Custom Boot Disks - what do you use?

[Zeke009]

I have a custom boot disk that I have been using for awhile, it's a bootable cd-rom with drivers and misc apps. The boot disk part contains gdisk.exe (I don't know where it came from for sure, someone said it was a norton app at one point) that deletes the MBR and recreates it. I use that all the time and work it's worked like a dream and reduced the number of rebuilds due to HD errors.

The boot image posted below is an edited WinME boot disk, some options were left and others were added to make our lives easier at work.

http://www.zekeisreal.net/downloads/applications/gdisk_082503.zip
Description: GDisk is a small bootable image (1.44MB) that can either be used for creating a bootable floppy or a bootable cdrom. This file is in a *.ima format and can be written to floppy using WinImage.

Here is the menu from the boot disk.
[menu]
menuitem=HELP, Help
menuitem=CD, Start computer with CD-ROM support.
menuitem=NOCD, Start computer without CD-ROM support.
menuitem=QUICK, Minimal Boot
menuitem=NTFSDOS, Access NTFS drives Basic, allows you to access to a certain level and move data. Can't write to disk.. I think
menuitem=MBR, Master Boot Record repair Deletes MBR & reintializes it, DOES NOT delete partitions or create a 2gb fat partition (uses gdisk.exe)
menuitem=GWIPE, Gdisk Partition Wipe Deleted MBR & reintializes it, deletes all partitions and creates 2gb fat partition (uses gdisk.exe)
menuitem=DODWIPE, DOD Wipe (uses gdisk.exe)

If possible, let's see what some of you are using and maybe we can create a bootable cdrom with all the tools necessary to get us past any errors or issues or repairs.

[JigPu]

There's a really awesome CD boot disk on the net, but I'll have to dig around to find it again. TONS of utilities :)


Personally, I use the XP CD for most problems (which usually is a corrupted MBR and some bad disk sectors... fixboot and chkdsk are all I need). If I don't use the XP disk, I use a modified DOS 6 boot disk. All sorts of spiffy utilities came with DOS 6, and they're loaded up on to the floppy.

JigPu

[shadowdr]

You must be talking about the ultimate boot disk found here (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) .It is a must have that you can take with you and use on anothers computer.I am still using the previous version and added a few things of my own on it.

If a boot disk no longer runs because of sp updates or you would like to play with adding support for somthing else like your mouse,you will want to bookmark this (http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/bootdisk.htm) page for the starting discs.

[supplystud]

You guys absolutely ROCK! I have been looking for a bootable CD ROM ISO for quite some time to no avail. I cannot thank you enough!

THANKYOU!
THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!

[Zeke009]

The Ultimate Boot CD is quite the tool! I did find some other sites that document how to create your own and tips abound. I may try my hand at this and see if I can't come up with an image that would be more useful to the environment at work.

Thanks for the resources!

[wired14]

exactly what does it do that a floppy can not do ?

[Zeke009]

It all depends on your preference of use.

The ultimate boot cd contains numerous applications to use when booted from the cd. From disk management, disk cloning, to diagnosing memory or HD errors.

The one I posted up top is a simple one that will wipe the disk, the MBR, reintialize the MBR, and create a 2GB Fat partition in about 5 seconds from cd. When it's not used as a boot disk, I have drivers or other apps that I may need when working on a machine.

In other words, it expands 10 fold + on the floppy and it's speed is a welcome bonus.

[Albuquerque]

Before I knew that uber-cd existed, I spent several days at my job building the "ubiquiteous boot floppy" which turned into the "ubiquiteous boot CD" shortly thereafter.

My 1.68mb DMF floppy contains:
Standard MSDos 6.2 himem, emm386, format, edit, fdisk, sys, smartdrv
XMSDisk utility (aftermarket freeware ramdisk that's on-the-fly configurable and resizable)
PKUnzip Lite v2.04g
Universal CD player driver (oakcdrom.sys + mscdex)
HP Vectra XA5 nic driver
HP Vectra VL6 series 8 nic driver
HP Vectra VLi8 nic driver
HP Vectra VL400/VL420 nic driver
Dell Optiplex G260 + G270 nic drivers
IBM Thinkpad R30/32/40/50 nic driver
IBM Thinkpad X23/24/30/32 nic driver
IBM Thinkpad 600/600E nic driver (we use the 3Com 3C874 and 3C875 respectively)

The CD/floppy will boot to dos, give you a menu of options (boot bare, boot w/CD support, boot w/nic support, etc). If you choose bare or CD support, it just loads up pretty normally and with CD drivers if you asked for them. It does create a ramdisk and unpacks a zip file full of the "standard" MSdos tools.

If you specify nic support, it asks which machine you're on. It then unpacks three sets of zip files into a 4mb ramdisk that's created on the fly -- one ZIP is the core MS networking files, one zip is the specialty NIC networking files (essentially the xxx.dos and system.ini for the nic driver), the final zip file is all the dos tools. It then asks for the machine name, updates the system.ini file being stored in the ramdisk, prompts you to log into our active directory domain, and then kicks off a batch file to select your location in preparation for imaging the laptop. Based on your location selection, it maps two drives and drops you at a dos prompt ready to start imaging (Ghost, Alteris, or whatever.)

Got it all to fit onto a floppy, and the floppy has enough room to put probably another two dozen or more NIC drivers into it. Each seperate nic requires about another 10-15kb on the disk when zipped.

I later created the boot CD using a 2.88mb virtual format, which gave me quite a bit more room for other tools. I dropped GDISK on the disk, as well as a troubleshooter app that our 2nd level support guys use for diagnosing bad harddrives and bad memory. That particular virtual floppy partition probably still has another 600-700kb free...

I thought it was cool stuff until I learned of that killer boot cd thing on the web. D'oh ;)

[thecondor]

I use Bart's Windows PE builder. You can custom tailor your iso then burn it. Has network access, file manager, virus scan, ect.

Located here: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

[wired14]

can you add other utilities and drivers when burning the image file of the above cd ?

[thecondor]

Yes. I believe you can as long as you follow the format for adding it as a plugin. There is a certain inf structure that has to be followed, but its's pretty simple. The instructions are there on the site. The links are useful as many others have already built a lot of additions.

[wired14]

do i extract all the files to a temporary folder , then copy paste them in the cd dialog and click on burn?

[thecondor]

No. Thats not what to do with PE Builder. You start PEbuilder.exe and select the features you want. It then compiles an iso file. A large directory is created in your root drive, but thats just a working dir. You can delete it when done. Back in your install directory will be a file called pebuilder.iso. In your burining program select "burn disk from iso file" or something similar, select pebuilder.iso and burn from there.

Instructions here: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#build