Installing BIBM from a CD

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CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by CyberSimian »

I have just downloaded BIBM 1.73, and I am trying to perform an update install on an older Sony laptop that is still running Windows XP.

(1) I used MAKEDISK to create the BIBM installer on a USB memory stick, using the default of "Normal - Raw Boot Image". There was one unexpected error message during this process:

Warning - Unable to clear old partition information. (1)

I don't know what this error message means, but the memory stick is rather unusual in that it has a 1.44 MB partition that looks like a floppy, and a 1 GB partition that looks like something else. These are hard-wired in the electronics, and cannot be altered. BIBM is installed to the 1 GB partition. (The 1.44 MB floppy partition has an older version of IFD installed on it.)

(2) Unfortunately, my Sony laptop will not boot from this USB memory stick. I looked in the BIOS, and the only boot devices listed are the internal hard disk and the internal CD/DVD drive.

(3) I originally installed BING on this laptop by using a USB floppy drive, and the Sony does boot from that. The problem with BIBM is that it now exceeds 1.44 MB in size, and so will not fit on a 1.44 MB floppy. I want to include IFD, as that is what I usually use to create drive images.

(4) I then tried creating the BIBM installer on a CD. This apparently proceeded without problem, and visual examination of the CD showed that the innermost tracks had been written with something. But trying to boot from this CD fails with the error message:

Missing operating system

(5) Examining the contents of the CD using my file manager shows that it contains only one file: "CONTENTS.TXT". In contrast, examining the USB memory stick shows lots of BIBM files.

(6) So then I tried using MAKDEDISK to create an ISO file on the hard disk, and then used Nero to create the CD. But this does not boot either -- it appears to be identical to the CD created by MAKEDISK (the CD contains only the file "CONTENTS.TXT").

(7) I browsed the ISO file created by MAKEDISK, and it does indeed contain lots of non-null bytes, including my name to display on the BIBM main panel, but that does not seem to translate into a bootable CD.

(8) I don't think that I have ever installed BING or BIBM from a CD, so perhaps I am doing something wrong. Any suggestions for how to get this to work?

Thank you.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by Bob Coleman »

It's been a long time since I've done it, but I just created BIBM 1.73 boot media on a CD. It booted OK.

I guess that doesn't help you a lot, but it confirms that BIBM 1.73 can be created on a CD using Makedisk.
TeraByte Support(PP)
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Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

You could try excluding IFD and Scripting and see if that will boot. If you can get BIBM on it then you could copy in IFD, for example. Or try with just IFD included.
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by CyberSimian »

Bob Coleman wrote:
> It's been a long time since I've done it, but I just created BIBM 1.73 boot
> media on a CD. It booted OK.

Thank you for trying that. Did you by any chance look at the contents of the CD? I am wondering whether you see the full complement of BIBM files on the CD, or whether you see only "CONTENTS.TXT" on the CD (which is all that I see).

I have tried various other things:

(1) I tried the CD in a fairly-recent Lenovo laptop that has a CD/DVD drive. I used the BIOS Boot Menu to select the CD drive to boot from, and it displayed on the screen the usual "EMBR 4.0" messages (or whatever they are -- they disappear too quickly to be able to read them), so I think that it is booting from the CD. But the screen then changes to an orange band at the top, with the remainder of screen blank and a large square (about 1cm square) for the mouse pointer (using the touchpad does move this square around the screen). This is different from the Sony laptop, which displays "Missing operating system" with no EMBR messages that I can see.

(2) I also tried creating the CD on a Windows 7 system instead of the Sony's Windows XP system. This also means using a different CD burner, but the result is the same -- the CD won't boot.

(3) I also tried selecting "Chipset graphics" instead of "VESA graphics", but again the CD resulting won't boot on the Sony, and gives the orange band at the top of the screen on the Lenovo.

So it looks as though for whatever reason (weird hardware or operator error), a BIBM CD simply won't work on any of my systems. :cry:

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by CyberSimian »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> You could try excluding IFD and Scripting and see if that will boot. If you
> can get BIBM on it then you could copy in IFD, for example. Or try with
> just IFD included.

I tried creating a BIBM 1.44 MB floppy, but as I had found several years ago(!), including BIBM, IFD, and Scripting support results in a 1.44 MB being too small (a 2.88 MB floppy is required).

I also tried omitting the Scripting support, but the result still requires a 2.88 MB floppy. Only by omitting both the Scripting support and IFD is the result small enough to fit on a 1.44 MB floppy.

I tried installing only IFD on a 1.44 MB floppy, and that works. But I don't really want to have to boot from a USB floppy drive whenever I want to image partitions.

If I install BIBM from a floppy, is it really as simple as copying the IFD files from the IFD floppy to the BIBM partition? I don't know how this works, but it occurs to me that the BIBM on the hard disk might need to have been created with IFD already incorporated into it in some way (i.e. simple copying of the IFD files to the BIBM partition will not give a working IFD).

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

The system may only support the 1.44MB CD image. If that's the case, then anything over that won't boot regardless of which other options you select.

