The configuration utility enables you to choose the target boot manager file and adjust settings such as video mode resolution , start mode or font and toggle other ones such as the countdown, Windows zoom animation, forcing USB 1.
By using Plop Boot Manager, it is possible to boot different operating systems on your computer. You can install the boot manager on a CD, on your HDD, on a network location or even on a floppy disk. Therefore, you are provided with a quite large range of possibilities. All things considered, Plop Boot Manager is a lightweight utility that can help you replace your standard boot loader with a customizable one that you can fine tune according to your preferences.
It needs no installation and lets you configure many of its parameters, such as modifying resolution, toggling PCMCIA skipping or enabling countdown. Plop Boot Manager. Manage your Windows bootloader by customizing its components and boot various operating systems with this lightweight application. What's new in Plop Boot Manager 5. For Linux click here , for Windows click here. Copy plpinstc.
Then use the program plpmkboot to make the drive bootable to start plpbt. Hint: Do not use the other install program plpinst. When you don't want to install the boot manager to the MBR, then you have to use plpbt. You can start plpbt. You cannot save boot manager settings when you use plpbt. But you can use plpcfgbt to configure plpbt. Extract it to get the floppy disk image plpbt. Extract it to get the iso file plpbt. You will find the batch program InstallToBootMenu. The batch creates an entry in your windows boot menu called "Plop Boot Manager".
When you reboot, then use the entry to start the Plop Boot Manager. Use "l" small "L" to list all entries. Remove the entry with "r ID". ID is the number you have seen with "l". See here for more info's to plpbt4win. Extract it to get the boot manager binary program plpbt.
Add plpbt to the config file for Syslinux it's syslinux. You start the boot manager when you enter plp at the Syslinux command prompt. Add to your menu. Then run update-grub2 or update-grub. When you reboot, you should be able to start the boot manager from your grub menu. Restart the install program and choose the option 5 to write a fresh MBR program and remove the Plop Boot Manager start routine.
Just remove the boot manager entry and update the configuration when its required for the program. There is one script for Windows and one script for Linux in the zip file. The scripts are using mkisofs from cdrtools.
You have to run create-iso. You get a file called plpbtmycd. That's your new boot manager iso file. You must have installed mkisofs. You have to run sh create-iso. This program is available as source code for Linux and Windows. You start the program from a command shell. If you run the program without parameters then you will see the help information.
Infos about int19h see here. If you don't press it, the booting continues without the boot manager. When you use a Linux boot manager, then you can pass some parameters with "append" to plpbt. Example syslinux.
You can store the option rom in your bios or to the rom of a network card and run it from there. The boot manager will be started before any boot device is tried when INT 19h mode is used or the boot manager is the last program that is started when all boot devices failed to boot when INT 18h mode is used. Passing parameters to the boot manager with the linux kernel command line is not supported by plpbtrom. You can configure plpbtrom. You can test your rom file with the free virtual machine qemu.
If you have no hard disk image file then take one from the qemu download page or use a floppy image. Download the Ami bios flash utility and save your current bios. AMI Homepage. Use the Windows tool MMTools to replace the network rom with the plpbt. Find the network option rom. Maybe there are other option roms in your bios. Take care that you choose the network option rom. Press the Save ROM as and give it the name mybios. Now comes the dangerous part. Flashing the bios.
I suggest setting the bios to the default settings and save it. Then boot from a dos floppy and run. Do not turn off the pc during flash. After the flash has completed, go to the bios and do again a reset to the default settings. If all is ok, you should be able to configure the bios and start the boot manager during the boot process. Download the Award bios flash utility aflash. You should find it at your Motherboard homepage in the bios section.
Run it from a DOS floppy and save your current bios to a file. Give it the name bios. Search the file cbrom in the web. There are different versions, not all will work with your bios file, so you have to test it with different versions. This should list all parts of the bios rom. I cannot give you the command to replace the rom. None of the cbrom programs where able to display the content of my bios rom file.
You have to test it by yourself. When you updated the bios rom file, then flash it. Then boot from a dos floppy and run with awdflash. The program can work with the boot. It automatically detects the required method. You can use it as batch file or run it with an built-in command line.
You find plpbt4win in the Windows directory of plpbt You can easy use different boot manager binary files. For example, one windows boot menu entry is the default boot manager file and another entry is configured to auto boot usb. The windows user must only start the batch file and everything is done by the batch file.
The user must only reboot to see the new boot menu entries. Those batch files can also be used as example how to use plpbt4win.
Solution: Rename the file 'plpbt4win. Set the new file name in the 'boot. Use plpbt4win. Open a command prompt as administrator. Many old laptops are having one or two CardBus slots. When your laptop has only USB 1. You find the boot manager with the CardBus driver in the pcmcia directory of plpbt The boot manager initializes the CardBus during the boot manager startup.
