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Message started by darkwalk1980 on Aug 24th, 2010 at 7:00pm

Title: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by darkwalk1980 on Aug 24th, 2010 at 7:00pm
I am trying to make a custom restore partition running freeDos which upon booting, will restore a ghost image of the primary OS. I hope this will cut down the time I spend helping my father in law with his PC. But now I hit a roadblock. The ghost I have does not run under freeDos. Is there a version that works with ata hdd under dos? Thanks.   

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 24th, 2010 at 8:34pm
@ darkwalk1980

Ghost works in my FreeDOS partition. Which Ghost version are you using?

I can do auto restores from MS-DOS or FreeDOS.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by darkwalk1980 on Aug 24th, 2010 at 11:09pm
Thanks, Brian. I used a newer version of Ghost. I switched to 2003, and it worked like magic. Now I have a boot item "restore" in XOSL which will automatically restore an image of the OS. Hopefully this will prevent my father in law from calling me every month.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 24th, 2010 at 11:35pm
@ darkwalk1980

Sounds great. I'm using Ghost 2003 too.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 25th, 2010 at 12:20am
@ darkwalk1980

Could you do me a favour? I tried to setup XOSL ages ago and failed. Some pointers would be helpful.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by darkwalk1980 on Aug 25th, 2010 at 5:43am

Brian wrote on Aug 25th, 2010 at 12:20am:
@ darkwalk1980

Could you do me a favour? I tried to setup XOSL ages ago and failed. Some pointers would be helpful.


The installer is not very user friendly. Is that where you are getting stuck?

Try this:

1. Create a small extended partition. ~60Mb?
2. Boot into DOS and run the installer
  press enter on "install XOSL"
  press enter on "install on a dedicated partition
  highlight "Drv type system"
  click on page up/page down to highlight the partition created in step 1
  click "start installation"

Let me know if you have any further problems.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 25th, 2010 at 2:12pm

darkwalk1980 wrote on Aug 25th, 2010 at 5:43am:
highlight "Drv type system"
click on page up/page down to highlight the partition created in step 1

Excellent. Thanks. Your advice made all the difference.

I have Win7 on the computer with XOSL. The XOSL install made Win7 not bootable. I checked the BCD in BING and the entries had been wiped. We used to see this with the initial release of Ghost 15. Easy to fix (30 seconds) and now I'm in Win7. I'll add a few extra OS and play around.


Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 25th, 2010 at 3:24pm
Interesting. I've booted Win7 and WinXP. Ubuntu wouldn't boot but that's not important.

I also found a new version, 2.1.1.6. I initially used 1.1.5. Can't see much difference.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 25th, 2010 at 3:35pm
@ darkwalk1980

You might be interested in this thread. It discusses different alternatives to what you have done. Your method is an extra. It's fine.

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Ghost-How-does-one-load-an-image-to-a-partition-then-schedule-it/td-p/266027

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 25th, 2010 at 6:06pm
A simple method I occasionally use is to have a DOS CD containing ghost.exe. The restore command line is in autoexec.bat. Just boot from the CD and the restore happens. No choice to make. No DOS partition or boot manager is needed.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by darkwalk1980 on Aug 25th, 2010 at 7:30pm

Brian wrote on Aug 25th, 2010 at 3:35pm:
interested in this 



Thanks for the info.

I can't use the CD method, because I'm trying to make this dummy proof that even my computer illiterate father in law can use.  ;D

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 25th, 2010 at 8:59pm

darkwalk1980 wrote on Aug 25th, 2010 at 7:30pm:
I'm trying to make this dummy proof

That is essential.

With the ver 2 XOSL it claims you can install from a CD. I couldn't. It gave install errors. Installing from a floppy worked fine.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Dan Goodell on Aug 26th, 2010 at 6:37am
I still have XOSL running on a few computers around here, including my wife's 6-yr old Dell which is triple-booting Win7, XP, and a DOS maintenance partition.

In contrast to darkwalk1980's installation method, I've always found it more convenient to install XOSL on a DOS partition instead of a dedicated partition.  That way, the same partition can also be used for other DOS maintenance utilities.

My technique starts with creating a DOS-bootable FAT16 partition.  But it's been years since I've installed XOSL from floppy or CD, though--I copy the XOSL installation files into a subdirectory on the DOS partition, then boot the DOS partition and run the XOSL install from there.  The sequence is "Install on a DOS drive", "Install on drive C", change both RPM and SBM to "No", then "Start installation".  Having the installation files on the hard drive is also a convenience if/when it's necessary to reinstall/reactivate after something messes up the MBR.

It's been years since I delved into the XOSL requirements, but IIRC the DOS partition has to be FAT16.  That puts a limit on the partition size of at least 32MB, since smaller partitions become formatted as FAT12 instead of FAT16.

Also, ISTR that XOSL could not directly boot linux, but had to chain through lilo or grub.  That means you can't let linux install the bootloader in the MBR, or else the XOSL install will overwrite it.  I used to run Slackware linux from XOSL with lilo in linux root, not the MBR.  I haven't tried a XOSL+Ubuntu combination, but in its effort to simplify things it wouldn't surprise me if Ubuntu simply puts grub in the MBR without giving you a choice.

