* ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com [061107 04:25]:
So, there are two options I see, in order of preference:
- find some way, using kexec etc., to boot XP under Linux, then put Linux in
FLASH; done 2. revive ADLO
Maybe be can join 1 and 2, and run (parts of) ADLO on top of Linux, together with kexec.
there have been a number of suggestions for how to do the first one.
- freeldr (vapor?)
- tinyldr (vapor?)
Any of these might be obsolete with Windows Vista, as it uses "winload.exe" instead of NTLDR
The ugly thing with all Windows booting approaches is that the boot loader has a whole lot of intelligence, it is doing device enumeration, and, a lot worse: It is also loading device drivers. :-(
I found a little bit of information about the boot configuration data provided by the boot loader to NTOSKERNL.EXE (Vista version)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/f/7/af7777e5-7dcd-4800-8a0a-b183365...
Microsoft also has an online reference: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/BCD/bcd/por...
Also there's nice information about the XP boot process: http://www.geocities.com/asoke_dasgupta/boot-xp.html
Wikipedia knows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Startup_Process