[ipxe-devel] Fwd: ipxe image for hard drive booting - ipxe.hd ?

[Håkan Johansson]

Thanks, ipxe.usb worked nicely.  (I thought I had tested that, but...)
(Making additional partitions works too.)

I'd suggest a small note placed at the end of

http://ipxe.org/download#using_a_boot_cd-rom_or_usb_key

indicating that the ipxe.usb image also is good for (raw) hard drives.

iPXE is great!

Thanks,
Håkan


On Tue, 18 Feb 2014, Thomas Miletich wrote:

> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Thomas Miletich <thomas.miletich at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 2:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [ipxe-devel] ipxe image for hard drive booting - ipxe.hd ?
> To: Håkan Johansson <f96hajo at chalmers.se>
> 
> 
> If I'm not mistaken ipxe.hd is for hard disk partitions. ipxe.usb contains a
> partition table and a partition containing ipxe.hd. ipxe.usb is the image
> file you'll want to use for a whole hard disk(or usb drive).
> 
> Thomas
> 
> On Feb 17, 2014 7:21 PM, "Håkan Johansson" <f96hajo at chalmers.se> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I want to be able to put a small ipxe image on a hard drive in a machine
> to load ipxe, without having to install a bootloader.  (Or using a USB
> stick, as many bioses delete such boot entries if the machine by accident is
> booted without the stick inserted.)  (Basically just 'dd if=ipxe.hd
> of=/dev/sdX'.)  Is ipxe.hd intended for that?  Or some other suggested way?
>  Searching the documentation did not come up with a solution.
> >
> > However, ipxe.hd does not work as is, as there is no active partition
> (marked 0x80).  Perhaps this is why it is not built as default?
> > ('make bin/ipxe.hd' fixed that.)
> >
> > Below are two ways that made it work for me (on a Dell Optiplex 620 and
> Dell Dimension 9150 (the first method only tested on the optiplex)).
> >
> > 1)
> >
> > dd if=ipxe.hd of=/dev/sdX
> > fdisk /dev/sdX              # create a normal partition, starting at
> >                             # sector 2048 and mark it active
> > dd if=ipxe.hd of=/dev/sdX1
> >
> > Machine boots and loads IPXE.
> >
> > Here, ipxe.hd is actually placed twice on the harddrive.
> >
> > 2)
> >
> > In the second solution, the MBR (src/arch/i386/prefix/hdprefix.S)
> partition table is changed so that the first 'partition' includes the
> ipxe.hd (the MBR itself).  The ipxe.hd boot-loader code then sort of finds
> itself and loads.
> >
> > As far as I understood the loader code, the partition size (end) is not
> used, so can be some arbitrary dummy value.  I guess also zeros, but not
> tested.  Probably makes sense to have some non-zero value to help avoid
> partitioning tools from using the first part of the disk (ipxe.hd), if one
> wants to use the hard-drive for other partitions too.
> >
> > Something to include into ipxe?
> >
> > diff --git a/src/arch/i386/prefix/hdprefix.S
> b/src/arch/i386/prefix/hdprefix.S
> > index 876bfe1..5a5a6f1 100644
> > --- a/src/arch/i386/prefix/hdprefix.S
> > +++ b/src/arch/i386/prefix/hdprefix.S
> > @@ -82,6 +82,14 @@ load_failed:
> >         jmp     boot_error
> >  10:    .asciz  "Could not load iPXE\r\n"
> >
> > +       .org 446
> > +       .byte 0x80 /* Active */
> > +       .byte 0x00, 0x01, 0x00 /* head, sector, cylinder */
> > +       .byte 0x83 /* Linux :-) */
> > +       .byte 0x10, 0x10, 0x00 /* dummy end: head, sector, cylinder */
> > +       .byte 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00 /* first sector */
> > +       .byte 0x00, 0x04, 0x00, 0x00 /* number of sectors: 1024 */
> > +
> >         .org 510
> >         .byte 0x55, 0xaa
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Håkan
> > _______________________________________________
> > ipxe-devel mailing list
> > ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org
> > https://lists.ipxe.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/ipxe-devel
> >
> 
> 
> 
>