Grub4dos Menu Lst Manuals

admin 24.12.2020 24.12.20

PBR-booting to grub4dos from a disk 2. MBR-booting to grub4dos from a disk Stage 1.5 boot code grldr menu.lst Save menu.lst as UTF-8 Details about grub4dos boot Stage 1.5 Chapter 5 - Installing grub4dos Bootlace Grubinst and GrubinstGUI (Windows) grubmenu.exe BootIce RMPrepUSB Exercise 1: Make a bootable grub4dos USB drive (Windows) Exercise 2.
C: grldr='Start GRUB4DOS' Then copy grldr to C:, and create the GRUB4DOS configuration file at C: menu.lst. Next time you start windows, there is a new option 'Start GRUB4DOS' which can be used to start GRUB for DOS.

Menu.lst Grub2
Grub Menu.lst
Grub Menu.lst Example
Grub4dos Menu Lst Manuals Download
Grub4dos Menu Lst Manuals Downloads

Grub2 and Grub4Dos of AIO Boot can be booted from Windows Boot Manager without having to install them to your hard drive.

Note: This method only applies to Legacy BIOS mode. UEFI mode is not supported.

Linux users with (Legacy) GRUB already installed can use it to boot Grub4dos. Identify the partition containing the GRUB boot files/folder (e.g. Copy grub.exe to the GRUB boot folder. Now add the following entry to your /boot/grub/menu.lst file. /boot/grub/grub.cfg - This is the main configuration file that replaces menu.lst. Unlike menu.lst, this file cannot be edited by hand! I strongly advise against trying to tamper with this file, using chattr command or anything of the sort. /etc/grub.d/ - This new directory contains GRUB scripts. These scripts are building blocks from. Is only installed the Grub4DOS MBR and booting code to your disk, so you still need to manually copy grldr and menu.lst from GRUB4DOS package to your flash disk or hard disk and configure to the menu.lst. Grub4Dos GUI Installer is a small program to help you install GRUB to the master boot record of your Flash Disk or any Hard Disk drive. 4 GNU GRUB Manual 2.04 Have a flexible command-line interface A fairly flexible command-line interface, accessible from the menu, is available to edit any preset commands, or write a new boot command set from scratch. If no configuration file is present, GRUB drops to the command-line.

Windows Boot Manager

Introduce

When you boot into Windows, there is always a menu to select the Windows operating system that you have installed on your hard drive. If you have only one Windows operating system, the menu will not display and will automatically boot into that operating system.

By editing the Windows Boot Manager menu, we can add or remove any menu if desired. The great thing is that both Grub2 and Grub4Dos from AIO Boot support booting from Windows Boot Manager. This makes it possible to add a menu to Windows Boot Manager without having to install Grub2 or Grub4Dos.

Installing AIO Boot on your hard drive will give you more free space to integrate your packages, as well as faster speeds than a regular USB drive.

Install AIO Boot

First, you need to download and install AIO Boot to any drive you want.

Note:

Uncheck Auto install Bootloader to skip installation of Grub2. After extracting, you can install Clover and Syslinux from AIOCreator.exe -> Bootloaders.
Select Use Hard Disk Drive to list all drives in the drop down list.
Select the drive on which you want to extract the files and install AIO Boot.
- You should create a new partition to install AIO Boot. This makes it easier to manage.
- Use FAT32 format for best support.
- New partitions can be created easily by using the Shrink feature of Disk Management.
Click OK to proceed with the extraction.

We will now proceed with adding Grub2 nor Grub4Dos menus to Windows Boot Manager.

Windows Boot Manager

We will now use BootICE to add Grub2 and Grub4Dos to Windows Boot Manager. For Windows XP, we just need to add the menu to boot.ini.

Windows 7/8.1/10

The steps below help you add a Grub2 and Grub4Dos menu to BCD of Windows 7/8.1/10.

Running BootICE, this tool can be found in /AIO/Tools folder or from AIOCreator.exe -> Tools.
Switch to BCD, select BCD of current system by default and click Easy mode.
Select Add and then select New RealMode entry (Grub/Linux).
In the next option, you need to select the following:
- Type: Partition.
- Boot disk: select the disk containing the partition where you extracted AIO Boot.
- Partition: select the partition where you extracted AIO Boot. Here, I extracted to C: drive.
- OS title: enter the name you want the menu to display.
  - For Grub2, it could be Grub2.
  - For Grub4Dos, it could be Grub4Dos.
- Boot file:
  - Grub2: AIOgrubgrub2win
  - Grub4Dos: AIOToolsgrub4dosgrldr
You can adjust the number of seconds in the Timeout (s). The system will automatically boot into the selected menu if it is not selected within the time specified above.
Click Save current system to save the menu.
Restart your computer for testing. You will see the menu as shown below:

Windows XP

Unlike Windows 7/ 8.1/10, Windows XP uses the menu in the boot.ini file. Grub2 does not support booting from XP, here I will boot to Grub4Dos and then boot to Grub2.