Only seeing the CONTENTS.TXT file on the CD is normal.

Yes, you can simply copy the IFD and Scripting files into the BIBM partition. For IFD you need to copy image.exe, cdboot.f35, cdboot.ins. For Scripting (TBOSDT) you need to copy tbosdt.exe and the *.tbs scripts.
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by Bob Coleman »

CyberSimian wrote:
> Bob Coleman wrote:
> > It's been a long time since I've done it, but I just created BIBM 1.73 boot
> > media on a CD. It booted OK.
>
> Thank you for trying that. Did you by any chance look at the contents of the CD? I am
> wondering whether you see the full complement of BIBM files on the CD, or whether you
> see only "CONTENTS.TXT" on the CD (which is all that I see).

I hadn't, but I just did and see only CONTENTS.TXT, but I guess that's irrelevant given "Only seeing the CONTENTS.TXT file on the CD is normal" by TeraByte Support(PP).
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by TeraByte Support »

The system bios may have an option to enable/disable booting from USB devices in general or real old, sometimes the different options could be a zip drive vs floppy, the different was some were for unpartition and some for partitioned devices. Anyway, the message unable to clear was because something prevented overwriting the drive (had a lock or antivirus, etc..), sometimes removing after that and then plug back in will work. You can try the raw/normal or partition option to see if the BIOS likes any (after checking BIOS settings for booting / supporting USB / sometimes it's Legacy Support under USB has a specific item for Disk rather than just keyboard/mouse). On the CD, the default of everything will require HD emulation and support for that is sketchy, typically 2.88 is supported but as Paul mentioned if it only supports 1.44 emulation then you'll have to use create for BootIt only. But assuming 2.88 is supported, create two disks, one with just imaging and the other with just scripting, install from both, then everything will be installed with the latest version.
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by CyberSimian »

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> Yes, you can simply copy the IFD and Scripting files into the BIBM
> partition. For IFD you need to copy image.exe, cdboot.f35, cdboot.ins. For
> Scripting (TBOSDT) you need to copy tbosdt.exe and the *.tbs scripts.

I decided to go this route. Some points (for anyone else who might find themselves in this situation):

(1) To copy the files from the IFD floppy to the BIBM partition, you need to boot real DOS (PC DOS or MS DOS), or perhaps use Linux.

Initially I booted the Windows XP that was already installed, and it corrupted some part of the BIBM partition, resulting in there being no boot items. BIBM diagnosed "Unable to read a needed part of the disk" (or some words to that effect). Fortunately, the EMBR partition table was still intact, and I was able to recover from this mistake.

(2) To allow PC DOS, MS DOS, or Linux to access the BIBM disk, you will need to use BIBM "Partition Work" to modify the partition properties and change the partition type from "BootIt" to "FAT12". If you don't do this, DOS and Linux won't be able to see the partition (so you won't be able to copy the missing IFD files to it).

(3) A 1.44 MB floppy is too small to contain both IFD and scripting support, and too small to contain both IFD and the CD access files. So the only file to copy from the IFD floppy is "image.exe". If you need the other files, you will need to boot Windows and plug in a USB memory stick containing the full BIBM installer, copy the missing files to a FAT12 or FAT16 partition, then boot DOS/Linux and copy the missing files from the FAT12 or FAT16 partition to the BIBM partition. I have not tried that yet, as I don't use the scripting support, and I don't anticipate wanting to backup to a CD.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Installing BIBM from a CD

Post by CyberSimian »

TeraByte Support wrote:
> The system bios may have an option to enable/disable booting from USB
> devices in general

The Sony BIOS has support for booting from the internal hard disk or the internal CD/DVD drive. If a "compatible" USB device is already plugged in when the system is powered on, the BIOS displays an extra setting for "Removable USB device". However, I tried two different USB memory sticks, and neither caused this extra setting to appear. Only the USB floppy drive caused this extra setting to appear.

> Anyway, the message unable to clear was because
> something prevented overwriting the drive (had a lock or antivirus, etc..),
> sometimes removing after that and then plug back in will work.

That memory stick does indeed have a manual lock switch, but I always use it in the "unlocked" position. The BIBM installer seems to be created correctly despite that message, and I have used the memory stick to update BIBM on two other systems. The reason that I continue to use that memory stick is because it is only 1 GB in size, and I begrudge devoting a 16 GB memory stick to something that is only about 3 MB in size. (A 16 GB memory stick could be used for a live Linux installation.)

> On the CD, the default of everything will require HD
> emulation and support for that is sketchy

The Sony and Lenovo laptops both have internal CD/DVD drives that are capable of booting a CD or DVD. I have installed Windows XP several times by booting the install CD on the Sony, and have installed Windows 7 on the Lenovo by booting the Windows 7 DVD (the Lenovo arrived with Windows 10 pre-installed, of course).

I have managed to update BIBM on the Sony (see previous post from me), so I think that the inability to boot from or access the BIBM CD will remain forever one of life's mysteries. :)

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
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