booting

Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: booting
started by: krazynesphreak

Posted by krazynesphreak on Feb. 03 2005,23:07

now i know how 2 boot from a cd & usb drive and all that good stuff. my question is what if u can`t get into the bios because of a password. now i know just remove the battery for a bit & put it back in and the bios will reset, i don`t want to do that. i want to boot into windows like i should and then beable to edit the harddrive`s MBR (master boot record) to boot into the cdrom. i know how to that. but is there a temporary way i can edit it. like boot into windows and backup the MBR on a floppy. then edit where i can boot to the cdrom drive. then after im in linux i can redit the MBR again with the backup file i saved in windows, or when i boot the 2nd time have the MBR restore itself from the floppy and then boot the cdrom so i don`t have to redited the MBR in linux. dose anybody know of an eazy way to do this?? or dose anybody know what i`m talking about?

thanks
ryan

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 04 2005,03:35

I'm not completely sure what you are asking, but...

The MBR doesn't control which devices are bootable...if you can't boot to CD then changing the MBR isn't going to change this.

You need to edit the boot sequence in BIOS in order for it to work.

If you can't edit BIOS the only thing I can think of is to use a boot floppy instead of the CD.

Posted by krazynesphreak on Feb. 04 2005,07:29

yes you can. there is a program called, < Smart Boot Manager >. and if i`m not mistaked there are even a few boot managers that can fit into the MBR completely. but i`m asking if there is one that will automately boot to the cdrom, and a eazy way to edit the MBR in both windows and linux (DSL).
thanks
ryan

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 04 2005,14:53

oh...I see what you're saying. You'd be booting from MBR into a cdrom operating system....clever.

In that case you should be able do it with smart boot manager, i think? If you create a boot disk for windows you should be able to boot from that and 'fixmbr' to return the windows boot loader (I'm guessing...I use the Windows CD for this).
Editing the boot manager in Windows is done in c:\boot.ini. In Linux it would depend on the bootloader. In Grub it's /boot/grub/menu.lst...I don't know about LILO.

Posted by ke4nt1 on Feb. 04 2005,15:57

I guess the question I'm asking is "why" ?

Do you have privledges to access the bios,
and make a change in the boot order of devices ?
( in other words, the bios admin password. )

That would be quick and easy,
and much less dangerous than risking your MBR getting trashed.

Or, is this a workaround to thwart another administrator's
effort to restrict users from booting from non-approved devices,
or OS's, on equipment that you do not own or admin yourself ?

While I'm sure myself and other admins that frequent here
aren't real overjoyed about sharing this info with the G.P. ,
your interest in not only wanting to change the MBR
for your needs, but then restore it back after completion of
your "task" is suspicious , to say the least..

73
ke4nt

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 04 2005,16:06

I would hope that if this were the case, then the Admin would also not give the user Administrative power, which would prevent changing the MBR anyway.

Posted by krazynesphreak on Feb. 04 2005,18:46

ke4nt1 & mikshaw, that is what i'm tring to do. mikshaw, i also have ways around that as well, & u were talking about the boot.ini file is there away i can edit that to boot to the cdrom.
thanks
ryan

Posted by mikshaw on Feb. 04 2005,18:59

I have no idea if Windows supports booting to a cdrom system. If so it would be set in the [operating systems] section, but I couldn't say what the settings would be.

I agree with Kent, though. If the Admin doesn't want this done I think it should not be done.

Posted by krazynesphreak on Feb. 04 2005,19:05

ok, know dose any body eles know about this, and is there a way i can set it to boot to the cdrom 1st then to the OS after a time out. 1 sec, timeout that way nobody knows. i guess i should work on this and get back with u'll.
thanks
ryan