ReactOS Forum

What is actually added to boot.ini ?

Would it be possible to copy the binaries to c:\reactos and manually alter the boot.ini file, instead of writing the .iso to disk?

Look here: http://reactos.com/en/content/view/full/7259

I did a Faq with answer to all those things, but i am waiting for someone to review it and post it in the website. If in a week noone does, i will publish it in another place.

Please post your FAQ in the forum so everybody can review and use it even if its not official...

and now a question, Does both the drive with the boot.ini and the drive with reactos have to be fat16? Im gonna test it, but I could always just make some other mistake.

Administrator wrote:Lucio Diaz sent me a great FAQ but I'm just too busy to correct the spelling and grammar issues.

Could you please look at it and post the corrected version here? (Or send it to mike[dot]wirth[@]gmail[dot]com )

Thank you!

Greetings
Michael

FAQ-Link
http://www.reactos.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=61

Quigs wrote:and now a question, Does both the drive with the boot.ini and the drive with reactos have to be fat16? Im gonna test it, but I could always just make some other mistake.

The first partition should be FAT (12/16/32).

Ok..so this might be harder then I first thought...
I tried making the Fat partition the active partition, which as far as I know should make it bootable, Im pretty sure this bypasses the boot.ini on windows and makes that drive be in control, is the MBR still going to get in my way?

Oh and by the way ReactOS is detected by Windows Recovery Console, which I thought was cool.

oh..I was able to get boot.ini to point to the ReactOS installation but it gave me a corrupt ntoskrnl error, I tried the /KERNEL switch but it didnt help.

If you are using win XP/2000/NT the easiest way is to use the bootable ISO, i guarantie that no change will be made to your master boot sector. Also you can use Any non logical Fat 16/32 partition to install reactos (if it is detected by the reactos install console it is not logical).

The instalation will automatically add the right path to the bootini of windows to install the OS. This if you have selected the first partition of disk C:

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
C:\bootsect.ros="ReactOS"

And will automatically modify the Freeloader.ini (installed in your first partition) to point to the path where reactos is (I think, i would have to check again it by myself, my memory is terrible).


You can make the changes manually but it would be a bit more dificult, and you should know well how Windows name the partitions. If you need to make it by hand we can chat in the IRC or just answer me here.

I dont have a working Cdrom in this computer , and besides I would really like to get this to work anyway. I really dislike using Cds. I also think other people would prefer to be able to install from within windows, despite difficulties.


what should freeloader have in it?

hmm...maybe ill just burn the next version to a cd, any plans for a install from within windows?
thanks for answering all my questions!