Extract zbeos boot loader from image

Be, Inc.
1

(x86)

Am finally tuning up my multi-boot laptop.

I would like to copy out a patched ram limiter boot loader from a image. I don’t have access to a working floppy drive ATM. No issues creating a bootable CD image, just don’t know how to read out that boot file.

Any tips how to do this?

2

zbeos was the dos .exe that would start the BeOS bootloader on the BeOS5-PersonalEdition.exe used for bootinmg BeOS from inside Windows 95/98. one can find BeOS5-PersonalEdition.exe on BeShare and run it in Windows to extract the file.

1 Like
3

Far as I know, zbeos is the beos bootloader and kernel loader. On a beos instance it’s typically under /beos/system, and not a dos executable.

http://my-beos.narod.ru/BootScreen.htm
http://haiku.mlotz.ch/
http://www.osnews.com/comments/6347

I’m trying to pull it from one of the patched ram limiting bootable floppy images to install permanently on my HDD without having to boot through CD everytime.

4

Yu’re right, I was thinking of the dos file that needed zbeos available in the same directoty to start BeOS. zbeos is located in /boot/beos/system on a BeOS install. It is not poart of the floppy image, The floppy is used to boot if one does not install a boot manager. Use bootman from a Terminal to install it from BeOS or chain-load from any other boot manager.

5

Bootman only installs the boot manager for partitions.

I ended up running the following command from against a ram limiter floppy image.

head -c 78900 some.floppy.image.name.img > /boot/home/temp/zbeos

I used 78900 because that’s the byte size of the original /boot/beos/zbeos file. I then swapped the original file with my extracted file and now have my system booting perfect with a “1gb” ram limit

6

For what it’s worth the last post was very helpful. The Beos_V5_512MB_Bootloader.zip file has a working floppy image that successfully boots but the zbeos file didn’t boot for me. Running head and saving a new one is the trick that made it work. Thanks @buddhaiku.