bootable BartPE DVD with huge file - is it possible?

[whoever]

Hi.

 

I'm trying to put together a boot DVD using BartPE as boot source and with a big 42000 MB file.

 

The thing is, a boot disk must be made using the ISO9660 file system but only the UDF file system supports files over 2 GB...

 

So I'm stuck! All I got were a few un-bootable coasters...

 

Apparentely the new Vista DVD from Microsoft uses both file systems on the same session, thus allowing what I'm trying to achieve, but I've been unable to pull it off myself.

 

I think I'm doing everything right, including adding the BartPE boot IMG image file, no emulation, 4 sectors, etc.

 

I've read other posts on the board, including one with a similar problem here.

 

But it's not exactly the same. It seems the problem there was the total size of the content of the full disc, while my problem is that, besides that, I'm trying to burn a file that, by itself, exceeds the 2GB limit. Actually by a long shot, as it's more than twice that size.

 

My latest try (burning an image of the whole thing to HD and then burning the image to DVD) looked promising throughout the boot, but then I got an error message saying it "couldn't find NTLDR".

 

Is that problem something I can fix?

 

Any ideas?

 

 

Thanks,

 

whoever

[whoever]

Found an interesting post regarding the NTLDR problem here.

 

That happens when you forget to enable the Allow Files Without Extension option under Advanced -> Restrictions -> ISO9660 tab(s). (...) NTLDR should be inside the i386 folder.

 

(posted my mmalves)

 

I checked my ISO and I don't have that file there... or anywhere, for that matter.

 

It's not on my working BartPE CD either, which is strange, since... well, it works.

 

So my question is: will adding that file solve the problem?

 

And...

 

Can I just get it from a plain Windows XP install CD and that's it?

 

Or does it have to be tweaked somehow?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Unless you have some way of reading UDF in the bootable bit then you're stuck.

 

ISO9660 in ImgBurn will accept files up to 4GB but it's impossible to go any bigger than that.

 

Vista DVD's just use UDF really, the ISO9660 part is purely there for making it bootable and that file system just contains a readme.txt file saying you need an OS capable of reading UDF to access the files on the disc.

 

When you select UDF only in Imgburn and make the disc bootable, it does exactly the same thing.

[whoever]

Hey Lightning, thanks for the reply.

 

Unless you have some way of reading UDF in the bootable bit then you're stuck.

 

But everything seems to be ok, up to the NTLDR error.

 

Are you saying that even if I could solve that, it would still fail somehow?

 

I'm saying that because, compared to the other coasters, this last one seemed promising.

 

ISO9660 in ImgBurn will accept files up to 4GB but it's impossible to go any bigger than that.

 

So I'll be ok if I manage to cut that big file just under 4GB, or are you talking about those 4GB as the total for all files in the DVD, including the BartPE bootable bit?

 

I could probably cut the big file to 4GB (4.096 MB)

 

But then bottable part itself would take another 163 MB...

[LIGHTNING UK!]

The image can be as big as you can fit on a disc, any limitation there comes from your BIOS more than anything.

 

The 4GB limit is of a single file within the ISO9660 / Joliet file system.

 

The field where you store the size of the file is 32 bits / 4 bytes / 2 words / 1 dword in length, hence the biggest value it can represent is just shy of 4GB.

 

Assuming you've got the latest version (from the ImgBurn.com mirror), the program will auto correct any settings you might have got wrong if it notices you have an '\I386\NTLDR' file in your compilation. Once it's done that there's no reason for it to moan about anything NTLDR related.

[whoever]

I cut the file to under 4GB and go the DVD done without any problems, but it still doesn't work.

 

It goes further with the boot, but now I get this error message:

 

File \i386\system32\vgaoem.fon could not be loaded.

The error code is 4.

Setup cannot continue

Press any key etc...

 

Assuming you've got the latest version (from the ImgBurn.com mirror), the program will auto correct any settings you might have got wrong if it notices you have an '\I386\NTLDR' file in your compilation. Once it's done that there's no reason for it to moan about anything NTLDR related.

 

I have the latest version. It did suggest 3 changes, which I accepted. Nothing about NTLDR because I made sure I placed

that file there manually.

 

I'm assuming this is now a BartPE problem rather than a ImgBurn thing.

 

The weird thing is that I copied the files from a working BartPE disc and everything works with that CD.

 

No .fon error. no NTLDR problem. Weird.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

It's important that you have the version from the ImgBurn.com mirror. It's the only one that can build XP install discs properly - as you need to use the DOS character set and not ASCII - and all the other versions change the setting to ASCII (it was fixed in a silent update).

[whoever]

It's important that you have the version from the ImgBurn.com mirror. (...) (it was fixed in a silent update).

 

The version of ImgBurn I'm using was downloaded from one of your mirrors the day before I started this thread (may 13). Was that change made after that date?

[mmalves]

Please re-download ImgBurn v2.4.1.0 from the ImgBurn.com mirror and install it. You won't lose your settings and you'll be sure that you're using the good version

[whoever]

I downloaded the last version, installed it, made sure the DOS character set was used and tried burning another one.

 

Same thing happened. Two suggestions were made and accepted, the burning process was smooth and got the same error 4.

 

I'm thinking about going through the whole BartPE creation steps again, adding my extra files to the resulting ISO.

 

But this makes no sense since I'm using the BartPE bits from a CD that works (and boots) great.

 

All I did was add the NTLDR file to the i386 dir, and the other files to a new dir.

Edited May 17, 2008 by whoever

[whoever]

In the meantime I got another hint from a BartPE board.

 

The post can be found here.

 

Turns out BartPE doesn't use NTLDR, but a file called SETUPLDR.BIN, which should be inside the I386 dir, in uppercase.

 

So I got rid of NTLDR and made sure the right file was there. It was.

 

Still, I ended up with another coaster!

 

First of all, I think that one of the first coasters, the one that triggered the missing NTLDR file error message, must have happened because of something else going wrong with the burning process, like using the ASCII character set instead of DOS, or something like that.

 

I've been fixing steps along the way, so having fixed whatever was causing that, the absence of the NTLDR file is not causing any trouble now, as expected.

 

So I feel like I've fixed the first problem, but I'm stuck with the error number 4message, about the VGAOEM.FON file.

 

I really don't know what to do next.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Is that file actually on the disc you've just burnt?

 

I hope you're using a DVD-RW/DVD+RW for all this testing, it would be a waste otherwise!

 

Personally I'd be creating an image and trying it inside of a virtual machine via virtual drive of some kind.

[whoever]

Is that file actually on the disc you've just burnt?

 

Yep. Got rid of NTLDR and the other had been there all along.

 

I hope you're using a DVD-RW/DVD+RW for all this testing, it would be a waste otherwise!

 

Actually I don't use RW media at all, so I didn't had a DVD-RW around this one time I could really use it. So I wasted a few DVD-Rs...

 

Personally I'd be creating an image and trying it inside of a virtual machine via virtual drive of some kind.

 

Yeah, I get that a lot. It's just that VM is another world and I've been having a lot of new stuff to figure out lately... So I stuck to destroying a few blanks.

 

Mission accomplished though. Editing the ISO with UltraISO solved the problem. I think the issue was related to the fact that the boot stuff (the BartPE bit) must be at the beginning of the DVD. So building the ISO from scratch solved that. Since it also burns I used that, but I'm guessing ImgBurn would've been ok with the new ISO too.

 

Thank you both for your time and for your help.

Edited May 20, 2008 by whoever