Bootable Floppy/CD to Support SATA CDROM Drive

One of the clients that I support recently bought a large number of these Optiplex 745's and I had to go back and rework the boot floppies that I use for Ghost deployment of the standard workstation image. I had to hunt up a few drivers but at least I didn't have to reinvent the wheel so to speak. The boot CD and floppies generated by Ghost's Boot floppy/CD tools don't result in what I need so I thought it might be worthwhile to post this for whoever needs the ability to Ghost to various hardware platforms. Feel free to replicate and tweak as needed. Also keep in mind I actually built this a few years ago so if my memory doesn't quite line up with something here adjust as necessary.

What you need:
1. Windows 95 boot floppy
2. Windows 98 boot floppy
3. Boot floppy generated by Ghost for ghostcasting
4. FINDCD.EXE from the Windows 98 boot CD
5. Gigabyte DOS SATA CDROM driver (gcdrom.sys)
6. Most recent packet driver from Broadcom for the NIC
7. CuteMouse (ctmouse.exe) open source mouse driver if you want mouse support

The best OSes that I've found for ghost boot diskettes are DR-DOS 7.x and Windows 95. The Windows 95 boot menu is more efficient however so that's what my boot floppy uses. You will need some of the tools from the Windows 98 boot disk as well so build one of each. Leave the Windows 95 diskette a bare OS and copy the Windows 98 tools and stuff from the the Windows 98 boot floppy and also copy FINDCD.EXE to the root of the diskette. Next you'll need to open FINDCD.EXE with a hex editor and do a search for SETUP.EXE. You may have to change the path as well; use common sense. The same NIC driver for the 745 works on the 280 so I just had to pick up the newer driver from Broadcom. Finally, copy protman.dos, dis_pkt.dos, and netbind.com from the Ghost boot floppy to the root of your boot floppy.

You should be able to figure out the directory structure and file locations from the following config.sys and autoexec.bat files. Now that ghost.exe is too big to fit on the same bootable diskette, you should be able to extend support for just about as many nic drivers that you could perceivably want.

CONFIG.SYS:
[menu]
menuitem=GX280, Dell Optiplex GX280 and Lattitude X300 Laptops (Broadcom *DEFAULT*)
menuitem=GX260, Dell Optiplex GX260 and GX270 (Intel E1000)
menuitem=GX240, Dell Optiplex GX1 - GX240 and Cx, LSx and X200 Laptops (3Com 3c90x)
menuitem=LAPTOP1, Laptops without nic (Xircom PCMCIA)
menuitem=LAPTOP2, Toshiba Laptops and PowerEdge 1650 servers (Intel E100b)
menuitem=LAPTOP3, Fujitsu Laptops (Realtek)
menudefault=GX280, 30
menucolor=15,6

[GX280]
DEVICE=\protman.dos /I:\net280
DEVICE=\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net280\B57.dos

[GX260]
DEVICE=\protman.dos /I:\net260
DEVICE=\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net260\E1000.dos

[GX240]
DEVICE=\protman.dos /I:\net240
DEVICE=\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net240\EL90x.dos

[LAPTOP1]
DEVICE=\protman.dos /I:\netxirc
DEVICE=\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\netxirc\cbendis.exe

[LAPTOP2]
DEVICE=\protman.dos /I:\nettosh
DEVICE=\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\NETTOSH\E100b.dos

[LAPTOP3]
DEVICE=\protman.dos /I:\netfuji
DEVICE=\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\NETFUJI\rtsnd.dos

[COMMON]
device=himem.sys /testmem:off
device=gcdrom.sys /D:oemcd001
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:oemcd001
device=aspi2dos.sys
device=aspi8dos.sys
device=aspi4dos.sys
device=aspi8u2.sys
device=aspicd.sys /D:oemcd001

rem *Only load these on USB CDROM machines that do not have USB keyboards/mice!
rem device=usbaspi.sys
rem device=usbcd.sys /D:oemcd001

files=60
buffers=20
stacks=9,256
lastdrive=z


AUTOEXEC.BAT:
@ECHO OFF
set EXPAND=YES
SET DIRCMD=/O:N
cls
path=a:\

LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:oemcd001
netbind.com
ctmouse.exe
findcd.exe

%CDROM%
cd \
cls
@echo Loading Ghost...
GHOST.EXE -fni -split=680 -auto -fx
cd \
cls

:veryend
@echo Ghosting is complete.

Obviously, you'll build a bootable CD using the boot floppy and copy GHOST.EXE to the root of the cdrom. This is probably a licensing nightmare now that I look at it... But most of us have old copies of Windows 95 and 98 laying around in storage someplace that haven't been thrown away yet. Hope this helps!