The boot.ini file is located on the drive where you installed Windows XP. This file is hidden so we need to show it first.
1. Open My Computer, select Tools from the menu, then select Folder Options.
2. Switch to View and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended).
3. Click OK to save the options.
Open boot.ini in the drive where you installed Windows XP. My drive is C:.
Add the following lines:
- For Grub2:
- For Grub4Dos:
Copy the following files to the root of the C: drive.
- For Grub2: AIOgrubgrub2xp
- For Grub4Dos: AIOToolsgrub4dosgrldr.
Save boot.ini file.
Restart your computer for testing. You will see the menu as shown below:

Good luck!

It is worth noting that some of the Grub4dos commands (e.g. password, fallback, etc) are only used in configuration files – they are not relevant when using the command line. The configuration file is used to script boot options – the default menu is text based, alternatively a splash image can be used.

All commands in the configuration file must be in lower case. All boot options must begin with the command title, which should be followed with the text to be displayed in the boot menu (e.g. title Boot Windows XP will display the text “Boot Windows XP”.

Once the boot menu is displayed the selected menu option can be edited before booting (by pressing the [e] key), however the edits take place in memory and are not written to the configuration file.

Sample menu.lst file (included with Grub4dos download) -

Menu.lst Grub2

</div><p> NOTE - all lines starting with # are comments - they are not processed. </p><h2>Display Options</h2><p> Menu colours can be set using the following command syntax (See also <b>APPENDIX - Commands</b> section here). Default is white text on a black background, with current option being black text within a white highlight - </p><p> It is also possible to use a background image with a menu, using either the <font>splashimage</font> command or the <b>gfxmenu</b> package. Both of these options must be used in a configuration file and cannot be used from a command line. <b>gfxmenu</b> requires external files/packages and is much more complex than using the <font>splashimage</font> command, however it does support .jpg images. For gfxmenu usage, see here. </p><p> If using the <font>splashimage</font> command, the image will need to be in the .xpm format (which can be compressed with gzip) and must be 640x480 pixels with a maximum of 14 colours. For instructions on creating a splash image see next section (here). To display splash image splash.xpm.gz (in current root directory) the following entry should be used in menu.lst - </p><p> To display splash image splash.xpm.gz (saved in 1st partition on 1st hard disk drive) the following entry should be used - </p><div> splashimage=(hd0,0)/splash.xpm.gz </div><p> By default the <font>foreground</font> colour (all of the menu text and the highlight for the currently selected option) will be white and the <font>background</font> colour (the highlighted text within the currently selected option) will be black. To change these colours use the following menu.lst entry - </p><div> splashimage=(hd0,0)/splash.xpm.gz <br /> foreground=RRGGBB <br /> background=RRGGBB <br /></div><p> Where RR is red, GG is green, and BB blue. Numbers must be in hexadecimal. In the following example the menu text and highlight for the selected option will be displayed in Blue (hex decimal value 0033FF) and the selected option will have Red (hex decimal value FF3300) text – refer to figure 2. below. </p><div> splashimage=(hd0,0)/splash.xpm.gz <br /> foreground=0033FF <br /> background=FF3300 <br /></div><br><h2>Adding (Help) Messages to Menu Entries</h2><img src='https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1onXGbReBns/Ul0FLtnEXeI/AAAAAAAAA1Q/reJtkfPJaZs/s1600/zoo1--editing-grub4dos-menu-entry-using-bootice.png' alt='Menu.lst' title='Menu.lst' /><p> Grub4dos will display the following message beneath any available menu options - </p><div> Use the ↑ and ↓ keys to highlight an entry. Press ENTER or 'b' to boot. <br /> Press 'e' to edit the commands before booting, or 'c' for a command line. </div><p> It is possible to replace the above text with a user defined entry specific to individual menu items. Any message must be appended to the title line of the menu entry. Text to add should be preceeded by <font>n</font>. As an example, the following <font>menu.lst</font> entry - </p><div> title MS DOS <br /> find --set-root /dos.img <br /> map --mem /dos.img (fd0) <br /> root (fd0) <br /> chainloader +1 <br /></div><br><p> Will display the menu in figure 3. - </p><p> To add the message 'Load DOS.img floppy disk image into RAM' to the <font>menu.lst</font> entry for <font>title MS DOS</font> - edit the entry, changing <font>title MS DOS</font> to <font>title MS DOS<b>n</b>Load DOS.img floppy disk image into RAM</font>. The new <font>menu.lst</font> entry - </p><div class='DYxXM'><iframe width='auto' height='auto' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ijPb8f7oVXU' frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div> title MS DOSnLoad DOS.img floppy disk image into RAM <br /> find --set-root /dos.img <br /> map --mem /dos.img (fd0) <br /> root (fd0) <br /> chainloader +1 <br /></div><br><p> Will display the menu in figure 4. - </p><p> Multiple lines can be added to the message by adding additional <font>n</font> (new line) entries/commands. E.g. <font>title MS DOS<b>n</b>Load DOS.img floppy disk image into RAM<b>n</b>Mount as (fd0) and boot from the image</font> Will display the following text/message at the bottom of the menu screen - </p><div> Load DOS.img floppy disk image into RAM <br /> Mount as (fd0) and boot from the image </div><p> Other commands can be used for the displayed message/text. The following is from <font>README_GRUB4DOS.txt</font> - </p><textarea cols='80' rows='10' align='left' readonly='> Some C-style quote sequences are interpreted as follows: NNN character with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)  backslash a alert (BEL) b backspace f form feed n new line r carriage return t horizontal tab v vertical tab xHH byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)

