I at least know won't work for a Windows install disc (Windows can only read UDF after it's installed, dur!).

 

Now, I'd been able to create image-based bootable discs before (using a floppy image)... but on another note, using that mechanism, I do wish it would let me burn a "CD floppy" without any files (just the bootable floppy image).

 

Heck, even the Windows disc itself boots. It just doesn't seem to create the right filesystem. =(

Edited March 28, 2008 by Falcon

[LIGHTNING UK!]

This has all been taken care of in the next version.

 

It tells you exactly what it's going to modify and you no longer need to add files to a make a bootable cd.

[Falcon]

You may be the coolest developer ever.

 

Thanks!!

 

(Can I get a test version? Heh)

[blutach]

(Can I get a test version? Heh)

Haven't seen this request before!!!!

 

Regards

[Falcon]

Hey, I've got over 10 years of Windows PC experience under my belt, I can fix anything, I live with sysinternals.com tied to my belt loop, and I'm not afraid of messing things up. I think I'd make a great beta tester.

 

So yeah, I'm not Mr. "why my burn doesn't do disc rite? do i clik here?" asking for "da newest and stuff version!11".

[Falcon]

Okay. Update time.

 

I tried booting from a disc created with the new version of the OS CD detection mechanism.

 

Still no dice, still the same exact error (CDBOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR). NTLDR should be setupldr.bin (but I think it's misnamed here). I asked it to make changes.

 

Unfortunately, it ignored my option of filesystem choice (at the time, ISO9660+UDF). It only corrected errors for the current choice, it seems. It tried burning the OS CD using ISO+UDF, seriously. I'm no (real) expert, but I think that won't worky. I switched it instead to pure ISO9660.

 

Here's the kicker: if I remember correctly, it's Joliet that allows lowercase filenames. Funny thing is, I have mixed case filenames on the resulting disc. How'd that happen?

 

Lots of filesystem weirdness going on in here. Not sure what to make of it. I'll play with some settings... =\

 

edit of the century:

Oh, how ironic. After about 10 image creations and testing in Microsoft Virtual PC, I found that ImgBurn's own correction was causing the problem. The filesystem character set must be STANDARD, not ASCII, as is suggested in the dialog. Switching it to Standard and making no other changes to the suggested options (which I screenshotted and changed back in the main GUI), caused the disc to now be bootable. Yay!

 

edit edit:

Okay, that got it booted, but that would not make it install (in theory). After ticking the option to log changed ISO9660 filenames, I found that several critical filenames were changed - like $OEM$ to _OEM_. To avoid that, I changed the mode to DOS instead of Standard (instead of ASCII by far). Now it only changed the case of several folder names, and since Windows is a case insensitive operating system, it'll work just fine (again, in theory). It also booted just as well. The only one that doesn't boot is ASCII. Now, on to the real world test - installing it on a real computer.

Edited April 4, 2008 by Falcon

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I really don't get why that's a problem.

 

If you take an original disc and service pack it, those options work fine - I tested it myself yesterday from an original SP1 disc which I then updated to SP3.

 

If you use the 'Standard' character set then certain files will have their names changed. The only way to avoid that is to use ASCII. (ASCII allows for upper and lower case, plus additional characters)

 

If MS didn't want the installer to work with lowercase files then they shouldn't have made them lower case in the service pack.

 

Nothing else in MS world is case sensitive so why is the installer?

 

Anyway.... I guess I need a new 'Advanced' option whereby ImgBurn will convert all the file names to uppercase in the ISO9660 file system or something.

 

I wouldn't expect having additional file systems on the disc would cause a problem, the installer will only read from the one it knows about.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Doh, ignore that... the option already exists in the form of the 'DOS' character set.

 

You do not want to use the 'Standard' one.

 

lol and I see the last sentence in your post actually said that.

 

Ok, the option will be changed from ASCII to DOS then for Windows install CD's.

 

I guess I was lucky that my original files already had the correct 'case' and it installed using ASCII.

