Plop Forum

General Category => Boot Managers => Topic started by: Gaara on June 16, 2009, 12:18:46 PM

Title: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 16, 2009, 12:18:46 PM
First of all thank you for this wonderful program :)

My problem is the plpbt.bin is supposedly fragmented. plpgenbtldr says that. But I defragmented the full C: with Diskeeper as well just the plpbt.bin file with Contig. Contig says either the file is not fragmented or it is unable to (defragment).

??

What should I do? I really need to boot from USB.

Thanks.
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Elmar on June 16, 2009, 16:10:18 PM
hi,
please post the output of plpgenbtldr

regards
elmar
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 16, 2009, 21:05:15 PM
Thank you the prompt reply.

Here is the output:
(http://i44.tinypic.com/b88ls1.jpg)
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Elmar on June 16, 2009, 21:18:29 PM
plpgenbtldr is not perfect.

try this:
Download and run DiskView from http://www.milannemec.com/diskview.html, run it and use location of file, select c:\plpbt.bin, use the value at LCN and run plpgenbtldr lcn=[your value].
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 16, 2009, 23:20:40 PM
Success! You my friend are a life saver :)

btw, that link doesn't work. You accidentally included the comma in the link.
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Elmar on June 16, 2009, 23:28:14 PM
i am happy to hear that it works now :)

you are right, the comma is the problem with the link
for others, here is the link without the comma http://www.milannemec.com/diskview.html
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 17, 2009, 04:07:50 AM
My big mouth. So now when I select "PLoP Boot Manager" and hit enter, my PC restarts...

Any ideas?
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Elmar on June 17, 2009, 10:26:57 AM
hmm, did you move the plpbt.bin file?

please post the output of diskview and the lcn value
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 17, 2009, 13:02:21 PM
No. I had not moved the file but now I've done it all again. Tried regular method > fragmentation error. So DiskView gives me LCN and then plpbtldr lcn=value

Here is the output screen of both:
(http://i41.tinypic.com/4nfd1.jpg)

Oh and btw, my "system drive" is indeed C (boot.ini is in C and that's where I added the line) but the current in-use OS is in D. Does that affect anything?
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Elmar on June 17, 2009, 17:13:50 PM
the only important thing is that plpbt.bin is on the first harddisk

a workaround is to use grub4dos and plpbt.bin. then no plpgenbtldr and plpbtldr.bin is required
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 17, 2009, 20:02:25 PM
Okay this is going a bit over my head now. I'm gonna give it one more go. I got Grub4DOS and installed it on the "whole MBR" of hd0 using Grub4DOS Installer. I'm actually a little concerned I jumped into it and my PC won't reboot the next time :D Let's see.

1. plpbt.bin is in C.
2. menu.lst contains grub4dos's menu?
3. Definitely need to add grldr? or grldr.mbr?
4. Don't I have to add something to boot.ini?

My basic idea of a menu.lst

color blue/green yellow/red white/magenta white/magenta
timeout 30
default /default

title PLoP Boot Manager
fallback 1
<What goes here?>



*EDIT: haha! Just what I thought. It didn't boot up. Fortunately, it asked me to boot from the previous mbr.
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Elmar on June 17, 2009, 21:50:00 PM
installing grub4dos to the mbr was not required. its possible to start grub4dos with the boot.ini.

for menu.lst see here http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html#rungrub
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 17, 2009, 22:22:00 PM
Grub started okay but when I hit enter on "Start PLoP Boot Manager", it said

Error 1: Filename must be an absolute pathname or blocklist.
Title: Re: fragmented plpbt.bin?
Post by: Gaara on June 18, 2009, 13:02:53 PM
I know I'm good  ;)
Finally got PLoP to work. I was using kernel plpbt.bin but Grub4DOS needs absolute path (Error 1).

Did some Googling and found a great step by step guide by Diddy (http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/) @ Boot-Land for absolute beginners like myself.

Changed to kernel (hd0,0)/plpbt.bin and wallah! PLoP started, showed all the booting options. Now I'm gonna go make a bootable pen drive.

A BIG Thanks for the tremendous help.