This will do you no good but here it is.
It makes a drive look to the bios like a zip drive. The thinking is that a zip drive may be more bootable than a usb-hd.
The problem is if you changed the geometry and wrote to the areas as part of the format.You can always load it as a raw device and poke around sector by sector. The issue is still what is a good sector?
"#!/usr/bin/perl
----------------
## $Id: syslinux-mkdiskimage,v 1.1 2006/03/09 06:36:48 yama Exp $
##
## Copyright 2002-2004 H. Peter Anvin - All Rights Reserved
##
## This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
## it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
## the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 53 Temple Place Ste 330,
## Boston MA 02111-1307, USA; either version 2 of the License, or
## (at your option) any later version; incorporated herein by reference.
##
----------------
#
# Creates a blank MS-DOS formatted hard disk image
#
use bytes;
use integer;
use Fcntl;
use Errno;
use Cwd;
use IO::Handle; # For flush()
sub absolute_path($) {
my($f) = @_;
my($c);
return $f if ( $f =~ /^\// );
$c = cwd();
$c = '' if ( $c eq '/' );
return $c.'/'.$f;
}
sub is_linux() {
return !!eval '{ '.
'use POSIX; '.
'($sysname, $nodename, $release, $version, $machine) = POSIX::uname(); '.
"return \$sysname eq \'Linux\'; }";
}
$is_linux = is_linux();
if ( $is_linux ) {
# IOCTL numbers
$BLKRRPART = 0x125f;
$BLKGETSIZE = 0x1260;
}
%opt = ();
@args = ();
for $a ( @ARGV ) {
if ( $a =~ /^\-/ ) {
foreach $o ( split(//, substr($a,1)) ) {
$opt{$o} = 1;
}
} else {
push(@args, $a);
}
}
($file,$c,$h,$s) = @args;
$c += 0; $h += 0; $s += 0;
$pentry = 1;
$pentry = 2 if ( $opt{'2'} );
$pentry = 3 if ( $opt{'3'} );
$pentry = 4 if ( $opt{'4'} );
if ( $opt{'M'} ) {
# Specify size in megabytes, not in cylinders
$c = ($c*1024*2)/($h*$s);
}
$is_open = 0;
if ( $c == 0 && $file ne '' ) {
$len = 0;
if ( sysopen(OUTPUT, $file, O_RDWR, 0666) ) {
$is_open = 1;
if ( (@filestat = stat(OUTPUT)) && S_ISREG($filestat[2]) ) {
$len = $filestat[7] >> 9;
} elsif ( $is_linux && S_ISBLK($filestat[2]) ) {
$blksize = pack("L!", 0);
if ( ioctl(OUTPUT, $BLKGETSIZE, $blksize) == 0 ) {
$len = unpack("L!", $blksize); # In 512-byte sectors!
}
}
}
if ( !$len ) {
print STDERR "$0: $file: don't know how to determine the size of this device\n";
exit 1;
}
$c = $len/($h*$s);
}
if ( $file eq '' || $c < 1 || $c > 1024 ||
$h < 1 || $h > 256 || $s < 1 || $s > 63 ) {
print STDERR "Usage: $0 [-doF4] file [c h s] (max: 1024 256 63)\n";
print STDERR " -d add DOSEMU header\n";
print STDERR " -o print filesystem offset to stdout\n";
print STDERR " -F format partition as FAT32\n";
print STDERR " -M \"c\" argument is megabytes, calculate cylinders\n";
print STDERR " -4 use partition entry 4 (standard for zipdisks)\n";
exit 1;
}
$cylsize = $h*$s*512;
if ( !$is_open ) {
sysopen(OUTPUT, $file, O_CREAT|O_RDWR|O_TRUNC, 0666)
or die "$0: Cannot open: $file\n";
}
binmode OUTPUT;
# Print out DOSEMU header, if requested
if ( $opt{'d'} ) {
$emuhdr = "DOSEMU\0" . pack("VVVV", $h, $s, $c, 128);
$emuhdr .= "\0" x (128 - length($emuhdr));
print OUTPUT $emuhdr;
}
# Print the MBR and partition table
$mbr = '';
while ( $line = <DATA> ) {
chomp $line;
foreach $byte ( split(/\s+/, $line) ) {
$mbr .= chr(hex($byte));
}
}
if ( length($mbr) > 446 ) {
die "$0: Bad MBR code\n";
}
$mbr .= "\0" x (446 - length($mbr));
print OUTPUT $mbr;
# Print partition table
$psize = $c*$h*$s-$s;
