Unable to open "IFD.DAT"

[redrockboy]

When trying to run IFD without a boot disk, as described on this page...
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/ ... otfile.htm
...TBOSLDR 1.02 displays the message, Unable to open "IFD.DAT". The message appears for a fraction of a second (I had to shoot a movie of the screen to read the message) and the process aborts and returns to the boot menu. I has just recently installed BootIt BM as an upgrade from BootIt NG, and I selected IFD as an option during installation from CD. I'm not sure what task is responsible for creating IFD.DAT, but regardless of whether it's the BootIt BM installation or bootfile.exe, the file is not present in the EMBR partition. I sure would like to run IFD without a boot disk using bootfile.exe, so any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[TeraByte Support]

copy over the bootitbm.dat file (or named ifd.dat in the ifd gui version).

"redrockboy" wrote in message news:1363@public.image...

When trying to run IFD without a boot disk, as described on this page...

[
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/ ... otfile.htm
](http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/howto-ifd-bootfile.htm)

....TBOSLDR 1.02 displays the message, Unable to open "IFD.DAT". The message
appears for a fraction of a second (I had to shoot a movie of the screen to
read the message) and the process aborts and returns to the boot menu. I
has just recently installed BootIt BM as an upgrade from BootIt NG, and I
selected IFD as an option during installation from CD. I'm not sure what
task is responsible for creating IFD.DAT, but regardless of whether it's the
BootIt BM installation or bootfile.exe, the file is not present in the EMBR
partition. I sure would like to run IFD without a boot disk using
bootfile.exe, so any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[redrockboy]

BOOTITBM.DAT is not present in the zip package that I downloaded when I purchased BootIt BM, so there is no way to "copy over". BOOTITBM.DAT is present in the EMBR partition directory, so I copied the file into IFD.DAT. Now I have both files in the directory (each of size 63500 bytes). I tried to redirect a directory listing of the EMBR partition directory to a file so that I could post it here, but TBOS does not seem to support redirection. Anyways, after trying again to boot with bootfile.exe, I get the same error message. Let me know if there's any more information I can provide. Thanks.

[Brian K]

[quote="redrockboy"]When trying to run IFD without a boot disk, as described on this page...
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/ ... otfile.htm
...TBOSLDR 1.02 displays the message, Unable to open "IFD.DAT". [/quote

That tutorial was written for the non gui IFD. If you want to use the gui IFD then use two files, image.exe and ifd.dat, when the tutorial mentions image.exe.

[Panagiotis]

BOOTITBM.DAT is not present in the zip package that I downloaded when I purchased BootIt BM, so there is no way to "copy over". BOOTITBM.DAT is present in the EMBR partition directory, so I copied the file into IFD.DAT. Now I have both files in the directory (each of size 63500 bytes). I tried to redirect a directory listing of the EMBR partition directory to a file so that I could post it here, but TBOS does not seem to support redirection. Anyways, after trying again to boot with bootfile.exe, I get the same error message. Let me know if there's any more information I can provide. Thanks.

Replace the content of the "setupifd.bat", with the following (I highlighted in red the modified content):

@echo off

::
:: TargetDir must be set to a drive letter located on boot drive (HD0)
::
set TARGETDIR=C:\TBOS

::
:: IFDDIR is where the Image for DOS files can be found
::
set IFDDIR=C:\Program Files\TeraByte Unlimited\Image for Windows\V2\IFD

::
:: IFDPK is your Image for DOS Product Key (used if no existing ifd.ini file found)
::
set IFDPK=XXXX-XXXX-XXXX

::
:: IFDCMD is the Image for DOS command line to use.
::
:: +=====================================================================+
:: + Note that a DOS program can only receive the first 126 characters +
:: + of the command line parameters provided to it. This limit includes +
:: + the space between the program name and parameters. All characters +
:: + beyond the 126th are truncated by DOS. This means you need to may +
:: + need to use short file paths and/or short file names to ensure the +
:: + command operates as expected +
:: +=====================================================================+
::
set IFDCMD=image.exe /log:0

::
:: IFDBIN is the IFD container name to use (without the extension)
::
set IFDBIN=ifd