[Falcon]

Shit, I got so involved last night that I forgot to add: it installs perfectly

 

Now ImgBurn has a new purpose in life: burning my WinXP discs!

 

Oh... and at a binary level (the ASM used in the tiny 4-sector boot image, for example), I'm sure MS couldn't cram in case-insensitive code, that's probably why

[LIGHTNING UK!]

AFAIK, all the bootsectors do is point to NTLDR.

 

Was that really lowercase in the folder on your hdd? If so, what on earth made it that way?!

 

btw, the silent update on the ImgBurn.com mirror has this change implemented already, just incase you want to try it

[Falcon]

Astoudndingly, the only lowercase filename in the i386 folder on my hard drive that I noticed is "setupldr.bin" - the file referenced in the binary code of the boot sector (boot.bin - or commonly known as "Microsoft Corporation.img") is "SETUPLDR.BIN'. Never woulda thought that a case change would make that much difference. =P

 

edit: NTLDR is for hard drives, but since they share the same loader code, M$ probably opted to recycle the old code in the setup bootloader (since they don't expect people to change it). So they left the misleading "Couldn't find NTLDR" text there...

Edited April 4, 2008 by Falcon

[weisborg]

Interesting, I'll have to remember that if I ever have any issues with mine. I had an issue with a disc once I never could figure out. It would get right past the Press a Key to Boot from CD message still in the Black screens when it is checking Hardware and either just sit there or beep and go nuts. Had to grab a friends disc and use it. Weird thing is I did a file compare and everything matched??? Maybe it was this very filename case issue. XP has a habit of changing name case. There is a key in the registry too that tweaks it.

 

Also, since SysInternals is now M$...you have Billy under your belt! :&

 

I have all their versions right before the switch just to not have to deal with the stupid new license screens.

[weisborg]

PS, nice sites Matt. Yeah, I went by "stripping off the rest of the URL" as the home page said. Your smiley page is pretty cool. Got those saved in a zip somewhere? Most of those are hilarious.

[Falcon]

[offtopic]

Yeah... Process Explorer's CPU usage also went through the roof as well. IMO, a program that monitors process performance shouldn't be eating up 20-50% CPU just to do its job... o_O

 

I kinda have a mix... I'm not totally anti-Microsoft but I do dislike that they bought out Sysinternals. They should have been left to do their art alone. Sigh...

 

edit: LULS! Hah... thanks! Yeah, one sec, lemme gzip those (server side) and link it.

editedit: Here you go... smileys.tgz. Wow, server-side processing is effing COOL. I tar-gzipped it straight to my FTP-upload user account, then ran Hostfile's FTP import script, which snatched the file and put it in its proper place to be hosted online. Two minute job, including download to verify. There's also a copy of some VERY EARLY Hostfile.org code in there (index.php), but none of that code is relevant in the current rendition of the site, so it's OK to be released.

[/offtopic]

Edited April 5, 2008 by Falcon

[weisborg]

289 Smileys, what more could a guy want...

 

As soon as I get all my stuff together and get a real site I need to post up some of my stuff I've made in my Slipstream Windows Discs. I have 3 different DVDs (XP, XP64, 2003) that install pretty much anything needed for Windows. Took some time building up everything to install and gathering all the files and the order to do everything. The reg tweaks alone are 87KB...and that is optimized to be only the keys/values needed without anything extra and even include Office Tweaks/Settings. And almost 3GB of install files that install Office (2003 or 2007), Visio 2003, DirectX, FireFox, Thunderbird, Java (Both Sun and the last version of MS JAVA that I extracted and repackaged to install on any OS unblocked), Flash Players, Royale Theme, Vista Screen Savers for XP, then it has SP2 Slipstreamed and the 108MB of patches since SP2 that install during setup...until the final SP3 gets out (Hopefully end of the month). Wouldn't be posting the Office stuff though, people would have to use their own. Lots of work though and even a custom install app I made for it all that runs during setup. Used many DVD RWs and Cheap DVD-Rs to make it perfect. The reg imports work different on the two XP discs as compared to 2003 too. For some reason the XP flavors overide any user settings the first time a user logs on, while 2003 keeps them as Default...so on the XP flavors I have to apply them during setup and on the first login to make them stick for all users...

