BIBM & Grub4Dos compatibility

I'm trying to find a way to combine the characteristics of BIBM (partitioning & imaging) with those of Grub4Dos (multi-boot).

So the question now is : If I want to install Grub4Dos in the MBR, can I use also BIBM, which seems to have the need to be also installed in the MBR ?

Practically, can they both stay in the MBR ?

In case of incompatibility, how can I solve my target above ?

ambralivio

 

ambralivio,

You can have a Grub4DOS partition (containing your ISOs) booted by BIBM.

 

Brian K,

good and thanks a lot.

You gave me your advice on How-To, and probably I'll solve the problem with your precious help. I'll give a try.

But, you know, since I'm a hungry & insatiable guy, I'd like to have a more complete response/help, by learning the Why-To part, as well.

So, coming back to my post/request, what about the main question there : Have BIBM and Grub4Dos a reciprocal compatibility, in the sense that can they both stay in the MBR ?

At first glance, and based on my knowledge, I'd say NO (but who never knows !!!) - I have not such an expertize to be completely safe/sure of that.

Please, consider that the hard-disk I'm using and talking about is an external (USB) drive.

Thanks,
ambralivio

 

ambralivio,

You can't have BIBM and Grub4DOS sharing the same MBR. You can't have BIBM in the MBR of a USB external HD. So do what you like with the external HD because it won't interfere with BIBM.

 

Brian K,

thanks for the clear responses about the compatibility.

As you said, BIBM cannot be in the MBR of the external USB HD.

Does this mean that maybe I cannot install BIBM on the external drive ?

I thiught it was possible, based on the BIBM manual......

 

You can try but BIBM will not work. It's best to install BIBM to HD0. You can have the BIBM partition on a non HD0 internal HD but this partition and HD0 must both have an EMBR.

 

Good, even though this is not what I was looking for.

It's a real pity that BIBM has not the important feature - today - to be portable, therefore I'll look for some other alternatives in order to get my target.

 

I'm not sure what you are trying to do. Do you want to uses the Grub4DOS external HD on several computers?

 

Sure it does. Just create a usb media with MakeDisk utility with the options:
Select the product to include in the build= "BootIt Bare Metal"
Select the optional components= "Image for DOS (GUI)"
.......
.......
.......
Boot Options = "Partition Work"
.......
.......

Panagiotis

 

NO.
Actually, with the "unlimited partitions" feature present in BIBM I would have liked to overcome the "max 4 primary partition" limitation of a standard MBR scheme.

@ pandlouk,

Absolutely NO, and I think you need to improve your knowledge on BIBM.

In fact (read the FAQ/manual in detail) :

• the max size of the external target device, if any -where to install BIBM into -is limited to only max 64 GB, and it is not so clear if it could be even an USB HD, or only an USBFD is possible
• the EMBR need to be installed in both the boot HD (HD0) and in the target device - and this is against/opposite to have a "portable HD"

 

If you say so....

The info that I posted is about bootit bm's ability to be portable (the partition manager and the IFD). With Grub4Dos you can also use an iso instead of a usb flash drive.

If you want to install it with with EMBR management with more than 4 partitions on a drive is not portable but permanent.

Panagiotis

 

It should be clear that I'm in the preliminary/informative stage and I did not make any practical experiment till now, so that my only informative tools are coming from the responses/helps in this forum and from the BIBM manual and the homepage FAQs/Knowledge Base.

Now, as I already responded to Brian K, I did hope to make use of the "unlimited partitions" feature of BIBM, so that this target (and your last comments are confirming it) completely exclude the possibility for the "portability"

Besides, and unless the manual/FAQs are inaccurate, it is clearly reported there that BIBM can be installed on an external drive but only if it is a USB flash AND with the limitation of < 64 GB.

Finally, with the grub4dos/ISO way, you obtain only partially the portability, since the ISO (not writable) will not give you the possibility to save the changes/modifications to the settings, if any.

 

MakeDisk utility does not install BIBM, only prepares the flash drive to boot in the BIBM enviroment. (BIBM can be installed only from the BIBM environment).

If you are concerned about BIBM changing your HD0 from MBR to EMBR, you shouldn't be; as long as you only have 4 primary partitions the disk will behave exactly the same. Problems will arise only if you create more than 4 primaries and then use other tools to modify that disk.

Panagiotis

 

OK.
So, in case I renounce for the "unlimited partition - no EMBR" and decide for having only < primary partitions , can I install BIBM to a USB HD > 64 GB a,d continue on using the boot manager features of BIBM ?

Unfortunately, I do not have a test system and therefore I want to be in a safer condition before making trials........

 

ambralivio, that quote isn't in my BIBM userguide. Where did you see it?

The TB Knowledge Base has an article which says, "MakeDisk currently does not support UFD devices that are larger than 64 GB in size. For that reason, devices larger than 64 GB will not appear in MakeDisk."

But this refers to flash drive installation media, not to installing BIBM on a drive.

 

Brian K,

I made a detailed search before responding, because I was pretty sure to have seen that statement, either in the FAQs or in the knowledge base, in turn also referred in the manual.

Effectively I didn't succeeded so I have to admit it was my bad and I am very sorry for that.

Surely I confused the 64 GB limitation (valid for the flash installation media) with what is being requested by the target drive for BIBM installation.