::-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

::
:: Setup name of windows version of TBOSDT (to support older releases)
::
set TBOSDT=tbosdtw.exe
if not exist ..\win\%TBOSDT% set TBOSDT=tbosdt.exe

::
:: verify directory and files
::
for %%i in (setupifd.bat bootfile.exe ..\win\tbossys.exe ..\win\bootfile.exe ..\win\%TBOSDT%) do if not exist %%i goto baddir
for %%i in ("%ifddir%\image.exe" "%ifddir%\cdboot.f35" "%ifddir%\cdboot.ins" "%ifddir%\ifd.dat") do if not exist %%i goto badifddir

::
:: create the new virtual drive file
::
if exist %ifdbin%.bin del %ifdbin%.bin >nul
echo add virtdrv %ifdbin%.bin 2 TBOS /b > crtvdrv.run
..\win\%TBOSDT% crtvdrv.run
if errorlevel 1 goto badvcrt

::
:: Setup the check files debug script
::
echo mount 0: %ifdbin%.bin >chkfiles.run
echo dir 0: >> chkfiles.run
echo umount 0: >> chkfiles.run

::
:: create the tbos.str file
::
echo bootfile.exe /restore > tbos.str
echo %IFDCMD% >> tbos.str
echo bootfile.exe /reboot >> tbos.str

::
:: sys the virtual drive and copy in the files
::
md ifdfiles > nul
copy "%ifddir%\image.exe" ifdfiles >nul
copy "%ifddir%\cdboot.ins" ifdfiles >nul
copy "%ifddir%\cdboot.f35" ifdfiles >nul
copy "%ifddir%\ifd.dat" ifdfiles >nul

if exist ifd.ini copy ifd.ini ifdfiles >nul
if exist ifdfiles\ifd.ini goto dosys
if exist "%ifddir%\ifd.ini" copy "%ifddir%\ifd.ini" ifdfiles >nul
if exist ifdfiles\ifd.ini goto dosys
echo [RESTORE_DEFAULTS] > ifdfiles\ifd.ini
echo SaveLog=0 >> ifdfiles\ifd.ini
echo [License] >> ifdfiles\ifd.ini
echo ProductKey=%IFDPK% >> ifdfiles\ifd.ini

:dosys
set IFDINI=
if exist ifdfiles\ifd.ini set IFDINI=ifdfiles\ifd.ini
..\win\tbossys /f %ifdbin%.bin bootfile.exe tbos.str ifdfiles\image.exe ifdfiles\cdboot.ins ifdfiles\cdboot.f35 ifdfiles\ifd.dat %IFDINI%
if errorlevel 1 goto badsys

::
:: setup target directory
::
if exist %targetdir%\. goto skipmd
md %targetdir% > nul
if not exist %targetdir%\. goto badmd
:skipmd
copy %ifdbin%.bin %targetdir% >nul
copy ..\win\bootfile.exe %targetdir% >nul
echo %targetdir%\bootfile %targetdir%\%ifdbin%.bin > %targetdir%\run_%ifdbin%.bat
start %targetdir%
goto end

::
:: report errors
::
:badmd
echo Unable to create target directory %targetdir%
pause
goto end

:badvcrt
echo Error Creating Virtual Partition
pause
goto end

:badsys
echo Error During Setup of Virtual Partition
pause
goto end

:baddir
echo This batch file must be launched from the tbos_dos folder.
pause
goto end

:badifddir
echo Unable to find the required Image for DOS files.
echo Please check the IFDDIR variable.
pause
goto end

:end

:
: remove files and folders created
:
if exist crtvdrv.run del crtvdrv.run
if exist tbos.str del tbos.str >nul
if not exist ifdfiles\. goto nord
del ifdfiles\image.exe >nul
del ifdfiles\ifd.ini >nul
del ifdfiles\cdboot.ins >nul
del ifdfiles\cdboot.f35 >nul
del ifdfiles\ifd.dat >nul
rd ifdfiles >nul
:nord

set IFDINI=
set IFDPK=
set IFDDIR=
set TARGETDIR=
set TBOSDT=