Edited April 5, 2008 by weisborg

[Falcon]

Yeah, I could cram that, fully functional, onto a CD-R.

(BTW, there's always MS Virtual PC, which is free for anyone using XP Pro... ever considered using that instead of DVDs and RWs? )

 

I <3 optimizing shit.

 

As for distribution... I have to ask, because many people seem to totally miss the boat here. Have you ever heard of TORRENTS?

Edited April 5, 2008 by Falcon

[weisborg]

Heard of Torrents, like the general idea...hate the software that you have to use for them. Back when I first switched over to Firefox I could have sworn I heard some kind of comments about it supporting them and then never saw much. Many Newsreaders have good support for various protocols and encoding, although I haven't been on the news boards since I lived up in WI...not very good support here in MO as they tend to be hacker/pirate oriented and 90% of WI seemed to be the various foreign populations that enjoyed hacking/pirating, so the networks there are much better (although more often hacked).

 

Unfortunately I have yet to see many File Sharing and/or Torrent apps that aren't some type of virus themselves. I've cleaned tons of PCs and the main cause of the infestations are usually some type of file sharing. One PC I was on had some popular one like limewire or something and it attached itself to every explorer, Yahoo Im, AOL IM, and various other windows and processes. It was doing all kinds of stuff unknown to the user and many AV programs...so needless to say I don't use them much. Not to mention the people "seeding" them is overrun by the people leaching off of them.

Edited April 5, 2008 by weisborg

[Falcon]

[derailed trainwreck]

My god, you are so misled. Torrents are the WAY of the FUTURE for data distribution. Don't buy into bullshit clients like BitComet or "hybrid" clients like Limewire that claim to do more than one type of network. If you want torrent software, get

Edited April 5, 2008 by Falcon

[weisborg]

Seemed to get pretty good advice about booting the last time here, so decided to ask another question...

 

Installed Windows with disc made with latest version which works excellent...however my Bios Settings didn't. I have 2 Seagate Hard Drives and the Bios chopped their names to 8 chars, so in selecting the first boot drive I accidentally selected the drive with D:...I'd think it shouldn't make a difference since I formatted C: in the install and told it to install to C:, but I guess it uses the bios setting somewhere because it installed everything to C: except boot.ini, cmldr, ntldr, and ntdetect.com.

 

I tried copying the files to C: and making it boot from it- Failed

I tried fixboot and fixmbr in Recovery Console on C:- Failed

 

Can't seem to get it to use C: to boot (If I force it to only have C: Available in Bios to boot from it fails too). boot.ini on d: calls drive C: rdisk(1) too, so I guess the BIOS remaps them internally during boot until Windows loads, then C: is back as the first drive.

 

Anyone know of any other tricks to try?

 

BTW uTorrent works awesome. I even used it to get XPSP3 in record time.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If it installed the boot files on the wrong hdd then you must have the order mucked up physically or in the boot order sequence.

 

Swap the cables around

Disconnect D:

Install onto C:

Plug D: back in and copy everything off it

Write zero's to D: before then reinitialising the disc and copying the stuff back.

[weisborg]

Yeah, that is what the problem was. Installing Windows with the Bios Boot Order wrong. I finally fixed it. I remembered back to my old DOS days using FDISK and how you have to set a partition as active to be able to boot from it. Appears that isn't an option/doesn't happen with fixboot/fixmbr in Recovery Console. I booted up, right clicked My Computer and went to manage. Then Disk Management. Right Clicked the C: Drive and told it to Set Active. I then rebooted and the stupid thing booted right up off of C:. I read somewhere that the boot files must be within 8.4GB, but no clue if that is the case. I ran Defrag to compact everything and hopefully it put them right.