$bhead = ($h > 1) ? 1 : 0;
$bsect = 1;
$bcyl = ($h > 1) ? 0 : 1;
$ehead = $h-1;
$esect = $s + ((($c-1) & 0x300) >> 2);
$ecyl = ($c-1) & 0xff;
if ( $psize > 65536 ) {
$fstype = 0x06;
} else {
$fstype = 0x04;
}
for ( $i = 1 ; $i <= 4 ; $i++ ) {
if ( $i == $pentry ) {
print OUTPUT pack("CCCCCCCCVV", 0x80, $bhead, $bsect, $bcyl, $fstype,
$ehead, $esect, $ecyl, $s, $psize);
} else {
print OUTPUT "\0" x 16;
}
}
print OUTPUT "\x55\xaa";
# Output blank file
$totalsize = $c*$h*$s;
$tracks = $c*$h;
$track = "\0" x (512*$s);
# Print fractional track
print OUTPUT "\0" x (512 * ($s-1));
for ( $i = 1 ; $i < $tracks ; $i++ ) {
print OUTPUT $track;
}
# Print mtools temp file
$n = 0;
while ( !defined($tmpdir) ) {
$tmpdir = "/tmp/mkdiskimage.$$.".($n++);
if ( !mkdir($tmpdir, 0700) ) {
die "$0: Failed to make temp directory: $tmpdir\n"
if ( $! != EEXIST );
undef $tmpdir;
}
}
$cfgfile = $tmpdir.'/mtools.conf';
$imglink = $tmpdir.'/disk.img';
die "$0: Failed to create symlink $imglink\n"
if ( !symlink(absolute_path($file), $imglink) );
$header_size = ($opt{'d'} ? 128 : 0);
# Start of filesystem
$offset = $s*512 + $header_size;
# Start of partition table entry
$pstart = $header_size + 446 + 16*($pentry-1);
open(MCONFIG, "> ${cfgfile}") or die "$0: Cannot make mtools config\n";
print MCONFIG "drive z:\n";
print MCONFIG "file=\"${imglink}\"\n";
print MCONFIG "cylinders=${c}\n";
print MCONFIG "heads=${h}\n";
print MCONFIG "sectors=${s}\n";
print MCONFIG "offset=${offset}\n";
print MCONFIG "mformat_only\n";
close(MCONFIG);
# Output the filesystem offset to stdout if appropriate
if ( $opt{'o'} ) {
print $offset, "\n";
}
$ENV{'MTOOLSRC'} = $cfgfile;
if ( $opt{'F'} ) {
system('mformat', '-F', 'z:');
} else {
system('mformat', 'z:');
}
# Clean up in /tmp
unlink($cfgfile);
unlink($imglink);
rmdir($tmpdir);
# MTOOLS doesn't write the bsHiddenSecs field correctly
seek(OUTPUT, $offset + 0x1c, 0);
print OUTPUT pack("V", ($offset-$header_size)>>9);
# Set the partition type
if ( $opt{'F'} ) {
$fstype = 0x0b; # FAT32
} else {
if ( $psize > 65536 ) {
$fstype = 0x06; # FAT16 > 32MB
} else {
$fstype = 0x04; # FAT16 <= 32MB
}
seek(OUTPUT, $offset + 0x36, 0);
read(OUTPUT, $fsname, 8);
# FAT12: adjust partition type
if ( $fsname eq 'FAT12 ' ) {
$fstype = 0x01; # FAT12
}
}
seek(OUTPUT, $pstart+4, 0);
print OUTPUT pack("C", $fstype);
flush OUTPUT;
# Just in case this is a block device, try to flush the partition table
if ( $is_linux ) {
ioctl(OUTPUT, $BLKRRPART, 0);
};
exit 0;
__END__
fa 31 c0 8e d8 8e c0 8e d0 bc 0 7c fb fc 89 e6 bf 0 6 b9 0 1 f3 a5 ea 1d 6 0 0 88 16 0 8 b4 8 cd 13
31 c0 88 f0 40 a3 f0 6 80 e1 3f 88 e f2 6 be be 7 31 c0 b9 4 0 f6 4 80 74 3 40 89 f7 83 c6 10 e2 f3 83
f8 1 75 73 8a 16 0 8 b8 0 41 bb aa 55 31 c9 30 f6 f9 cd 13 72 23 81 fb 55 aa 75 1d f6 c1 1 74 18 57 be e0
6 8b 5d 8 89 5c 8 8b 5d a 89 5c a 8a 16 0 8 b4 42 eb 2a 57 8b 45 8 8b 55 a f7 36 f2 6 42 89 d1 31 d2
f7 36 f0 6 88 c5 d1 e8 d1 e8 24 c0 8 c1 88 d6 8a 16 0 8 bb 0 7c b8 1 2 cd 13 72 16 5e 81 3e fe 7d 55 aa
75 8 fa ea 0 7c 0 0 77 5 be f4 6 eb 3 be f 7 ac 20 c0 74 c b4 e 8a 3e 62 4 b3 7 cd 10 eb ef eb fe
0 0 10 0 1 0 0 7c 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4d 69 73 73 69 6e 67 20 6f 70 65 72 61 74 69
6e 67 20 73 79 73 74 65 6d d a 0 4f 70 65 72 61 74 69 6e 67 20 73 79 73 74 65 6d 20 6c 6f 61 64 69 6e 67 20
65 72 72 6f 72 d a 0 "
"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10
