This is a stand-alone PcDOS boot diskette which I have put together for

performing ImageDisk functions on systems without DOS installed on the

hard drive. It's main features are:

- Selectable support for IDE/SATA ATAPI CD/DVD

- Selectable support for USB mass storage devices

- Loadable RAMdisk for non-intrusive working storage

- Essential commands and utilities.

- Tools to get data ON/OFF the system via Network, Serial (COM)

or Parallel (LPT) connections.

This utility diskette can be used as a directly bootable diskette, or as

a floppy-boot image for a bootable CD (I use "MagicISO" to place this and

several other useful bootable floppies onto a single CD).

File provided in this archive:

BOOTIMD.BIN Binary image of boot diskette

XDISK.COM Utility to read/write physical diskette to/from binary image

DSKIMG.EXE Utility to extract individual files from the image.

*.TXT Additional documentation on commands/utilities.

Creating the disk:

You can use the provided XDISK.COM utility to create the disk (use

a standard 1.44M 3.5" floppy):

For DOS & Win9X:

XDISK -W -F A: BOOTIMD.BIN

For WINNT/2K/XP:

Format disk in windows (do full format)

XDISK -W A: BOOTIMD.BIN

For 64-bit windows

XDISK is not supported - you will have to use a windows native

program such as "WIMIMAGE".

Once you have created the disk, it is recommended that you slide the

WRITE-PROTECT notch to the "PROTECTED" position - this software does

not require write access to the disk.

Content of boot diskette root:

IBMBIO.COM PcDOS - system file (hidden)

IBMDOS.COM PcDOS - system file (hidden)

COMMAND.COM PcDOS - command interpreter

CONFIG.SYS System configuration (has startup menu)

AUTOEXEC.BAT System configuration

HIMEM.SYS IBM DOS - high memory driver

UIDEJR.SYS IDE/SATA ATAPI CD/DVD driver

USBASPI.SYS USB to ASPI device driver

DI1000DD.SYS ASPI mass-storage driver

SHSUCDX.COM CD/DVD file system driver

XMSDSK.EXE Dynamically loadable RAMdisk

MINSTALL.EXE Menu install utility

PKTDRV.EXE Packet driver install utility

ODIDRV.EXE ODI Drivers+ODIPKT shim to support mode network cards

When you boot the disk, you will first be greeted with a CONFIG.SYS

startup menu, from this menu you can select if you wish to load CD/DVD

and/or USB mass storage drivers:

1. No additional drivers

2. CD/DVD

3. USB mass-storage

4. CD/DVD + USB mass-storage

Then, DOS and the selected drivers load and MINSTALL runs. MINSTALL shows

you the packages which are available to install, with an indicator:

'+' means the whole package will be installed.

'-' means some of the files in the package will be installed.

<blank> means none of the files in the package will be installed.

Use the cursor keys to hilight a package, and press F1 to select all files

within it, F2 to deselect all files within it, or ENTER to bring up a menu

of individual files in the package. When you have finished, press F10 to

continue.

MINSTALL now presents you with a RAMdisk size - you can modify the size using

the keys indicated. When you are ready, press F10 - MINSTALL will create a

RAMdisk and unpack the selected files onto it.

The following packages/files are available from MINSTALL:

---- "Standard DOS commands" ----

ATTRIB.COM Display/change file attributes

CHKDSK.COM Check/Repair a disk structure

DEBUG.COM System Debugger

DELTREE.EXE Remove directory tree

FC.EXE Compare two files

FIND.COM Search for a text string(s) in file(s)

MEM.EXE Display system memory use

MODE.COM Configure system devices

MORE.COM Paginate output

MOVE.EXE Move/Rename files/directories

SUBST.EXE Associate path to drive letter

TREE.COM Display directory structure

XCOPY.COM Enhanced COPY command

---- "Misc. general utilities" ----

EDT.EXE Text editor

UNZIP.EXE Unpack .ZIP archives

---- "Data transfer utilities" ----

DDLINK.COM Transfer via COM, LPT or NETwork

PC100.COM Serial terminal, XMODEM & ASCII transfers

XMODEM.COM XMODEM module for PC100 (can use stand-alone)

---- "Networking utilities" ----

DHCP.COM Dynamic Host Configuration for FTP

FTP.EXE File Transfer Protocol client

PCINIC.COM Utility to "find" PCI network cards

PCINIC.DAT Database of vendors/devices for PCINIC

TFTP.COM Trivial File Transfer Protocol client/server

WATTCP.CFG Configuration file for FTP

---- "ImageDisk Tools" ----

IMD.COM ImageDisk main program

IMDA.COM ImageDisk Analyzer

IMDU.COM ImageDisk Utility

IMDV.COM ImageDisk Viewer

TESTFDC.COM Test Floppy Disk Controller

DDLINK, DHCP, FTP and TFTP access the network via a "packet driver" which

is specific to your network card. I have provided a collection of over 100

different packet drivers which cover most common NICs (and a few uncommon

ones) in PKTDRV.EXE - See PKTDRV.TXT

Most of the commands are fairly self explainatory, and many of them can be

requested to provide a summary of usage, try:

<command> <= No arguments

<command> ?

