manually wrap wimboot cpio

[ndog]

(2016-12-18 09:58)NiKiZe Wrote:  What exactly is the issue with loading wimboot as it is intended to be used? what is wrong with using ipxe? and what is the exact issue you get when using something else?

Just experimenting. On a laptop I own I can boot many things from grub4dos but what i like are
- graphical interface
- option to remember last boot option
- hide/unhide partitions (so other OS can't r/w)
- chainload other bootloader (eg clover + osx)
- boot vmlinuz + initrd + options (eg clonezilla live)
- boot flatfile 'vhd' for windows xp/7 etc
- boot windows PE using wimboot

On a pure UEFI laptop eg HP EFI only laptop (and later testing with a macbook) I could install ipxe.efi as the main bootloader, however I am uncertain as if ipxe.efi from a hard disk EFI partition would be able to
-remember last booted entry
-chainload another efi such as clover etc
So far ipxe does everything i want from pxe booting, but this is just for a local boot loader for dual booting windows, osx, linux and recovery tools like clonezilla, gparted and diagnostics eg wimboot some winPE with preloaded tools, a technicians laptop if you like.

Nowdays I am looking at using rEFInd as a bootloader. It has cool themes and icons too. But I can't get clonezilla or wimboot to work from it, because of the way the options eg this
loader /wimboot/wimboot
options "initrdfile=/wimboot/bootmgr,/wimboot/BCD,/wimboot/boot.sdi,/wimboot/boot.wim"

would pass as
Starting wimboot
Using load options 'initrdfile=/wimboot/bootmgr,/wimboot/BCD,/wimboot/boot.sdi,/wimboot/boot.wim'

wimboot v.2.5.2 -- Windows Imaging Format bootloader -- http://ipxe.org/wimboot

Command line: "\wimboot\wimboot initrdfile=/wimboot/bootmgr,/wimboot/BCD,/wimboot/boot.sdi,/wimboot/boot.wim"
Using EFI via 0xb6251d20 len 0x1000
Using wimboot via 0xb3d37020 len 0x1000
FATAL: no BOOTX64.EFI or bootmgfw.efi found
Error: Load Error returned from wimboot

If it were just the kernel and just a initrd file it would eliminate the argument passing. I have tried many different options to make wimboot try to read, however lack of documentation and/or anyone else daring to boot a windows PE file from refind boot loader has prevented this stage

https://sourceforge.net/p/refind/discuss.../962d4dbe/

Maybe i will chainload ipxe from refind and go that way, further testing required! Eventually I will get something that works I'm sure!

My dream scenario as a technician would be like this
legacy pxe boot, using pxelinux.0
efi pxe boot, using ipxe.efi
legacy boot from HDD, using grub4dos mbr hd0
EFI boot from HDD (PC), using grub2.efi
EFI boot from Mac, using rEFInd.efi

And all these loaders would support wimboot and have documented ways of doing this. So far (in my testing) only pxelinux.0, ipxe (legacy and efi) and grub4dos support wimboot.