Actually, I have also to recognize that the learning curve for BIBM is really tough, in spite of my knowledge level in multi-booting topics.
Maybe, but I might be wrong, the main cause is bacause the several explanations in manual/FAQs/knowledge base are not so much clear, even if I understand that the matter is not so simple.

Having said that, and focusing only on the standard "4 primaries" scheme, can you confirm that it is possible to install BIBM on a USB HD larger than 64 GB, with nio impact/changes on the other system hard disks (internal, HD0, and so forth) ?

Thanks for the help you can demonstrate and sorry again for the inconvenience.

 

ambralivio,

All OK.

You can install BIBM on any sized USB HD. But it won't work. BIBM will only load when it is installed to an internal HD. I have confirmed this.

BIBM is my favourite app. As you mentioned, there is a steep learning curve. That's why you are having trouble expressing what you expect from BIBM and why I really need you to tell me what you want it to do.

I used to have a Grub4DOS internal partition booted by BIBM. Basically, I imaged the UFD partition and restored the image to an internal HD.

 

No, the boot manager of BIBM can only be used when BIBM finds an EMBR at the booting drive. When it does not find an EMBR and you try to use the boot manager it will ask you to perform the installation on the disk.

But the partition manager, Image for DOS, etc. will work fine.

Panagiotis

 

If you limit the primaries and you do not use EMBR, why do you want to use BIBM as the boot manager/loader?

Just use Grub4dos as boot loader and to boot the BIBM iso (from ram).
If you need to configure/finetune the settings of BIBM enviroment use a USB-Flash disk to do it and copy/backup the file bootitbm.ini . Then use that ini file to create the iso.

Panagiotis

 

Brian are you sure about this?
I think that BIBM needs to be installed/initialized on the booting drive but should not matter if it is internal or usb.
If you configure your pc's boot sequence to boot first from the usb instead from the internal drive it should not touch hd0.
eg.
instead of "hard drive/cdrom/floppy/usb drive"
the boot sequence should be configured
"usb drive/hard drive/cdrom/floppy/"

Panagiotis

 

Panagiotis,

Doh, I didn't do this. Can someone try this as the computer I used recently is in pieces.

 

@ Brian K , @ Panagiotis,

at first, let me inform you that I know the bootmanager concept since when System Commander from VCOM was available. Can you remember that or maybe it is too old ?

I used to use the vers. 4 ( dated 1998 ) that time, and I have to say that in spite of the "tricky" features of such a software type, I appreciated it a lot but I remember that, at some point in time, I abandoned it (as it made my system no more bootable at all, and "messy" above all), even if the user guide was very clear in the explanations.

Now you can certainly understand why I want to be on a safer side if starting to re-use another bootmanager like BIBM.....which, at the same time, seems not to have a very clear informative documentation (manual/FAQs/Knowledge Base, and so forth).

In fact, I'd like to learn and study, and be sure as well, before going to risk messing my actual system....and I do not have a dedicated test system for practical trials.

Now, I have already created the installation media for BIBM (it is a bootable CD) and the steps I foresee are :

• Pre-emptively, disconnecting all the internal HDs in my system (whose BIOS is able to boot from USB devices), just for safety
• connecting the large capacity external USB HD (which is the target for installing BIBM )
• boot from the bootable CD and install BIBM on the USB HD

Having said that, can the above work ?
Besides, and if it does make sense, this way I could also hope trying to install the EMBR in the USB HD...... or I'm going too far ?

 

ambralivio,

I'd never install BIBM to a USB external HD. What advantage would it serve? I tried it recently and it didn't work although Panagiotis pointed out I should have tried to boot it differently. To me it just makes life more difficult if BIBM isn't on HD0. I used to have BIBM on HD1 or HD2 but I don't do that anymore as it means you need two HDs (instead of one) to boot your OS. So you can't simply remove one of those HDs and replace it with another HD as your system won't boot. So now my BIBM partition is always on HD0.

I prefer using unlimited primaries as it's easier for multi-booting. Even with only two primary partitions on a HD, I'd still use unlimited primaries.

To install BIBM, create 8 MB of unallocated Free Space on HD0 and boot the BIBM CD (BIBM will create a primary partition in this space, you don't have to manually do it)....

Reboot and boot from the BootIt BM CD
Setup... Click OK to install BootIt ...
Setup... Put a tick in Change all MBR type drives to EMBR and click Yes to enable support for more than 4 primary partitions
Setup... Click Yes to let setup choose the partition for you
Setup... Click Yes to install to a dedicated partition. No tick in Install to any drive
Setup... Click OK to begin
Setup... Click OK for Setup completed successfully
click Close
Setup... Click OK for the Remove the boot disk and click OK to restart

BM will boot to a Boot Menu
Click Maintenance

This is the BIBM desktop

I always install BIBM with all internal HDs installed and with no USB HDs attached.

Edit... You still haven't explained why you want BIBM installed to a HD.

 

....the simple answer is : "In order to use its features, but on the external drive".

Let's suppose you want to change the partitions properties, for example change the partition (on the external HD) you want be "active"...(but this is only an example).

If BIBM could be installed on the external drive, then booting from it I could choose the (own) partition to start from.

 

ambralivio,

Sorry, but you still haven't provided a reason for BIBM to be installed on a HD. What you mentioned can be done from a BIBM boot disk. Maybe you have multiple OS you would like to multi-boot. Then that is a good reason to have BIBM installed. But to install it to an external drive instead of HD0 doesn't make sense.