This means, the PC-Card must be plugged in during the boot manager start! I do this during the program start, because then you have an initialized and ready to use PC-Card regardless if you boot from usb or not. During the boot manager startup you will see some infos about the CardBus init process.
When you want to read it, then press the CTRL key during the boot manager start. Notes: My CardBus driver works on many machines, but it does not work on all. Because of the additional CardBus driver size, I had to remove the IDE Cdrom driver only from the pcmcia hard disk boot manager version. I know this is very special. Maybe it's useful for some people. You have to configure the plpbt.
Now you have to start plpbt. Choose USB and the boot manager will install the usb driver and go back to your boot manager. If you start DOS you will have access to your usb drive as last hard disk. But remember, the usb drive is only as "read only" device available. When you disable the driver, then you are able to load other DOS usb drivers.
You can run plpdisd from config. You find some driver detection info's here. With the program plpchk You can use it in the config. The program is able to create a file when the driver is installed, or delete a file when the driver was not detected. According to the existence of the file you can do some actions.
For batch files you can use the return value of the error level. Hidden Partition: Operating systems, backup solutions and so on can see them but they ignore them. I would say, this is a pseudo hidden partition. This is really hidden. It looks like unallocated space for every program. That means no other program can access the data on that partition with some work and searching the hard disk there are still ways to access the data.
There is a risk, if you repartition the hard disk, you will overwrite your invisible partition and all data on it if you do it wrong. This is an example: A partition should be visible in one profile and hidden and not cleared in another profile. Let's say you want to have the second partition on HDA HDA2 on one profile visible and on another hidden and not cleared.
Choose "Select from list". Choose the hidden version of your partition. Go to "profiles". Now you can assign the "visible" version of your partition to one profile and the "hidden" to another profile. Download demoinstall. The quality is not the best but you see all required steps. I hope it's useful. I want that no windows has access to the partition of the other Windows. There should be a third partition that will be used as shared partition.
Both Windows have access to this partition. The hard disk is not partitioned No boot manager is installed. Create with the Windows installer a partition with the size you want. I use a 10GB partition. Install Windows XP on this partition. When you installed your Windows, go to the Disk Management and create a second primary partition for Vista and a third primary partition for the shared data.
Now comes the boot manager part. Boot from the boot manager install floppy or CD. Install the boot manager to the hard disk and then reboot. The boot manager created a profile called "os harddisk 1" to boot Windows XP. It also imported the 3 primary partitions. Now go to setup and profiles. Select os harddisk 1. Give it the new label windows xp.
Select linked partitions. At the second slot press c to set it to cleared. You can leave the third slot as don't touch or select HDA3. See the difference at configure partition entries. Now leave the configuration of Windows XP and go to an empty profile in Profiles. Give it the label windows vista. Set show in main menu to yes.
Now select linked partitions. Press at the first slot c to set it to cleared. At the second slot press b to set the boot flag. Press enter and select HDA2. On the third slot choose the same as for windows xp don't touch or HDA3. Go back to the main menu. Now you see windows xp and windows vista. Move to windows vista and press Enter. This writes the profile settings to the hard disk.
The booting will fail, because Vista is not installed. In the installer you should see at the partitions screen at first an unallocated space there is xp installed and 2 primary partitions. Select the first primary partition to install Windows Vista.
Now you should have two bootable Windows on your hard disk and they don't know from each other. You can share data between both with the shared partition. It's similar to the previous description, if you want to install Windows XP on the first hard disk and Windows Vista on the second hard disk. The second hard disk is HDB in the boot manager. So install Windows Vista to the first partition of the second hard disk. The boot manager will set the boot flag to 81h.
This should be ok for your installation. Here are short instructions for a complete new installation of your pc with dualbooting WinXP and Win7. It doesn't matter if you use 32 or 64 bit versions. Take care, all data on your pc will be deleted!
Boot the Win7 install DVD. Remove all partitions from the hard disk. Create a partition for Win7. The install program will create 2 partitions. One with about 80MB for the Win7 boot files and a second partition with the Win7 files. Create an additional partition for WinXP. Now you see 3 partitions. Install Win7 to the second partition. After the Win7 installation is complete, install the Plop Boot Manager.
Change the name to "Win7". Now leave the profile settings for Win7. Use now an empty profile to create the WinXP profile. Give it the name WinXP, visible in main menu "yes". On the second press "c" to set it cleared. On the third press "c" to set it to cleared too. Go to the main menu and press enter on WinXP. You will be not able to boot this partition because XP is not installed currently. If you get the message about invalid boot signature, then press "n" to abort. You should see now only one partition.
Install WinXP there. Reboot, the boot manager will tell you about partition changes. Press "y" to import the new values. Now you should be able to boot both systems. It's a false report.
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