Puppy-Win32-Installer

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mikeb
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#21 Post by mikeb »

We all love ecomoney ..just non of us can live with him....

seeker
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#22 Post by seeker »

ICPUG,

During testing I installed to an XP that was on a second slave drive hd1,0 and got the exact same error. Changing the menu.lst from hd0,0 to hd1,0 booted Puppy. We need ecomoney to weigh in on this and tell us what works.

I have read that Windows always regards <windows root> as c:\ but I was sceptical about that and ecomoneys comments seem to validate my doubts. The install-puppy code gets the drive spec from GP-Install as a commandline argument <WINDISK> and that was e:\ in this case. I designed the code to only install to the Windows drive so I do hope it performed as expected.

Also I was under the impression that ttuuxxxs 2 series update could be installed to a directory. 8) That Puppy is looking good.

ICPUG
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#23 Post by ICPUG »

Seeker,

Your comments are interesting and certainly expand my knowledge.

Your situation was slightly different to Ecomoney. You used a separate disk for Windows - Ecomoney uses a separate partition.

One thing crosses my mind. If Windows reports it is on E\: drive in Explorer then this is past the point of ntldr. I wonder if ntldr still thinks it is c and consequently changing e:\grldr to c:\grldr might work for Ecomoney.

I guess if all else fails this would work:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\grldr

As you say, we need Ecomoney to tells us what works.

I hope you are right about Ttuxxx Series 2 update installing to a subdirectory. I've never seen this mnentioned and I have not looked at it, let alone tested it.

seeker
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#24 Post by seeker »

Ttuxxx Series 2 update installing to a subdirectory was mentioned here.
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 737#309737

Been itching to try it myself. Just haven't found the time yet.

ICPUG
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#25 Post by ICPUG »

Thanks Seeker. No wondered you remembered it - you asked the question! I haven't been following the updating 2 series because I like 4.2.1!

The link you gave pointed to vg1 saying that 2.14R allowed a frugal to subdriectory. Did Ttuxxx come back and say he had implemented it in 2.14X? I don't think his forte is messing with scripts - he seems to concentrate on compiling and removing zigbert's stuff (lol).

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ecomoney
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#26 Post by ecomoney »

Hi All, sorry for the delay, I ve been waiting until my head was fresh before attempting dissection of what happened on this test rig. Ive also had to completely rewire the cybercafe as the centre 60's era wiring was causing problems so Ive spent the last two days there.

As I say, I installed Windows after I installed puppy, which will be a situation far rarer than installing Puppy after installing windows :lol: I will do some tests on the rig that I have here to try and resolve the booting issues in this minority case, and post the successful results.

Seeker, I see your thinking when it comes to using a subdirectory now...you are saying it will allow people to try a variety of puplets out to see which suits them best, a good strategy.

What is obvious though is that the complexities involved in successfully configuring GRUB would be far to much for a non-programmer/average computer user to get their head around.
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ecomoney
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#27 Post by ecomoney »

Ok I fixed it :D

What I had to do was this (I will use GRUB notation from now on to avoid confusion), The solution was to change the last line in (0,1)\boot.ini from this

Code: Select all

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

e:\grldr="Start Puppy Linux"
to

Code: Select all

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

c:\grldr="Start Puppy Linux"
Notice the last line now reads....

c:\grldr="Start Puppy Linux"
not
e:\grldr="Start Puppy Linux"

c:\ doesnt exist on this computer. I dont know the reasons why this would be...but it works. Maybe GLDR "assumes" that whatever partition it is running on currently is "c:\".

Thanks for the tips. I really must now have a go at using the package creator...in a past life I used to be a well heeled but otherwise extremely unhappy Visual Basic programmer, you mentioned it used Basic code?

Sorry I havnt been able to pick up that copy of Vista as yet.
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mikeb
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#28 Post by mikeb »

Maybe GLDR "assumes" that whatever partition it is running on currently is "c:\".
actually it's the windows ntldr that makes this assumption .. just to clarify..

mike

ps maybe theres a hidden restore partition or simply windows not recognising non ntfs/fat partitions.

ICPUG
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#29 Post by ICPUG »

Great - Ecomoney has confirmed that my ramblings yesterday were correct. Now I want to know why Windows reports it is on an 'e' drive now! That's for a Windows forum I guess!

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ecomoney
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#30 Post by ecomoney »

Who knows and who cares...its just a big glob of 0's and 1's. Im glad someone is a little wiser from all this ICPUG :)

One scenario I know is a lot more common than peole wishing to reinstall windows after Puppy, is the scenario where windows is hosed entirely and just wont boot.

In this scenario, the ability to automatically set up this kind of install....without reformatting and losing peoples music/documents/pictures etc would be very useful to a great many people. Human nature being what it is, often this is the only time people would be willing to try using Linux, if they were forced to choose between losing their data, or a lengthy or expensive backup+format and Windows re-install.

