couldn't boot, couldn't uninstall :-(

[rayandrews]

Hi,

So I gave the boot manager a try and it was a disaster.  I made a floppy image as per instructions, booted from it, gave her a 'full install', rebooted the machine, got "If you can read this, press CTRL-ESC" ... and the machine was frozen, couldn't even CTRL-ALT-DEL. On hitting restart button, she booted to a checkerboard screen. Booted from the floppy again and gave her a 'full uninstall'. Rebooted to HD and got the "If you can read this ..." msg. again. Had to use my XP install disk in recover console mode to resore my MBR :-(

I'm a lover of the sort of work that PLoP represents, but we hafta do better!

[Elmar]

the uninstall works fine, i dont konw whats going wrong on your machine.

[rayandrews]

the uninstall works fine, i dont konw whats going wrong on your machine.

Hi Elmar,

My machine is pretty standard, two HD, both with XP,
but I want to use your program since I'm going to install Linux and also my old DOS onto the same disk so I need the boot manager.

Perhaps you can identify the msg? "If you can read this ..." where does that come from? If I could get the boot manager to come up properly then I'd know if it was even installed.  Could it be a problem with the floppy image? How would I check? Give me some ideas, and I'll try again.

[rayandrews]

Hi Elmar,

Well, I tried the GAG boot manager. It at least didn't
screw anything up, however, it couldn't boot my DOS
partition. But it switched between my two XP disks
fine.  Oh well, maybe there is no boot manager for
my desires, but I'd sure like to get yours working.

[Elmar]

Perhaps you can identify the msg? "If you can read this ..." where does that come from? If I could get the boot manager to come up properly then I'd know if it was even installed.  Could it be a problem with the floppy image? How would I check? Give me some ideas, and I'll try again.

this message comes, because the boot manager was not able to switch to the graphic mode. this happens on some graphic cards, but till now i had no such card to find the problem. sometimes the pc hangs totally and then its not possible to press CTRL-ESC to switch to the text mode. there is the option "6" in the installer to set the boot manager to the text mode. boot the installer floppy and press 6.

about the uninstall: is there a bios boot/mbr sector virus protection that it was not possible to write the backup back to the hard disk?

GAG: i never tried gag. i don't know how it switches the xp's. if gag is easy to use with this then keep using gag before something bad happened. sometimes people are too confused about the profile mode in my boot manager and then there is a risk to lose partition entries and then it must be restored and nobody is happy and so on...

regards
elmar

[rayandrews]

Hi Elmar,

this message comes, because the boot manager was not able to switch to the graphic mode. this happens on some graphic cards, but till now i had no such card to find the problem. sometimes the pc hangs totally and

   Right, I know that problem very well :-( you can't fix
   it because you can't duplicate it. My machine has 3
   monitors, maybe that's it?

then its not possible to press CTRL-ESC to switch to the text mode. there is the option "6" in the installer to set the boot manager to the text mode. boot the installer floppy and press 6.

   I'll try that.

about the uninstall: is there a bios boot/mbr sector virus protection that it was not possible to write the backup back to the hard disk?

  Yes!  But it normaly beeps and tells you the MBR is
   about to be written and you press 'Y' to continue.

GAG: i never tried gag. i don't know how it switches the xp's. if gag is easy to use with this then keep using gag

  I think you should try it, just to see what others are
  doing, but it's not very impressive, it's just trying to be
  pretty.  And as I said, it can't find my DOS fat16
  partition.

before something bad happened. sometimes people are too confused about the profile mode in my boot manager and then there is a risk to lose partition entries and then it must be restored and nobody is happy and so on...

regards
elmar

[rayandrews]

Elmar,

Ok, so I disabled the anti-virus protection in CMOS, and
now uninstall is fine.  I tried '6' to use text mode, but
I still get the 'If you can read this ...' msg. BTW, if I were you I'd change that msg. to make it more informative, something like 'PLop was unable to initialize video mode, press CTRL-ESC to attempt text mode" or something
like that.

[Elmar]

Ok, so I disabled the anti-virus protection in CMOS, and now uninstall is fine.

good 

I tried '6' to use text mode, but I still get the 'If you can read this ...' msg.

did you use this after you installed the boot manager? i tested it now again and it works. the message comes only when the graphics mode should be used, so the text mode is not set.

BTW, if I were you I'd change that msg. to make it more informative, something like 'PLop was unable to initialize video mode, press CTRL-ESC to attempt text mode" or something
like that.

you are right. i should change it.

regards
elmar

[rayandrews]

did you use this after you installed the boot manager? i tested it now again and it works. the message comes only when the graphics mode should be used, so the text mode is not set.