<command> /?

<command> /H

I have provided additional documentation for some of the more complex commands

in the .TXT files included in this archive. NOTE: In many (most) cases I've

trimmed the packages to reduce size - the documents may reference files which

are not present on this disk, however you can obtain these from the original

archives.

Transferring data:

One of the hardest things about recovering a system is that it can be very

difficult to get files on and off a modern system when a network capable OS

is not running. Here are a few ideas on ways to move data around:

- If you system has a FAT16 or FAT32 partition, you should be able to read

and write it from PcDOS7. You may also be able to use the NTFSDOS utility

to gain read-only access to an NTFS partiion on your system.

- Put the data on a USB drive, and boot with USB mass storage support.

This works on a LOT of PC chipsets, but unfortinately not all of them.

NOTE: USB drive should be connected when the system boots.

- Burn the data to a CD/DVD, and boot with CD/DVD support

+ This can be slightly tricky if you have booted from a CD because your

boot disk is on the CD. As long as you have copied the commands you

wish to use to a RAMdisk you should be OK.

+ You may wish to take A:\ out of your PATH to avoid disk errors when

you enter unrecognized commands.

+ When you re-insert the boot CD, you may need to enter Control-C at

the DOS prompt to get it to properly reload the drive.

+ NOTE: If your system has a SATA CD/DVD drive, then you may need to

go into BIOS setup and configure it for IDE emulation mode.

- Network: Getting the network working can be tricky.

+ I've provided PCINIC, a small scanner to find PCI ethernet card Type,

Address and Irq - just run 'PCINIC' to see if it finds your card.

+ Use PKTDRV/ODIDRV to extract the appropriate packet driver for your nic.

NOTE: Due to the large size of these programs, I do not install them to

the RAMdisk - run them directly from the boot floppy: A:PKTDRV

+ Install the packet driver:

+ Normally you have to specify the packet software interrupt (0x60)

eg: driver_name 0x60

+ You may also have to specify the hardware interrupt and I/O address

eg: NE2000 0x60 11 0x6C00 (NE2000 nic, interrupt 11 address 6C00)

Run the driver with no arguments to see the expected syntax.

+ If you can't get your mainboard network interface to work, consider

putting in a PCI card - I keep a few NE2000 compatible PCI nics for

this purpose.

If you can get a packet driver working, then you can perform standard

IP networking with:

TFTP as either a client or server.

+ You can use SWSVPKT or DOSBOX to run TFTP (client or server) in

windows - See the "WINDOWS" section of DDLINK.TXT for details.

+ For a native windows TFTP server, try "pumpkin".

FTP as a client.

You can also use DDLINK which is a little nicer because it gives a split

screen menu interface and can copy entire directory subtrees. But it needs

a DDLINK server running on the remote system (or on the local system with

a client on the remote) - see DDLINK.TXT for details.

- If the system has a real LPT or COM port (not USB devices), then you

can use DDLINK. This can be tricky as you will need a system running

DOS or Win9x to host DDLINK on the other end (COM may work with 2K/XP,

but slowly). You may be able to boot this disk on another system and

access data as described above.

NOTE: When you have a choice - LPT is much faster than COM

- If none of the above can be made to work, then your "last resort" is

to format a hard drive with FAT16 or FAT32 and attach it to the system.

Many systems have the CD driver on a separate interface, which makes

it a good cable to attach a slave hard drive.

Credits:

PcDOS files were extracted from "IBM ServerGuide Scripting Toolkit" which

is available (free) from: http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/management/sgstk/

Many of the packet drivers installed by PKTDRV.EXE are from Russ Nelsons

"crynwar" packet driver collection - the full collection and packet driver

documentation is available (free) from: http://www.crynwar.com

UIDEJR, SHSUCDX, USPASPI, DI1000DD, XMSDSK, DOSLFN, NTFSDOS and HTGET are

all from packages available (free) via the internet. Search for these terms

to find the original distributions.