retargetable image

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ann Adamson
  • Start date Start date
A

Ann Adamson

In the Settings for my component, I have to specify Target Device Settings
such as boot drive and boot arc path, as well as fully qualified path names
to the windows directory, etc. Is there a way to do this such that my
generated image will boot off of either partition1 or partition2 of the hard
disk, without generating a seperate image for each? I really need the OS
image to be retargetable in this way. We need to be able to update one of
the images while we're running on the other one, and then switch over, and
won't know in advance which is the "free" partition we have to write the
updated image to...I'm not sure why we have to specify this in this within
the image in the first place.

Thanks,
Ann
 
Ann,

You will probably want to use EWF also, so this will complicate your problem
even further.

You will need to know few things from my previous posts in this NG called.
"Assigning drive letters from TD."
"Instructions for implementing RAM EWF without using temporary partition."


You will need to do:
1. In TD create image that boots from C:
2. Use if you have to RAM based EWF like I described in document, this is
only thing that will work in this scenario.
3. Run FBA.
4. Create manually two boot.ini files one that will boot from partition 1,
and second from partition 2. (You need to specify valid ARC paths here).
5. Take this image.

Deploy:
1. Copy this image to available partition.
2. Change boot.ini on boot disk with appropriate one.
3. If you need commit changed to disk.
4. Mount system hive from offline XPE registry file to some new key.
5. Change VolumeC assignment like described in first document to partition
id of new XPE.
6. If you use EWF, change ARC path of protected partition.
7. Export registry hive back to system. file.
8. Reboot and pray.


Few of this steps need some programming to automate them, so as you can see
it is possible, but it should not be done.
There are always another ways.

Also you could swap partition1 and partition2 in MBR (Master boot record),
and this is only thing that needs to be done, this is easy if you know ASM.
Make program of 512 bytes size that will do this. This is only two calls to
int 13h. One to read HDD MBR, second to put it back.
This program should be called dosboot.old (You should check how this file is
really called I can't remember from head right now) you should put in root
ot boot partition.
Change boot.ini so it would do next boot on this file.
Type in it C:\="MBR Partition Switch"

Next boot will go from new partition (that will be first).
This is easy to do (well easy depends on many things).

I'm not sure why we have to specify this in this within the image in the
Click to expand...
first place.
Because of this sentence I think that all what I have said previously is
probably useless to you, but here it is it can be done (this is what is
counting).


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Why do you need this approach?

Why don't you use DUA?
Or make bootable CD for deploying image.
Or even network XPE boot that will be used for updating.
Or have secondary XPE on HDD used only for updating first one.
You can also RAM boot from USB flash device.
And there are probably few other ways to do this, especially if you don't
use HDD.



Best regards,
Slobodan
 
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