CD app to USB thumbdrive

My subject says it all, and I need your help.

First, I'll be honest and say I know nothing about Linux, and since it is not required of me in my job to support Linux, my desire to learn all the ins and outs of it is really non-existent. I only want to find out how to make the subject line work, and be able to save the steps in case of program updates in the future. I also know the previous statement may not help in obtaining assistance here, but I did want to be upfront with everyone, so please at least review my scenario:

My job is to build and test PCs, running vendor-specific diagnostics on each. The diagnostics are on a CD, and I currently have table space to build and test 24 PCs at one time. However, more and more of our PCs are being built without CDROM or DVDROM drives. This requires me to attach an IDE CDROM drive to each of the 24 PCs to test. After testing, the CDROM drives must be disconnected and returned to the shelf. As you can imagine, this can become quite tedious when you are doing a run of 24 each day.

I've approached our software support group with the idea of placing these diags, which are linux-based, on a USB thumb drive, but they said they didn't have time for a project such as that, nor did they want to have to support such a venture in the future, in case the vendor releases a newer version of diagnostics.

I've been in contact with our PC vendor, and even though he knows our setup, what we do, and how we do it, all he says is "The diagnostics are only supported when run from a CD". So he is no help, either.

I'm not all that smart, but logically it seems to me that this is not an impossible task. If it is, please tell me so.

I've been searching the web for weeks, trying to find something that wouldn't be 57 miles over my head - like a "here's how it's done" for dummies, but can't seem to find such a thing.

So, I approached a friend of mine that has some knowledge of these things, and he has the thumb drive booting fine to a certain point, but then it goes out and looks for the diags on the CD. Of course, with no CD, it hangs. He has tested this approach by copying one of the files/folders from the original diagnostic CD over to a non-bootable CD, and then booting from the thumb. The thumb boots to a certain point, then apparently it is "told" to look for a CD. With the non-bootable CD, containing just that one folder, in the drive, apparently it then finds the file/folder it's looking for, and the program runs.

My question is, how do we go about finding out where this "mapping script" (I really don't know the correct term) is and changing it? In short, how do we tell the program "Don't look for the CD, look HERE on the thumb?" I want the program to run exactly like it does on the CD, except run it from the thumb. I know it's going to be slower, but it would be so much easier to insert 24 thumbs into 24 PCs, instead of hooking up 24 CDROM drives.

I've posted this same question on a couple of other forums, received some responses, but so far, it's a no go. In fact, someone on one of the other forums told me about this site, and said, if there is an answer, it will be here.

You guys are my last hope before I tell my boss to go ahead and order 24 USB CDROM drives, which is what our software support dept. advised. In my opinion, that solution isn't any better than what I'm already doing. The only difference is, I would leave the USB CDROM drives on the table and not have to return them to the shelf each time.

Thanks in advance for your patience, and any assistance.

"He has tested this approach by copying one of the files/folders from the original diagnostic CD over to a non-bootable CD, and then booting from the thumb."

It seems to me all the files/folders have to be copied to a bootable thumb. Then it should all work as long as the BIOS accepts thumb drives in the boot sequence.

Hey Don,

All the files are on the thumb drive, but it still looks to the CD. I think it needs to be pointed to the thumb, but don't know how.

Thanks!

Ok, then look for an .ini file on the thumb drive.

Don,

I really appreciate your time in addressing this.

The only ini file on the entire CD is a php.ini.

All the PCs I work with do have the option of selecting USB device as bootable, and also have the option of selecting the boot order.

Thanks again.
Craig

Have you opened that .ini file? It's usually a .ini file that determines things like that but .sys or .bat can do the same. There can also be a jump in an .exe file, which is what I'm starting to think.

Have you tried to grep it? Let's say we think it's in that php.ini file so we run:
grep -e "Please insert the CD" php.ini
If it's found, then we know that's where it is.

Something similar can be done with .exe files using the strings command in Unix or Linux.

Is there a way that I can download what's on that CD? Most diagnostic programs are on the manufacturer's web site.

Grep? Didn't know there was such a thing, but I can try.

Here's a link to the diag download...

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te ... ir-45591-1

Thanks again for your help.

I need to know the exact message in the dialog box when it asks for the cd.

For example:
Please insert the CD called ___________
or whatever it is.

I did d/l grep for Windows, and searched a couple times for this string, but never could find it.

Here's exactly how far the thumbdrive goes:


Loading HP Insight Diagnostics Offline CD. Please wait.
Boot:
Loading vmlinuz........
Loading initrd.img.................ready
Loading drivers...........
HP Insight Diagnostics has encountered a problem loading the CD.
It may be scratched or in a configuration that is unsupported.
Please reboot.


If there is anything that I have enough sense to do on this end, let me know.

Thanks again.

Let me try to grep that error message. It may take some time due to the fact that there are so many files to scan. The usr.iso file has to be copied into text first. which is no problem on my unix box.

I'll post back either way, success or not.

I grepped as much as I could and I found 5 or 10 other possible error messages except the one you posted. It seems to be coming from one of the 2 files mentioned just before you get the error, vmlinuz and initrd.img

You have one last hope. Somewhere in one of those files is the name of the guy who wrote the boot image. His name is H. Peter Anvin. I found an email address for him if you want to try it.

hpa@zytor.com

I think this error is being caused by the menu path being hard coded into the boot files, or the files not being in the right place related to the boot image.

I'm no expert by any means on boot systems, or the methods for starting from usb (don't have anything modern enough) so I hit google and came up with the syslinux and isolinux wiki.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYSLINUX

This slax page seems to hold a lot of hope.. the method to boot the thing looks very relevant. http://www.linux.com/articles/46267

The diagnostics program is most likely hardcoded to the cd drive. It expects but can't find the cd drive so it fails.

There may be ways around it. Without some serious experimentation I couldn't be sure.

One way is to create a virtual cd drive which contains the contents of the cd but is stored on the thumb drive. It is a concept I have toyed with lately for another project. You are looking at some serious time involved in creating such a tool.

Chris

Well guys, I sincerely appreciate all your hard work/suggestions/responses. What looked like, logically, to be a simple and easy task, has turned out to be not quite so easy, if not next to impossible.

I learned yesterday that the company I work for has an entire dept of linux people, dedicated to keeping the linux servers running. I'm going to email one of the guys over there as a last shot.

I'll also check into the virtual CD. I will also get with my director, and see if he can twist HP's arm and persuade them to put their diags into this new format I'm wanting.

I haven't given up yet, but, thanks to your knowledge and experience, I believe the light is fading.

Oh well, there are always USB CDROM drives I can use.

Many thanks again....this site is great!
Craig

I may have been a bit presumptuous in my answer

on the thumbdrive or cd print out the file /etc/fstab
eg : cat /etc/fstab

that contains your mount points

It may be as simple as mounting the thumbdrive to the mount expected for the cd rom

of course it may not as well. We must remember this is a diagnostic tool and may well contain many non standard programs

this is what my fstab looks like


Notice the cd mounting instructions
You may be able to mount the USB device there instead. After all its just another storage device

I am not sure exactly how one would do it, sorry but my knowledge in this area is about an hours googling behind