Disk error

[Jarod]

Hi All!
Who can tell me, why plop btmgr write's "Disk error. press any key..."
I'm booting my old laptop with USB 1.0 from grub4dos

Code Select Expand

title PLOP Boot Manager (USB Booting Suppport!)
kernel /windows/images/plpbt.bin
When i press eny key PC tryin' to read from fdd

[Elmar]

hi,
can you make a digital photo of your screen when you see the message and post it?

regards
elmar

[Jarod]

At that time, the LED lights on USB-Flash drive, FDD & CD-ROM...

[Elmar]

this message is not from the boot manager.

how did you make the usb drive bootable?
is there any linux loader on the usb drive (syslinux, lilo or grub)?
what distro do you try to boot?

regards
elmar

[Jarod]

It happens when I boot .img-file of plop.
My boot flash i made in real ms-dos by command sys.
On flash installed grub4dos and it booting from normal PC which supports USB boot. So, I don't know why Plop doesn't like it

[Elmar]

i dont understand what you are doing

[Jarod]

Ok.
I'm boot grub4dos from disk C:
Then I'm boot plop boot manager
I want to boot from my flash, but plop doesn't work properly.
My laptop doesn't support direct boot from USB that's why i try to use plop.
(Sorry for my english  )

[Elmar]

you said, you made the usb drive with "real-msdos" bootable. so i assume, you want boot a dos from usb. what dos is it exactly? i think, its a geometry problem and the disk error message comes from dos. the error message is not programmed into the boot manager, so anybody else must write it.

[Jarod]

Thank you.
Hopefully over time, someone or I'll find a reason of that error.

[Elmar]

if you do not anwer questions, then there will never be a solution.

do you have dos on the usb device? and if yes, whats dos is it? ms dos v5.0, 6.22? freedos?

i think there is an easy way to fix it, but with no answers i can not help.

[Jarod]

I apologize for the delay in response.
How I made my flash.
When I worked on my project of bootin'g usb-flash - I found a simple way to make it bootable:
Connect flsh to your computer and boot MS-DOS from Windows 98. flash-drive will be assigned some letter. for example "F:"
Then run sys F: and our flsh-drive is bootable with MS-DOS!
Furthermore I'm use GRUB4DOS for booting other things like linux, acronis etc.
On modern computers that support booting from UBS - everything works fine!
But I install plop boot manager on the computer where the BIOS does not support booting from USB and received a message "Disk error".
You tell that "the error message is not programmed into the boot manager".
In this case, I think the message comes from the BIOS. ( )
However, instead flash-drive I try to boot from IDE HDD connected via USB-IDE adapter.
On that HDD installed windows xp. But again there is the same error message.

[Elmar]

You tell that "the error message is not programmed into the boot manager".
In this case, I think the message comes from the BIOS. ( )

no, it comes from the boot sector

[Jarod]

Your project is unique.
I would like something to help (in testing).
It is a pity that there is some language barrier.
I'll try a little experiment
So tell me please: external HDD connected via USB-IDE adapter will be booted?

[Elmar]

the most usb-ide adapter should work

what partition id has the partition on the usb harddisk or flashdrive. you can use plppart32 under windows to see the id
http://www.plop.at/en/windowstoolsdl.html

[Jarod]

Code Select Expand

C:\>plppart32 -d 2 -i
PLPPART32 v0.1  20070403  by Elmar Hanlhofer  http://www.plop.at

Using physical drive 2

Drive geometry:
  Media Type         : RemovableMedia
  Cylinders          : 249
  Tracks per Cylinder: 255
  Sectors per Track  : 63
  Bytes per Sector   : 512

NR  ID  BOOT     SS  SH   SC    ES  EH   EC     LBAST    LBASEC  SIZE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1  0x06 *[0x80]   1   1     0   63  63   992        63   4003713 1.91 GByte
2  0x00           0   0     0    0   0     0         0         0 0.00 MByte
3  0x00           0   0     0    0   0     0         0         0 0.00 MByte
4  0x00           0   0     0    0   0     0         0         0 0.00 MByte

[Elmar]

the main problem is, that your partition has the wrong id.
change the partition id from 0x06 (=fat 16) to 0x0e (=fat 16 lba)
then unplug and replug the harddisk/flash and format it
you have to make it again bootable with sys
i am sure, this will work. lba mode is much better than the old chs.

[Jarod]

Oh, yes! It's work!
But I have some problems. 
I tested Plop v5.0.3 with "Force USB 1.1" Mode (In my laptop USB 1.1)
Plop doesn't see my PCMCIA USB2.0 4 ports card bus. 
Anyway I use internal USB 1.1 (despite the fact that very slowly)
Flash-drive assigned letter "C:" and laptop's HDD assigned letter "D:"
Plop doesn't boot MS-DOS from flash. After loading config.sys contents of the disk "C" (stick) unreadable. Command "DIR" returns a lot of non-printing characters.
However from config.sys I can choose grub4dos, and thence boot ms-dos.img file (image MS-DOS diskette). And it's work!

(Sequence of actions is
HDD or CD-ROM with Plop -> MS-DOS on stick -> config.sys (install=grub.exe) -> Groob.exe -> menu.lst
(kernel /memdisk floppy
initrd /DOS98.zip)
)  

Thank you for your responses and support!

[Jarod]

And also I wanted to ask:
How to format the flash drive with "id 0x0e"?
I changed id with plppart32 utility, but after formatting under win xp that parameter was returned again in 0x06 

[Elmar]

Plop doesn't see my PCMCIA USB2.0 4 ports card bus. 

PCMCIA is not supported at the moment

Anyway I use internal USB 1.1 (despite the fact that very slowly)

next version will be faster
here is a test version
http://download.plop.at/files/tmp/plpbt-testqiet72-2.zip

How to format the flash drive with "id 0x0e"?
I changed id with plppart32 utility, but after formatting under win xp that parameter was returned again in 0x06 

its simple, do not format it with windows xp. you make it bootable with sys from dos. before you do this format it with dos.

regards
elmar

[Jarod]

Thank you very much. I'll try