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#51

Boot Managers / Re: Would PLoP support VHD-fil...

Last post by volume - January 16, 2022, 12:08:33 PM

but you are writting about PBM6 not plpvhd ...
I am really missing option list partitions and select another in plpvhd.bin

I will check PBM6 later...

#52

Boot Managers / Re: Would PLoP support VHD-fil...

Last post by Elmar - January 16, 2022, 12:01:47 PM

My request was about something else.
Nice to have option choose another partition if you has images on other partition.

The file commander will be available for all partitions (with a supported file system) on every drive.

There comes also support for a config file in the same way as it is already for PBM6-EFI. With the config file you can add custom boot entries, set automatic boot and much more.

#53

Boot Managers / Re: Would PLoP support VHD-fil...

Last post by volume - January 16, 2022, 07:55:53 AM

Hi Elmar,

PBM6 is quite complex new bootmanager, but new filemanager is quite nice.
(no exotic font like in old plop )

My request was about something else.
Nice to have option choose another partition if you has images on other partition.

Primary part [#1] 20GB WINDOWS (there is OS + SWAP + APPS + HIBERFILE)
Primary part [#2] 40GB volume_label DATA and there are VMDK/virtdisk files

your original plpvhd bootloader is not able switch to another (part#2 ) part.
and provide option boot legacy DOS with games
We have to always copy imagedisk file  to WINDOWS partition (part#1) and fragmentize it.

Yep it's for legacy applications on new HW but with direct HW access
there are still many many GOOD SW which is working fine in DOS not under
WinXP/7/8/10/11 due emulation and latency.

Changing bootloader is not always option
for example I am booting PLOP becouse BIOS has no support for USB
and then loading GRUB4DOS from USBstick and one option in bootmenu
is your virtual image loader
but user/operator who is booting computer must know how to choose image.

I am missing option switch partition to another available (easy task for you)
and tell which image have to be automatic loaded after selecting it from menu (grub has option write 0xHHHH) so we can pass paramater to your loader which partition and filename

But thank you for update this topic I will check PMB6
for me is not problem learn new stuffs,
but for some older people (60y+) is the BIG problem
learn new computer starting process...

Also for KIDS its a problem (about 5-6years) instruct it
wait son, key down, down choose this enter and wait your game (1992-2003) will be started.... Lemmings Worms Dune2 Warcraft MegaRace Try it

if you have a lot of time then KKND or Warzone 2100 there are pretty
clever AI much harder as in C&C TS or other older RTS.

#54

Boot Managers / Re: Would PLoP support VHD-fil...

Last post by Elmar - January 15, 2022, 18:33:37 PM

I checked plpvhd and it makes no sense to update the old program. It was a test program. Forget it.

I wrote some some drivers and a new tool for PBM6. The next release will have new features:

• A simple file commander to browse supported file systems and do some actions.
• Drivers for the file systems FAT12/16/32.
• A exFAT file system driver.
• Drivers for VHD and VHDX. For static and dynamic images.

All drivers have no write support at the moment. Just "read only". Also they are currently not optimized for speed.

VHD and VHDX:
I think except for DOS is this boot feature pretty useless. You can also start for example GRUB from inside the VHD/X, but Linux has to be prepared to boot from VHD/X. Booting Windows fails, because of the windows loader.

I made a short video clip of mounting and booting from VHDX with PBM6.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81jXfeYmW_c

#55

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by MelanieHill - January 04, 2022, 09:42:33 AM

https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/plpbt.bin.html#rungrub

Thanks for the link

#56

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 21, 2021, 23:50:09 PM

Have a look at this information from GParted:

/dev/sda4 starts at sector 281106430 and ends at sector 312580095.
/dev/sda5 starts at sector 281106432 and ends at sector 310482943.
/dev/sda6 starts at sector 310484992 and ends at sector 312580095.

The way I set up all these operating systems was I set up the first 2GB FAT16 partition for DOS, installed that, then installed PLoP with floppy installer and created the hda1 and hda1-hidden partition definitions.

I created the DOS profile HDA: *80h hda1, clear, clear, clear and a Windows 98 profile HDA: hda1-hidden, *80h don't touch, clear, clear.

Then I used the Windows 98 installer to create a new 15GB FAT32 partition, installed it, then re-installed PLoP bootloader from the diskette again. Then I created the hda2 and hda2-hidden partition definitions.

I updated the Windows 98 profile to HDA: *80h hda2, hda1, clear, clear and created a Windows XP profile HDA: hda1-hidden, hda2-hidden, *80h don't touch, clear.

Then I used the Windows XP installer to create the third 117GB NTFS partition. I've found that the Windows XP installation would not work unless I used the partition tool included on the installation CD.

Then again I re-installed PLoP bootloader from the diskette and again created the hda3 partition definition.

I updated the Windows XP profile to HDA: *80h hda3, hda1, hda2, clear and created a Lubuntu profile HDA: hda1, hda2, hda3, *80h don't touch.

For Lubuntu I used the installation CD to create the /dev/sda5 (14GB ext4, mount "/") and /dev/sda6 (linux-swap) partitions. After the installation it seemed there was nothing at boot, just a flashing cursor. I had to again re-install PLoP bootloader from diskette and lastly created the hda4 partition definition.

Finally, I updated the Lubuntu profile to HDA: hda1, hda2, hda3, *80h hda4 L1.

I've tried creating the Lubuntu logical partitions using both GParted and the tool in the installer and neither way seems to make a bootable system !

Oh: and one time I used the GParted tool to set the "boot" flag on /dev/sda5, seemingly to no effect.

#57

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 21, 2021, 19:57:35 PM

I reconstructed your disk layout with the 3 files. How did you partition the hard disk? Here, gparted reports an invalid partition table. The problem is the extended partition. I think there is a problem with the boundaries. From my point of view, its required to remove completely the extended partition and then recreate it.

On your computer, does gparted not report any problems?


Note: I think you created the extended partition because of the swap partition. You can also use a file as swap space. That means, you can use sda4 as primary partition and a custom file on sda4 as swap space. This gives more advantages than using a partition as swap space. But booting works also with the extended partition.

#58

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 21, 2021, 17:43:21 PM

Hi Elmar, thanks a lot for taking the time to help me out!

Here are those files:

#59

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Elmar - December 21, 2021, 17:12:40 PM

The extlinux message is ok.

Start the livecd. Run as root

dd if=/dev/sda of=sda.bin count=63
dd if=/dev/sda4 of=sda4.bin count=1
dd if=/dev/sda5 of=sda5.bin count=1

And post the 3 files sda.bin, sda4.bin and sda5.bin

#60

Boot Managers / Re: How to install Plop Boot M...

Last post by Grunchy - December 21, 2021, 16:42:50 PM

Hi, thanks for doing that.
I'm still getting some kind of error from extlinux, it says:

Code Select Expand

extlinux --install /mnt --device /dev/sda5
/mnt is device /dev/sda5

I took some photos so you can see exactly what is happening 😆