Boot in ZfD7-Maintenance Mode to a working Machine

Novell Cool Solutions: Tip
By Thorsten Mick

Digg This - Slashdot This Posted: 8 Mar 2006

"This is a very neat way to store and deploy the MBR, but bear in mind two things:
1) this is only necessary if you are using the a1:p1 form of the imaging command, since the MBR is backed up for the active partition, and will be put back if you're restoring that partition without using the a1:p1 form of the command, and
2) be very careful in using the dd command, since you're accessing the disk at a low-level, and a small mistake could make your machine unbootable."

Shaun Pond–
ZENworks Product Specialist
Novell, Inc.

PROBLEM: ZfD7 does not save the bootsector in the Imagefile. So, when you change the OS for example from Linux to Windows, you must write a valid bootsector for yourself.

Save the bootsector to a file:

IDE Harddisk: dd if=/dev/hda of=/bootsec.win bs=446 count=1
S-ATA Harddisk: dd if=/dev/sda of=/bootsec.win bs=446 count=1

Copy the file to the Server (Example with floppy-disk):

mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
cp /bootsec.win /mnt/floppy
umount /mnt/floopy

Create a folder on your PXE-Server:
tftp\boots\
Copy the bootsec.win from the floopy to this location.

Now you can use the file in a scripted Image Object as below:

EXAMPLE:

# Write new Bootsector
tftp $PROXYADDR -c get boots/bootsec.win
dd if=/bootsec.win of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1

img pd1
img pd2
img pd3
img pd4
img pc1 ntfs 10000
img pc2 ntfs
img pa1
img rp $PROXYADDR //$PROXYADDR/zen/images/0-mobil/image-set_5.zmg a1:p1
img rp $PROXYADDR //$PROXYADDR/zen/images/addon/format_ntfs_fr.zmg a2:p2

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