This would need to be done as a script within a livebooted puppy linux though, and is probably the topic of another thread.
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Patriot
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#31 Post by Patriot »

Hmmm .....
ICPUG wrote:..... Now I want to know why Windows reports it is on an 'e' drive now! .....
Just a quick lame blabbering ...

Windows (XP) correctly reports it is on e: drive since that's the partition number its being installed on. The MBR overwrite is a legacy issue. No matter what version of windows (x32/x64) the MBR boot code is still 16bit codes.

GRLDR is part of Grub4DOS. In it's readme file, it did mentioned that no matter what partition/disk/floppy/cdrom it booted from, the boot.ini line must be C:\GRLDR ...

Rgds

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bignono1
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installing win98 on puppy 4.2

#32 Post by bignono1 »

Hi
I am running only Puppy 4.2 and need to install win98,
if it was other way i guess it is easy but in my case what is the best
way to install win98?
Please advise.
Thank you all.

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ecomoney
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#33 Post by ecomoney »

Seems like we need a windows installer for puppy now! :lol:

You will need to boot your computer from CD, using the "puppy pfix=ram" parameter. Once running use gparted (under the "system") menu to shrink your linux partition (drag and drop). You can than reboot with your win98 disk in, and tell it to install on the "free space"

You will need to sort out the mess windoze has made of your bootloader after that (it installs itself as the only option), but use your liveCD to bypass the hosed bootloader and get you back into happy puppy land.

Windows 98 had a great undocumented feature, in that you could literally just copy the files from c:\ onto a new install. Of course this didint sell any more windoze licences so they stopped this with 2000. I suggest after you install it you make an archive of the win98 files which will make re-installing a lot easier.

Good luck and woof woof

P.S. you may want to try Wine, its getting really good at running 98 era programs.
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seeker
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#34 Post by seeker »

Thanks everyone for all the feedback.

So, it looks like all that's needed is to have the code always write c:\grldr="Start Puppy Linux" for XP and 2000. Thanks Patriot! Now the next question is: Does this issue exist for 98 installs, since it uses grub.exe to boot. More research .. It's interesting that the problem was not the menu.lst entry as I believed, but I think I understand the issues/differences better now.

Ecomoney, will you do another test for us? Will you use XP to uninstall this Puppy and verify that it will remove the menu.lst entry properly and restore boot.ini? It should notify you that all Puppies have been removed and offer to restore the boot process to the original configuration. Accept the offer and see if XP boots without the startup menu. I want to make sure there aren't anymore gotchas when the install isn't on the first partition. It should remove everything except e:\grldr and e:\boot\grub.exe. e:\menu.lst should be gone, unless you added some code to it. The line c:\grldr="Start Puppy Linux" should be gone from boot.ini.

I really appreciate everyone's help and feedback. I would never have found this bug on my own.

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ecomoney
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#35 Post by ecomoney »

Seeker will give it a try, your very welcome....thats what were here for. Im not at home right now where that test rig is though, so Im afraid it will have to be tommorow.
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bignono1
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#36 Post by bignono1 »

ecomoney:
Do i need to change the windows partition to the FAT file system?
Thank you for the help.

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Patriot
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#37 Post by Patriot »

Hmmm .....

I actually prefer using Grub4DOS than Gnu GRUB most of the time. Grub4DOS is a whole lot more flexible once you're familiar with it.
seeker wrote:..... Does this issue exist for 98 installs, since it uses grub.exe to boot. More research ..
GRLDR and grub.exe is the same core binary but GRLDR is designed as a NTLDR drop-in replacement. The way it has to handle itself upon loading (legacy issue, bios registers, interrupt vectors, bla, bla, bla) probably made it the only one to affect the boot.ini entry (as C:\GRLDR). There's a different issue for DOS/W9x, due to the 16bit BIOS legacy dependency, DOS/W9x needs to be started from an active primary partition. If the loading is done from config.sys then it follows standard DOS definition/procedures. (This is the same issue faced by Coreboot BIOS if one needs to boot such an OS ...)

I suggest hopping over to the Grub4DOS Guide page to see how other tasks can be done.

Rgds

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bignono1
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#38 Post by bignono1 »

I resized the disk where Puppy is installed, formated the new part to EXT2,
rebooted with the Win98 CD in, and the SETUP started but it was going to format drive C , so i stoped it , cuz maybe it was going to wipe out everything.
Now : i reformated the new part to FAT32 and it was late so i went to sleep mode , i will continue today after work.
CHEEEERZ.

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bignono1
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#39 Post by bignono1 »

Installed win98 and after reboot the old DISK I/O ERROR came up,
now i cant get any where , when i use win98 start up disk i get to the c:\
and type windows\win i get this: VFAT dEVICE INITIALIZATION FAILD , SYSTEM HALTED.
I can boot puppy only by the CD .
:!:
NOW WHAT?

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mikeb
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#40 Post by mikeb »

@bignono1 my guess is you formatted the second partition to fat32.
98 wants to be on the first so swap everything around.
Once installed you will need grub or grub4dos setup to boot both.
mike

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