Set Default Boot Option

It is possible to specify a default boot option by using the default command. If the timeout command is also specified, the system will wait for the set timeout period before booting the default entry.

To set a 10 second timeout use following entry -

To set a default entry (to be booted after timeout period has completed) use following entry (default 0=first menu item, default 1=second menu item, etc.) -

default 0

It is possible to change the default entry to the last option selected when Grub4dos was previously booted by using the default command followed by a file. E.g. -

The command default (hd0,0)/default specifies that an entry be written to the file default, on the first partition of the first hard disk (this file must be copied from the Grub4dos download – do not edit the file as it must remain 2048 bytes in size). If using this option, the drive containing the default file must be writable. The menu entry must also include the command savedefault – e.g.

timeout 10
default /default
title Boot Windows XP
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
savedefault

Password Protecting Boot Options

To restrict access to the command line interface use the command password prior to any menu entries – e.g.

color light-blue/blue light-red/red
timeout 10
default /default
password administrator
title........

When booting Grub4dos with a password protected configuration file the default instructions will change from -

Use the ↑ and ↓ keys to highlight an entry. Press ENTER or 'b' to boot.
Press 'e' to edit the commands before booting, or 'c' for a command line.

to -

Use the ↑ and ↓ keys to highlight an entry. Press ENTER or 'b' to boot.
Press 'p' to gain privileged control.

The user enters the [p] key to gain privileged control, followed by the specified password – which in the preceding example is administrator.

It is possible to use an encrypted password by using the command password --md5 followed by the encrypted password – in the following case “$1$ZjU0$k107noL9DOaClJEu6n6f91” is an encryption of administrator.

color light-blue/blue light-red/red
timeout 10
default /default
password --md5 $1$ZjU0$k107noL9DOaClJEu6n6f91
title........

WARNING - do not generate your 'md5 hash” password using another program as it is unlikely to be compatible with Grub4dos (see here). To ensure compatibility use the md5crypt command from within Grub4dos - see below.

To create an encrypted password, boot Grub4dos and press [c] to access a command line interface, then type the command md5crypt - this will prompt you to enter a password and will output the chosen password as an md5 hash (see figure 5. below).

