Forum: EasyBoot
Topic: Paragon Recovery CD
started by: mionica
Posted by mionica on Apr. 08 2005,04:34
Would anyone have hints as to how could the Paragon Recovery CDs (Mount Everything et co.) be added to a multiboot disk?

The basic idea is that the Paragon guys have an extremely odd idea of how a CD boot should occur. Actually, they seemingly use LILO (at least in some versions of the Recovery CDs) in an extremely unusual fashion - they don't actually emulate a hard disk.

Note. any hints concerning the Mandrake Live CD would be most welcome, as Paragon Configuration Linux 1.6 seems to be heavily based on that.

Thanks in advance.
Posted by mionica on Apr. 19 2005,13:49
I've manged to do it, and I'm posting this how-to so others be spared of the headakes I've been through...

Limitations of my solution.

First of all, I'm only concerned with booting into Paragon Distribution Linux; booting into PTS-DOS is achieved through common floppy images, and therefore is fairly simple to achieve.

Second. This solution applies only to the versions of the Recovery CD which use an initrd.gz on the CD; older versions, which boot using a floppy image with a linux kernel on it are not discussed here. This should include the recovery CD's of all recent builds; I've tested this method on both the Rescue Kit 4.0 and the Hard Disk Manager 6.01.555 recovery CD's, and found it to be working.

Criteria to check if this should work for you.

1. The boot CD image on the Recovery CD should be exactly 2048 bytes long (you can check by using UltraISO).
2. bzimage, initrd.gz, lilo.eng and lilo.saf must be found on the root of the Recovery CD.
3. initrd.gz should be fairly large (usually over 10 Mbytes long).

If any of these doesn't happend, my sollution cannot be applied.

Requirements.

0. A Paragon Recovery CD, which conforms to the above criteria
1. < CDShell >
2. A hex editor (I use < Hiew 7 >)

My method

1. Required folder structure (create it please)
 - disk1\ezboot
 - disk1\ezboot\paragon
 - disk1\ezboot\paragon\modules
 - disk1\ezboot\paragons
 - disk1\ezboot\paragons\modules
 - disk1\boot
 - disk1\boot\modules
 - disk1\boot\modules\isolinux
 - disk1\paragon

2. Copy two times loader.bin from the CDShell archive to the disk1\ezboot folder, using the names paragon.bin and paragons.bin, respectively.

3. Patch the copied files (by using a hex editor of your choice) as follows:
 - paragon.bin: write "\ezboot\paragon" (no quotes!) at offset 0x7B0;
 - paragons.bin: write "\ezboot\paragons" (no quotes!) at offset 0x7B0.

4. copy cdshell.bin from the CDShell archive to both disk1\ezboot\paragon and disk1\ezboot\paragons folders.

5. copy modules\isolinux.csm from the CDShell archive to both disk1\ezboot\paragon\modules and disk1\ezboot\paragons\modules folders.

6. copy bzimage and initrd.gz from the recovery CD to the disk1\paragon folder.

7. create a text file named isolinux.cfg in the disk1\boot\modules\isolinux folder, with the following contents:

Quote
label paragon
 kernel /paragon/bzimage
 append initrd=/paragon/initrd.gz splash=silent quiet root=/dev/ram0 eng_ver vga=0x314
label paragons
 kernel /paragon/bzimage
 append initrd=/paragon/initrd.gz root=/dev/ram/0 safe_ver vga=0xffff


Important note: please modify the above file according to the contents of the lilo.eng and lilo.saf files on the Recovery CD; parameters in lilo.eng should be added under "label paragon [...] append...", while parameters in lilo.saf should be added under "label paragons [...] append...". The parameters will be written on only one line (the "append" line), separated by spaces - and NOT carriage returns as in the lilo.* files. Also, please ignore the "paragon_parms:" line in the lilo.* files.

8. create two text files named cdshell.ini in both the disk1\ezboot\paragon and disk1\ezboot\paragons folders, with the following contents:
 - disk1\ezboot\paragon\cdshell.ini:
Quote
isolinux paragon

 - disk1\ezboot\paragons\cdshell.ini:
Quote
isolinux paragons


9. now you can use the commands "bootinfotable; run paragon.bin", respectively "bootinfotable; run paragons" to run Paragon Linux in normal, respectively safe mode.

Good luck!

Mircea.
Posted by shakko on Apr. 29 2005,16:30
You can use this code for the cdshell.ini to choose
Full mode or Safe mode for Pargon 7.
use only \disk1\ezboot\Paragon
and put cdshell.ini there as Mionica said.


Code Sample

Begin: cls
set boldColor= color[brightgreen on black]
set textColor= color[white on black]

MainMenu:
set textColor = color[green on white]
print "                                                                                "
print "                      Paragon Hardrive Recovery Pro CD 7                        "
print "                                                                                "
set textColor = color[white on green]
print "                                                                                "
print "                               Select your Mode                                 "
print "                                                                                "
set textColor = color[white on red]
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                       [F1]  Paragon HD Recovery 7 Full Mode                    "
print "                                                                                "
print "                       [F2]  Paragon HD Recovery 7 Safe Mode                    "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "
print "                                                                                "

MainMenuKey:
getkey
if ($lastKey == key[F1]); then goto ParagonFull
if ($lastKey == key[F2]); then goto ParagonSafe
goto MainMenu

ParagonFull:
isolinux paragon

ParagonSafe:
isolinux paragons

end:
; EOF
[B]

Posted by pivert on Feb. 07 2006,16:19
Well have finally been able to have the kernel launch.

But :
- if using "full" mode, message "biooting the kernel" appears, and then cursor freezes in upper left corner with scroll-lock and shift-lock LEDs blinking forever.

- if using "safe" mode get a little further, with a screenfull messages flashing, then same as above, last line being :
kernel panic : VFS unable to mount root fs on 01:00

Any ideas ? I don't know anything bout' Linux things !

TIA to all Linuxologists !
Posted by Darkane666 on Mar. 29 2007,11:25
this is strange i searched for this method for long days and i only see it after solving my issue , actually this 2 years old easyboot has become much easier since then
but your problem with linux will not be solved here , here you only get the boot sector to work ,linux problems can be solved at the many linux forums online search in goggle with
the keywords from your error and your version of kernel
being bzimage or vmlinuzp and you will find the answer easily I hope