Recent Posts

1

Boot Managers / lost access to my partitions

« Last post by christaras on January 05, 2020, 08:58:53 AM »

Hello. Plop boot manager was working fine for about a week. I had installed plpbt.img on diskette.
I had deleted and reinstall many times.

Yesterday when I pressed 4 to delete and then 9 to reboot, plop could not locate my hard disk partitions! I took out the diskette and when I reboot I got the message about no operating system found... and fdisk was telling me there are no existing partitions...

Had to repartition, reformat, reinstall win98, win xp and all the programs...

Can you tell me what happened and what can I do next something something like this happens?
Win98 is the system partition containing the boot files. Can I write them on diskette and boot next time it happens? Are they hidden? I can only see boot.bak, dont see any ntldr file.

2

Boot Managers / Re: configure vmware workstation 15 to use plop boot software

« Last post by Elmar on December 28, 2019, 14:09:47 PM »

Your virtual machine is configured to boot in UEFI mode. The Plop Boot Manager is not UEFI compatible.

Usually, you can boot from USB with UEFI without any problems. But the the OS on the USB drive must be UEFI compatible and you need the "EFI/boot" directory with the OS loader on the drive.

3

Boot Managers / configure vmware workstation 15 to use plop boot software

« Last post by xcsae33 on December 26, 2019, 06:15:31 AM »

I want to try a lot of tutorials as given here windows tutorials (tutorial index) https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1977-windows-10-tutorial-index.html
So I need to prepare a lot of live USB sticks or USB sticks in the formats in which tutorials mention. Most of these tutorials that I want to try are windows installation media creation, creating recovery disks creating custom partitions etc. I want to try them first on virtual machines then want to try the steps on real hardware.
I read a tutorial here https://www.virten.net/2014/12/howto-usb-boot-a-vm-in-vmware-workstation-11/  for usb booting in VMware.
Here is how my virtual machine settings look like.

I power on the firmware and see the boot options

configure boot options

add boot options

No USB  boot options


So the question is how do I configure vmware workstation 15 so that I can boot using USB sticks.
I tried using plop boot ISO also
I downloaded from this page
https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html
I downloaded package
https://download.plop.at/files/bootmngr/plpbt-5.0.15.zip   
tried putting it as an ISO to boot




I selected the plpt iso (which is probably plop boot manager ISO)


how to configue vmware workstation 15 to boot a virtual machine from a bootable usb drive.
There was no effect of using plpt boot ISO. What next can I try?
I am using Vmware Workstation 15 Pro 15.1.0 build-13591040.

4

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by joy_deep on December 18, 2019, 17:59:54 PM »

Yes, I often try Linux Distros in my other laptops using USB boot. This particular Compaq Presario 2100 model laptop does not support USB boot.

I'd like to go with the first option. I went through all the readme instructions, watched many YouTube videos. I'll like to give Plop another try. I made one PlopKexec CD. I'll try to boot with that.

5

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by Elmar on December 18, 2019, 17:12:20 PM »

Have you tried the USB device on another computer that supports USB booting?

You have the following options

• Getting USB boot working with the BIOS (CD or other drive).
• or setup a boot from LAN system and fix it with a Linux booted from the network.
• or remove the hard disk and put it into another computer and fix it there.

6

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by joy_deep on December 18, 2019, 17:02:10 PM »

It's a USB external CDROM writer. The laptop has 2 USB ports. It treats the USB external CD Writer as CDROM device, I believe.
The BIOS does not suppose USB boot, I think. I have tried so many times for USB boot. Although the BIOS has a "Removable Devices" option in the boot order menu along with "CDROM" option. By "Removable Devices", I guess, it means Floppy Drive. I put the "Removable Device" at the top of the Boot order, then "CDROM", then "HDD" and finally "Boot from LAN".
I, too, want to believe there must be some ways to boot from USB.

7

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by Elmar on December 18, 2019, 13:30:54 PM »

How do you connect the external CDROM writer?

Are you sure that the "Removable devices" in the BIOS boot sequence menu does not include USB drives?

8

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by joy_deep on December 18, 2019, 13:25:36 PM »

I got this laptop in 2005. It's CDROM drive is not working. The BIOS does not support USB boot. I have an external CDROM writer. With that sometimes I can boot. Sometimes it doesn't work.

9

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by Elmar on December 18, 2019, 08:29:34 AM »

With locked I was meaning password protected bios and you don't have the password.

Whats the reason that you cannot boot from CD/DVD?

10

Boot Managers / Re: Plop Menu Freezes at Startup

« Last post by joy_deep on December 18, 2019, 03:54:13 AM »

No. CTRL-ESC is not working. I pressed Enter key. First time, I remember, the bar was at the top of the menu, Hard disk.  It tried to do something very fast, I could not follow. But next time onward, it didn't do anything. Now it freezes as soon as I press any key.
What is Locked BIOS? The BIOS in the laptop is not password protected.