It is also possible to restrict access to individual menu items when a password has been set by using the lock command, until the user enters the correct password (using [p] key to gain privileged control, followed by the password) any menu items designated with 'lock' will not be accessible -

color light-blue/blue light-red/red
timeout 10
default /default
title........
lock

Alternatively the password command can be used to protect individual menu entries by specifying the password command within the entry – e.g.

color light-blue/blue light-red/red
timeout 10
default /default
title........
password password2

md5 hash’s can also be used within menu entries. Different menu entries within the same configuration file can be protected with different passwords - whilst still using a password entry at the start of the configuration file forcing the user to enter a password to Press 'p' to gain privileged control - e.g.

color light-blue/blue light-red/red
timeout 10
default /default
password --md5 $1$ZjU0$k107noL9DOaClJEu6n6f91
title........
password mypassword

Using Submenus

It is possible to create sub menus by using the configfile command, followed by the filename of the configuration file you want to load. E.g. menu.lst contents –

color light-blue/blue light-red/red
timeout 10
password --md5 $1$ZjU0$k107noL9DOaClJEu6n6f91
title Boot Options
lock
find --set-root /submenu.lst
configfile /submenu.lst

Will load submenu.lst. The submenu.lst configuration file follows the same format as menu.lst – a new menu colour scheme can be specified, default boot entry can be set, etc. Adding an option to return to the previous menu is recommended, to avoid being 'stuck' in the submenu.

<p> The command <font>find --set-root</font> combined with a filename can be used to locate a marker file on a device and set that device as the root for all further commands within the menu entry (or all further commands executed from the command line). E.g. – </p><div> title Find “hdd.tag” and chainload partition <br /> find --set-root /hdd.tag <br /> chainloader +1 <br /></div><p> The example above will search all supported partitions/devices for the file <font>hdd.tag</font> and will set the <u>first device</u> it finds, containing <font>hdd.tag</font>, as the root device. The partition boot sector of the device (<font>chainloader +1</font> = first sector of current root device) will then be chainloaded. </p><p> It is possible to locate and load operating systems in this way. If for example Windows XP is installed, the following entry could be used - </p><div> title Find and load “ntldr”<br /> find --set-root /ntldr <br /> chainloader /ntldr <br /></div><p> If using the above example it is assumed that the NT loader <font>ntldr</font> is only present on one device. If multiple devices contain <font>ntldr</font>, the first one found will be set as the root device. As this could lead to the wrong installation booting, searching for unique tag/marker files are preferred. Devices are searched in the order – </p><ul><li>(hd#)</li><li>(cd#)</li><li>(fd#)</li></ul><p> Please note that <font>ntldr</font> (and other Windows loader/system files <font>bootmgr</font> and <font>io.sys</font>) must be on a partition on device (hd0), or Windows will not boot - see here for a full explanation and workaround. </p><p> It is possible to exclude floppy devices (or cd devices) from the search by using the command <font>--ignore-floppies</font> (or <font>--ignore-cd</font>) - e.g. <font>find --set-root --ignore-floppies /ntldr</font>. </p><p><b>REMEMBER</b> - <font>find --set-root</font> sometimes leads to unexpected behavior - e.g. if you have used the map command and the drive you are expecting to find the file on is no longer visible in Grub4dos. Always remember that the search stops with the first instance of the file you are scanning for. Even using marker files can result in unwanted behaviour if you had forgotten (or didn't know) that the file was on more than one device. </p><h3 id='grub-menulst'>Grub Menu.lst</h3><h2>Using '<font>&&</font>' and '<font></font>' Commands</h2><h3 id='grub-menulst-example'>Grub Menu.lst Example</h3><p> The operator <font>&&</font> can be used to execute a second command if the first command is executed without error. The operator <font></font> can be used to execute a second command if executing the first command results in an error. From <font>README_GRUB4DOS.txt</font> - </p><div><textarea cols='80' rows='10' align='left' readonly='> ****************************************************************************** *** Newly implemented operators `&&' and `  ' *** ****************************************************************************** This implementation is very simple. It does not handle operator nesting. Usage of `&&': command1 && command2 Description: If command1 returns true, then command2 will be executed. Usage of `  ': command1    command2 Description: If command1 returns false, then command2 will be executed. Examples: is64bit && default 0 is64bit    default 1

Some pratical examples are included in grldr's embedded menu and in the sample menu.lst file included in the Grub4dos download.

The entry find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /menu.lst && configfile /menu.lst (from the embedded menu) will execute find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /menu.lst (the root of all (hd) type devices will be searched for menu.lst and the first device found containing menu.lst will be set as the root device). If this part of the command completes successfully then the command configfile /menu.lst will be executed.

The entry map /pmagic.iso (0xff) map --mem /pmagic.iso (0xff) (from the sample menu.lst) will execute map /pmagic.iso (0xff) (mapping the cd image file pmagic.iso as the virtual device (0xff)). If this command fails (if for example the image is non-contiguous) then the second part of the command map --mem /pmagic.iso (0xff) will be executed.