How can I start manually TrueImage from DOS

[Tabarwette]

I have a computer that it don't have CDRom Drive; only floppy. I already have a set of boot disk but it's too long to start TrueImage with all these floppy disks !

I find a way to boot acronis with only one floppy disk, but I need some informations to finish that. I boot with a floppy DOS 6.22 and I load my network card. After, I connect to my server where a directory is share and I can put TrueImage.exe to start with.

The result is that I have only one floppy disk and I can boot very quickly. The problem is that I don't know how can I start TrueImage from DOS. I know that if I create a disk with Bootable Rescue Media Builder it's OK, but I can't use these files to start Acronis.

How can I start manually TrueImage from DOS.

Please help me ! :wacko:

[b_k]

what version of trueimage are you talking about?
V 9.0 Home uses a Linux system for the bootable rescue media. No way to start it from DOS.

BTW: Does the PC you want to use TrueImage on support Network/PXE-booting? (you can look in the BIOS if you have the network card in the list of bootable devices or if you see something like "Press N for network boot" when your pc starts)
If your PC supports network boot, i think i have a solution.

[Tabarwette]

Yes, I can to boot from the network. I'm interested for your solution.

[whocrazy]

Hi there. I am able to do it, but you'll need a second hard drive, preferably fat32
but first of all, you need to create an ms-dos startup disk (use the wizard built in to windows xp, do not use your old dos 6.x startup disks!)
This is how I am able to do it
I have an ntfs drive (drive c:) and a fat32 drive (drive d:) however, the dos will only see the fat32 drive and it will be allocated the letter of drive c:
This is my backup drive where the image will be stored. You must have this type of arrangement, the true image command line and gui programs are too big to fit on floppies!
Next, I put the gui program and the commandline version both on my fat32 drive, boot the ms-dos startup disk and then run them from there.
Works like a dream.

[Tabarwette]

Where can I find the commandline version ?

[b_k]

PXE-Boot TrueImage 9.0 Home tested with build 2337

You will need two files from your TrueImage Installation, kernel.dat and ramdisk.dat. For building a Network boot environment you will need also a TFTP- , a DHCP-Server and a bootloader (PXELinux).

now you need the following directory structure (i built it from the root-directory, but it doesnt matter where your tftpboot is, as long as the files inside of it are in place)
pxelinux.0 is the bootloader, you need to download the syslinux package to get that one file from it.

D:
\
tftpboot\
| kernel.dat
| ramdisk.dat
| pxelinux.0
\
pxelinux.cfg\
| default


tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default:
timeout 100
default local

label ti9
kernel = kernel.dat
append initrd=ramdisk.dat vga=788 ramdisk_size=32768 quiet

label ti9-fs
kernel = kernel.dat
append initrd=ramdisk.dat vga=788 ramdisk_size=32768 quiet noapic acpi=off

label local
localboot 0


For the server services you can use TFTPd32, which combines a TFTP- and DHCP-Server.

My TFTPd32 Setup looks like this:
http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/7291/tftpdsetup10ew.th.png (http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tftpdsetup10ew.png)
http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/4153/tftpdsetup29yt.th.png (http://img389.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tftpdsetup29yt.png)

Don't forget to allow access to the DHCP and TFTP-Service in the Windows Firewall.

--

Links:
http://www.wintotal-forum.de/index.php/topic,95706.0.html - german (here i found the boot options)
http://syslinux.zytor.com/pxe.php - Syslinux (bootloader collection)
http://tftpd32.jounin.net - TFTP- and DHCP-Server

[Tabarwette]

Ok, the solution seems to be good, but my server is in production and I can't stop it everytime. I have only 30 minutes by weeks and the risk is hight if I work with partitions. I'll try that on my own computer.
:dry:
But if we speak about the command line. Can I use TrueImage in command line ?
???
Or is it possible to load ramdisk.dat from DOS ? Why I need an other Kernel ?

[b_k]

sorry, didnt know that there is a trueimage executable for dos.
Anyway, what about stopping the server? i thought you needed a way to boot the rescue environment.

[Tabarwette]

Because we do a copy on an other HDD every week.

[b_k]

If you run a production server how come you dont use hot-swap-hdds. Would make your life easier. You could backup from within Windows and would not have to reboot the server for imaging and changing the hdd.

[Tabarwette]

It's not a windows OS. It's QNX. It's not very easy to find a solution for this type of OS. My server is 4 years old and we don't have hot-swap-hdds. But I have USB ports. I'll check in the BIOS if I can boot from that. Maybe I could use it like a CDROM !

[b_k]

-{ Quote: "... But I have USB ports. I'll check in the BIOS if I can boot from that. Maybe I could use it like a CDROM !" }-
If it can boot from USB chances are good you can either use Acronis Rescue Media Builder or the method i described in another thread to make a bootable USB-Stick or make your Backup USB-HDD bootable.

[atifans]

To all:
you can rename trueimage.run to trueimage.exe.
it is a trueimage executable for dos.

[whocrazy]

Heya, dont complicate things. lol
you need to download true image 9.1 enterprise server, that has the commandline dos interface in it.
as I said before, it's too big to fit on a floppy.
p.s: thanks for stealing my thunder, haha

[Tabarwette]

:thumb: Very good ! Thanks for the answer.

Results: I boot with my floppy disk DOS 6.22. I load my network card, I connect to my Windows Server and I start TrueImage. (I renamed TrueImage.run to TrueImage.exe). I use only one floppy and the process takes less than one minute !

I can post my floppy disk if someone need it ! :D

[Chutsman]

-{ Quote: "To all:
you can rename trueimage.run to trueimage.exe.
it is a trueimage executable for dos." }-

Great tip atifans.

[whocrazy]

Hi Tabarwette.
I am glad we were able to help you get it up and running.
great stuff.