In any case the $OEM$ folder selected for the second source, should not be equal to the $OEM$ folder for the first source.
I suggest you select for the second source the Empty $OEM$_X folder from the USB_MultiBoot_10 folder,
since you want to use the second source without any changes.
Such selection is automatically proposed when a winnt.sif is found in the XP Source and is used from the XP Source.
But probably this was not your case for the second source

How did you prepare the two sources, was nLite used in both cases or not ?
To make things clear for me, it would be nice to send your two log files as Attachment.
Then I know exactly what folders and files you are using.


It is not clear to me what you are doing here (what folder ?)

Thanks ilko_t for the links, the original sp1 2003 setupldr.bin links are dead so I couldn't play around with them. The cracked version of setupldr.bin works, you can load txtsetup using it but once it loads it will give a "unable to load setupdd.sys errorcode 4" I was thinking that maybe setupdd.sys has checksum checks as well since it's the file that we hex edited the txtsetup won't load it.

The reason why I need to have 2003 as an additional source is because I already have one flavor of 2003 using up the unmodified $WIN_NT$ slot which works fine. So if I add another version of 2003 it will need to be $WIN_0x$ and txtset0x.sif

I have also edited the first post to include the methods of getting multiple XP, multiple Vista and multiple PE to work.

Some files contain a checksum. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms809762.aspx

ModifyPE can set a new checksum to altered files. http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/16/

Try apply a new checksum to setupdd.sys.

How much space are you using for all these installs? If an xp install is 500mb, and you have xp home and xp pro on the stick, are you using up 1gb of space? Or does this create a stick similar to those isos, and take up 500+changes between the two sources (~510mb) and like jaclaz suggested in the beginning?

It'd be nice to create a stick that could set up different versions of xp as necessary, but work similarly to those 9 in 1's giving it a relatively small footprint.

Besides the hint I gave previously, it should be possible, using NTFS hardlinks:
http://jameser.blogspot.com/2006/08/tip-37...d-links-in.html
to have the same effect of the CDFS feature that allows the "-duplicate-once" when building .iso's.

If you are game for this, here is a page with links to some Free utilities:
http://flipsidereality.com/blog/nix/howto-...ith-hard-links/

This one:
http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/finddupe/
or the mentioned Perl script should do.

Of course the device NEEDS to be NTFS, and while this is NOT recommended generally for Flash based devices, if the stick is used only for installs it should create no problems with durability of the hardware.

jaclaz

Thanks for the tip cdob, modifype works like a charm and after I used it on setupdd.sys, I can now have multiple Windows 2003! Looks like the project finally is complete, every single Windows OS can be installed from one USB hard drive.

I have updated my first post to include instructions for Windows 2003.

Hi there!

First, let me thank your instrutcions. You guys are very commited with this project, and I hope that you carry on with it.

Now, let's work!



I've do it and the process now work just fine. But, when I select the modified XP ISO that have a winnt.sif and after the process I select the ISO without changes, the boot process didn't start. Starting the process with the original ISO first, and then selecting the second, worked without any kind of errors.



Both ISOs was modified with nLite. The first one, is the original XP ISO. I've just add the critical patches to it, without changing anything.

In the second, I've applied the same patches and some modifications, as changing users home path and some other stuff.

I'm doing the process again, and I've changed to extended log, so, as soon as it ends, I'll put the log file here.

Hi again.

Well, I don't know why, but now it works just fine. I did exact the same thing, and now it works...

Anyway. I'm posting the log file of the second iso uploaded to the usb drive with the multiboot.


And I would like to know if there's any tool that I can use to make copies of this USB stick. Or, if I have to use multiboot every time.

Thanks.
Theles

Good that you have things working now

You can copy the content of your first USB-stick to a new folder on harddisk.

Run USB_MultiBoot_10.cmd to make your next USB-stick.
You can now select the created folder with first stick Content
as USB Content Source using Option C in USB_MultiBoot_10.cmd Main Menu.
Make your other stick as usual, but Select No = Only Copy EXTRA Sources To USB-Drive

In that case a new USB-stick is made which has the content of your USB Content Source folder (= your first stick).
The correct BootSector files and migrate.inf are renewed to make everything work.

Succes

Hi there!

Thanks again. It work just fine. You guys really did a great job.

