[Hemo2]

I found an update for the "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor" by PNordahl. (This item is included in UBCD4Win.) I copied the updated files into UBCD4Win v3.60 and built a CD, generating the ISO image and everything works fine. I was able to use the BootCD to boot on a Windows 7 64-bit laptop and successfully reset the local administrator password.

So I then ran the UBUSB.EXE utility that comes with UBCD4Win to make a bootable thumb drive. We use the bootable USB thumbdrive all the time and it works very well. After running the UBUSB.EXE and having it format the thumbdrive and copy all the file, it all worked fine and copied the "Offline NT Password & Registry Editor" files into a \isolinux folder. Since I'm using Grub4dos on the thumbdrive when it's made, I need to edit the "menu.lst" file to add the entry to boot this item up. However, I can't get the syntax to work so it boots properly and am hoping for some help.

Basically I got to a point where the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor to boots up, but it doesn't seem to load any mass storage drivers, so it can't see any hard drives or partitions.

Looking in the syslinux.cfg file for this, you see:

LABEL NTPWD
  MENU LABEL Offline Password & Registry Editor
  TEXT HELP
  * version: 2010-06-27
  * http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/
  Petter Nordahl's Offline NT Password & Registry Editor
  ENDTEXT
  KERNEL /isolinux/pnordahl 
  APPEND rw vga=1 init=/linuxrc initrd=/isolinux/pnordahl.cgz,/isolinux/scsi.cgz

My understanding is the last two lines above are important to "convert" to grub4dos format. Looking at other examples, I came up with this for the menu.lst in grub4dos:

title Offline Password & Registry Editor
kernel /isolinux/pnordahl rw vga=1 init=/linuxrc
initrd /isolinux/pnordahl.cgz,/isolinux/scsi.cgz

This fails, telling me the file isn't found. I assume it's the "initrd" line since it is referencing more than one file there with the comma splitting the two items.

So I changed this to be this:

title Offline Password & Registry Editor
kernel /isolinux/pnordahl rw vga=1 init=/linuxrc
initrd /isolinux/pnordahl.cgz

This actually boots up, but it gets to a point where it scans for hard drives and can't find any. I assume this is due to me removing the "scsi.cgz" info.

Basically I don't really know what I'm doing and am hoping someone here has previously done this and can share the contents of their grub4dos menu entry for booting this Offline Password & Registry Editor. Can anyone help?

Thank you.

[pcuser]

Remove the comma:

initrd /isolinux/pnordahl.cgz /isolinux/scsi.cgz

[Hemo2]

Thanks for the reply pcuser. I don't get the error anymore, but it doesn't seem to load the disk drivers, just as if I left off the "/isolinux/scsi.cgz" part altogether. Not quite sure what else I can try for this, but it does work when booting from a CD, so we can use that format for now.

[pcuser]

What version of UBUSB/Grub4dos are you using? I don't remember exactly when it was that Grub4dos started supporting both on the same line so if it's an older UBUSB then try downloading and using the newest.

[Hemo2]

I checked and the grub4dos is the grub.exe from the 0.4.4 version. The UBUSB.exe is the one that came with UBCD4WIN 3.60 and shows version 1.0.51 when I run it.

It's like the scsi.cgz file is being passed as a parameter to the pnordahl.cgz image to use for the hard disk drivers. I suspect either grub4dos won't work or maybe even more probable is that I just don't know how to enter the syntax properly so it will work. I'm basically just trying different syntax to get it to work and so far no luck.

[cdob]

Hemo2, on 06 October 2010 - 09:23 AM, said:

I checked and the grub4dos is the grub.exe from the 0.4.4 version.

Update this. http://nufans.net/grub4dos/tinybit/

[Hemo2]

Thanks cdob. I downloaded the latest 0.4.5.b version, but unfortunately it still doesn't work from a thumb drive.

Just to be clear, I build the UBCD4Win and burn the .ISO to a CD and this works fine and I was able to reset the local admin password on a Win7 - 64-bit pc, thus the reason we'd really like to get this to run off the thumbdrive as not every pc has a CD Drive anymore. The CD not only boots fine and the Offline NT Password bootdisk comes up fine, but the Offline NT Password bootdisk also loads hard disk drivers during it's boot process. You know it's loaded the drivers because after it boots it shows you the available potential Windows partitions it finds. I assume these drivers are coming from that "scsi.cgz" file that gets passed to the pnordahl.cgz boot image and this works fine when booting from the CD, which uses a different way to bootup than the thumbdrive does.