FWIW, I believe 1.1.5 was the final version by Geurt Vos, XOSL's original author.




Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 26th, 2010 at 7:40am
Dan,

Thanks for that. I had tried what I previously thought was your method and failed. OK today. I installed XOSL (ver 1 and also 2) into a 32 MB FAT active primary partition.

I'll try Ubuntu with XOSL later. It was a restored image of a partition that had been booted by BING so grub was in the boot sector. When you install Ubuntu in association with BING you certainly have to make sure grub doesn't install to the MBR or BING stops working.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by darkwalk1980 on Aug 26th, 2010 at 10:03am
In my experience, Ubuntu does install grub by default.


Dan Goodell wrote on Aug 26th, 2010 at 6:37am:
In contrast to darkwalk1980's installation method, I've always found it more convenient to install XOSL on a DOS partition instead of a dedicated partition.That way, the same partition can also be used for other DOS maintenance utilities.


What do you mean by DOS partition vs dedicated partition? I have mine installed on a 1Gb extended partition formatted to fat32. Is this the same as what you have?

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Dan Goodell on Aug 26th, 2010 at 4:34pm

darkwalk1980 wrote on Aug 26th, 2010 at 10:03am:
What do you mean by DOS partition vs dedicated partition? I have mine installed on a 1Gb extended partition formatted to fat32. Is this the same as what you have? 

Your reply #5 mentioned you installed XOSL on a dedicated partition.  Are you able to use that 1GB partition to install other applications and run them from there?  My understanding is that the "dedicated partition" option means the partition will be solely dedicated to running XOSL and nothing else.  IOW, you couldn't also boot it like a normal DOS, linux or WinPE partition.

FWIW, if my understanding is correct, then you're also wasting a lot of space by dedicating 1GB to XOSL.  It only needs about 8MB or so.  (I also thought the "dedicated" alternative used its own "format", so it wasn't relevant whether you formatted the partition ahead of time.  You said you pre-formatted it FAT32... do you know if it's still FAT32?)

I use the alternative to "Install on a dedicated partition", which is "Install on a DOS drive".  Instead of committing one partition to XOSL and another to DOS, XOSL and DOS are installed in the same partition.  If you install DOS and make the partition bootable prior to installing XOSL, then after installing XOSL you can still add the DOS partition as one of your boot items in XOSL.  That way, the one partition does double-duty for XOSL and also as a boot environment from which to run Ghost, Partition Magic, and a number of other DOS-based utilities.

Having the XOSL installation files copied to the DOS partition also makes it convenient when you need to reinstall XOSL.  As you probably know, subsequently installing Windows will overwrite the XOSL MBR.  When that happens, I change the active partition back to the DOS partition, the hard drive reboots into DOS, and from there I rerun the XOSL installation process.


Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 26th, 2010 at 5:16pm
Thank you both for getting me started. I had some spare time and here are my results.

I formatted the FAT 16 partition in BING and tried 4h, 6h and Eh. If the partition was less than 32 MB, XOSL would install but wouldn't boot. I'd just saw a flashing cursor.

I had no problems using a 32 MB partition. XOSL booted.

I then tried a primary partition and later a logical volume of 32 MB that weren't bootable. 6h FAT 16. I booted from a DOS CD and ran "install" from there. Used the "Install to a DOS drive" choice and XOSL installed and booted. But as Dan mentioned this partition is dedicated solely to XOSL.

Just some observations.


Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by darkwalk1980 on Aug 26th, 2010 at 5:38pm
It didn't occur to me to put XOSL and dos together. Thanks for the tip!

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 26th, 2010 at 10:08pm
Another observation. XOSL installs and boots in an 8 MB DOS partition if you use "Install on a dedicated partition". It won't work with an 8 MB partition if you "Install to DOS drive". The 8 MB partition was originally bootable (FreeDOS) but after this method FreeDOS is no longer available as the partition has been changed to Type 78h.

Dan's method is the most flexible.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 26th, 2010 at 11:48pm
Ubuntu is loading now.

Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Dan Goodell on Aug 26th, 2010 at 11:53pm

Brian wrote on Aug 26th, 2010 at 10:08pm:
XOSL installs and boots in an 8 MB DOS partition if you use "Install on a dedicated partition". It won't work with an 8 MB partition if you "Install to DOS drive". The 8 MB partition was originally bootable (FreeDOS) but after this method FreeDOS is no longer available as the partition has been changed to Type 78h.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get across when I said XOSL used its own proprietary format if you opted for a dedicated partition--and why I asked if darkwalk1980 had checked whether his pre-formatted 1 GB partition was still FAT32.  I would think it might have gotten changed to Type 78h.


Title: Re: Homebrew restore partition, freeDos, and ghost
Post by Brian on Aug 28th, 2010 at 6:02pm
I like XOSL. I now understand how to install it quickly and make it work. But even faster, I've imaged the DOS/XOSL partition and I can restore the image (along with the MBR) to the same or a different computer and it is ready to go.

Enough time saved to have a beer.

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