  I pressed '6' before 'install to hard disk' since I presume that
  this changes things at the install level.  Should I do differently?  Also, note that the install program itself displays in some font that isn't 640x480 -- I think it's some CGA font or something, so your code can display non-text mode on my machine, just not when using the boot manager itself.  GAG shows a totaly GUI screen on my machine, so I suspect their is some fault in PLoP, but I bet it's nothing big.

[Elmar]

  I pressed '6' before 'install to hard disk' since I presume that

you have to press it AFTER you instaled the boot manager.

Also, note that the install program itself displays in some font that isn't 640x480 -- I think it's some CGA font or something, so your code can display non-text mode on my machine, just not when using the boot manager itself.  GAG shows a totaly GUI screen on my machine, so I suspect their is some fault in PLoP, but I bet it's nothing big.

the install program is using only the standard TEXT MODE 80x50. no cga or any other graphic mode.

[rayandrews]

OK, it's 80x50 then, I just meant it's not 80x25. 

[rayandrews]

Success!

But Elmar, I must say that it was very far from intuative how to do that.  I forget the exact steps, but I had to 'install boot manager' then (I forget how) get back to the main menu, then press '6', and only then do I get some information on what is happening.  Also, on reboot, the manager comes up, but it is NOT in text mode AFAICT, it seems to be graphical, a small menu at the top on a background of a grey grid pattern.

It seems to me that the '6' choice should come BEFORE one installs since one normally makes all setup choices and THEN completes the instalation. Don't you agree?

[rayandrews]

Next question:

My HD 0 has only one partition with XP (NTFS)
     HD 1 has two partions - 1 = DOS16
                                      2 = XP NTFS

Now, with GAG, I could boot either XP, but it wouldn't see DOS16.  With yours, I boot XP on the first HD but DOS on the second!  Now, that is logical, since the DOS partition is active on HD 1, but can your manager give me the choice to boot XP on HD 1 as well?

[Elmar]

It seems to me that the '6' choice should come BEFORE one installs since one normally makes all setup choices and THEN completes the instalation. Don't you agree?

no, i don' t agree.

in much less than 1% of the pc's, the graphic mode does not work. why should i ask for text mode when the graphic mode normally works? if the graphic mode does not work, then normally the ctrl-esc key works, so there is no need to configure the text mode from the installer! in your case, the graphic mode doesn't work and the ctrl-esc doesn't work. for this case exists the option in the installer to configure the boot manager from outside to start with the text mode instead of the graphic mode. there is no need to reinstall the boot manager to use this option.

But Elmar, I must say that it was very far from intuative how to do that.  I forget the exact steps, but I had to 'install boot manager' then (I forget how) get back to the main menu, then press '6', and only then do I get some information on what is happening. 

not intuitive? the normal process is: start the installer, press 1 and y. then reboot and the boot manager comes up.
in your special case, where ctrl-esc didn't worked, simply start again the installer program and press 6, reboot. thats all. whats so difficult?

Also, on reboot, the manager comes up, but it is NOT in text mode AFAICT, it seems to be graphical, a small menu at the top on a background of a grey grid pattern.

believe me, its TEXT MODE 80x50. but its well designed with much programming knowledge i got over years. I change for example the rom font to a custom font to get cool angular borders and so on in the text mode. i also change the color palette and the chars a-z. text mode can look cool too.

[Elmar]

but can your manager give me the choice to boot XP on HD 1 as well?

no, my boot manager does not support to boot xp from the second hard disk. dos, linux, vista and other systems are NO problem to start from the second hard disk. its only a problem with xp (maybe NT, 2K and 2003 too, i didn't test them).

however, you can try to boot the xp from the second hard disk with pressing "q" in the boot manager main menu and select the partition of your xp. if your description above is correct, then its hdb partition 2. if it works, you can add a profile to get an entry in the main menu.

[missingxtension]

Thanks for the help i was on a gx110 and i could not run the boot loader.
It turned out to be that the bios revision a02 was ot able to read a 400gb hard drive.
I flashed it to the a09 and it works just fine now.

[Aleblanco1987]

i think i have a similar problem but worst due to my situation, lets see if you can help me people.


my pc is an old compaq running under windows 98 se (celeron 566 mhz, 128mb ram, broken cd rom)

i downloaded the programme, went to the install folder and clicked one of the installers (dont know wich one) a window came up saying that i had to run it in dos mode y checked 4 boxes the window had and pressed next, the pc rebooted and the menu appeared, i chose install and every seemed right but when i rebooted again i got the "if you can read this bla blah" and i cant do anything from that point.


is it any way of skipping it?

i do not have a boot diskette (it seems it doesn't work anymore)

the cd rom does not work  (thats why i wanted to try this soft)

edit
i used plop 5.04

[Elmar]

it was a bad idea to use this old version. you have to repair your floppy or cd drive. or you have to put the hard disk into another pc to fix this.

elmar