But, only one thing is missing. At the normal procedure, I'd choose to change the letter of the usb stick for U: . Now, this option didn't appear. It's possible to make that change?

Thanks a lot!
Theles

Yes, you are right, that is not yet in the program.
It was OK when there was only one XP Source and the folder was $WIN_NT$.~BT
For Multiple XP from USB, where the Content of first stick is used as Content Source for another stick
I will need to change the program.
The program will treat the first made stick correct and give it BootDrive Letter U:

But for now you can change it to BootDrive Letter U: with MkMigrateInf2.cmd from the makebt folder.
Open first a command window at USB_MultiBoot_10\makebt and give following commands:

where %usbdrive% is your USB-drive as seen in Windows Explorer e.g. R:

Now if I only had Multiple MSDOS/DOS on this USB drive and a BIOS that knew how to boot a USB drive or stick to load
any of these OS' !!!!!!!! Hmmmm! I guess I'm stuck imaging the USB drives with the multiple OS'
and writing them to a DVD so the BIOS can at least boot the CD/DVD!!!!!

I haven't found an MSDOS USB Driver to recognize any USB stick or drive yet. And even if I did,
then the MSDOS would probably restrict it to only 640K or 1 meg due to the MSDOS OS limitation.

Here's a question as food for thought. Can I compress/squeeze all of these OS' loaded onto a USB drive/stick
down to below the 1 meg memory limit for MSDOS? I know the answer is no. Thus, I'm probably stuck splitting
the OS disk image into 1.44 floppy disk images and writing them to floppies then.... Please insert disk 1 ..
disk 2.....disk 1E12 into drive A:

@mikesw

Don't take this the wrong way but what you posted does not make much sense.

The "1 meg" limit for MS-DOS has NOTHING to do with USB booting, I assure you.

Why don't you start a new thread, this here is about ANOTHER topic ( XP install from USB), detailing what your problem is, and what you actually would like to do?

Maybe there are solutions for it.

jaclaz

@mikesw
Please explain!

So you don't have a BIOS that can boot USB sticks?

You want to load DOS from a USB stick?

If you can express your problems in a clearer way it would be easier for us to help you.

And as jaclaz mentioned, this post is about installing multiple OS from USB - if your issue does not fit in this topic perhaps it's best to start a new post.

Please explain!
So you don't have a BIOS that can boot USB sticks? This is correct! The BIOS is to old to recognize any USB
Device as a boot device. This includes USB HDD drives too. Nor am I able to find an MSDOS USB driver to use
with a USB (stick, HDD or CD/DVD) drive so that once I boot from a floppy disk containing MSDOS and using the USB
driver, I'll be able to install any of the Win OS' that this thread allows one to install

You want to load DOS from a USB stick? Since all Windows OS' were being put on a USB type device, all I was
stating was, why not MSDOS/DOS too to make the multiple OS install complete with MSOFT OS' to install.
If you can express your problems in a clearer way it would be easier for us to help you.

And as jaclaz mentioned, this post is about installing multiple OS from USB - if your issue does not fit in this topic perhaps it's best to start a new post.

As far as my comment about the memory limit of MSDOS, I was joking around about the compresssion comment, since MSDOS doesn't recognize large HDD drives of multiple GIGA Bytes as far as I know. Thus with MSDOS being 16 bit addressing, I can't get past the 1 meg limit needed to address (acccess) large disk drives. Note: I know that Windows 95/98 have MSDOS which is 32 bit which allows larger disk drives, but
my comment was about MSDOS/DOS and not Win 95/98. Maybe you want to include Win95/Win98 on your
list of OS' to install from the USB HDD too.

I don't see the point since your BIOS cannot boot from USB.

However, you may want to try the PLOP bootmanager:
http://www.plop.at/
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmngrusblog.html

Win95, win 98 and Me DOS, i.e. DOS 7.x and 8.0 are 16 bit, exactly as MS-DOS 6.22 were.

There is normally no problem whatsoever in booting/installing these systems, including MS-DOS 6.22 from USB, since ALL DOSes rely on BIOS, they work allright if the BIOS support booting from USB.

Of course you cannot install (no matter from what media) install MS-DOS on a non FAT12 or FAT16 partition, (the latter filesystem has a limit of 2 Gb), but you can pretty well use an .img and boot it through grub4dos.

jaclaz

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