When I then run UBUSB.EXE that comes with the UBCD4Win project to make a bootable USB thumbdrive, I format my thumbdrive as Fat32-LBA with a boot loader of Grub4dos. When it's finished, I replace the CONFIG.SYS with customized one that gives us multiple menus options to choose from. To load the Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, I have the commands an "others.lst" menu file.

[OTHER]
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH
FILES=60
BUFFERS=30
device=grub.exe --config-file=/other.lst

Inside the "other.lst" menu file, I'm trying to use the below command to bootup the Offline NT Password bootdisk.

title Offline Password & Registry Editor
kernel /isolinux/pnordahl rw vga=1  init=/linuxrc
initrd /isolinux/pnordahl.cgz /isolinux/scsi.cgz

I initially tried it using a comma to split the two .cgz filenames, but that doesn't work as you get a "file not found" error. Using the above commands does actually boot up the Offline NT Password bootdisk just fine. The problem though is it doesn't appear to load any hard disk storage drivers. I say this because when the message comes up about the potential Windows partitions it finds, it's blank and no partitions are found, thus you can't select the Windows partition to reset the password. This is the problem I'm running into and was hoping that someone else succesfully is booting this particular bootdisk from their thumbdrive using grub4dos.

I suspect it's not necessarily the version of grub4dos anymore that is the issue, but my complete lack of knowledge on how to properly tell it to load this scenario. All the examples I've found only reference loading a single image file with that "initrd" command and can't find any examples to address the issue like this Offline NT Password bootdisk presents where it apparently somehow needs the second "scsi.cgz" file to get loaded or 'passed' to the first image file to use for the drivers.

At this point, I've randomly tried a variety of syntax's but it's clear to me I don't understand this. I was able to "jerry rig" the newer Gparted bootdisk into working, but this one has me beat.

I really appreciate the replies here though and want to thank you very much for your help and info. I'll keep an eye out on this thread in case some kind sole has already accomplished what I'm trying and can share their Grub4dos menu entry.

This post has been edited by Hemo2: 06 October 2010 - 02:00 PM

[cdob]

Hemo2, on 06 October 2010 - 02:59 PM, said:

I suspect it's not necessarily the version of grub4dos anymore that is the issue

Loading a splitted initrd was added to grub4dos lately, file load order is importand too.

Anyway there is another choice:

title Offline Password & Registry Editor (ISO direct mapping)
ls /images/cd100627.iso || find --set-root /images/cd100627.iso
map /images/cd100627.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)

[Hemo2]

Thanks cdob. The entries to boot the .iso image does work from the thumbdrive, so that's the route I'll take. It will be nice to have this bootdisk available on both the boot CD and USB thumbdrive that our techs use!

[mkruger]

This thread was very helpful for me too. Thanks guys.

The plugin works great by just dropping the iso into the files subfolder of the plugin and modifying the offline.inf file a bit.


Here's an updated offline.inf which includes the new grub4dos capability of this plugin.

; Created by Hilander999
; Updated by cdob 5/13/07 for new version
; Modified 2/14/2008 by pcuser to add syslinux/usb boot menu support
; Modified 11/26/10 by cdob to add grub4dos boot menu support

[Version]
Signature= "$Windows NT$"

[PEBuilder]
Name="!Multiboot: Offline NT Password & Registry Editor"
Enable=1
help=Offline.mht

[WinntDirectories]
a="isolinux",2
b="images",2

[SourceDisksFiles]
files\INITRD.CGZ=a,pnordahl.cgz,1
files\SCSI.CGZ=a,,1
files\VMLINUZ=a,pnordahl,1
files\isolinux.bin=a,,4
files\cd100627.iso=b,,1

[Append]
BCDW\BCDW.INI,offline_bcdw.ini
syslinux\syslinux.cfg,offline_syslinux.ini
menu.lst,offline_grub4dos.ini

While loading the iso from a plugin works great, I suppose it could also be loaded directly from the root of the USB by adding it as a menu option using WinSetupFromUSB_1-0-beta6. Having tried a few different USB drive building utilities, that one is my favorite.