After making the preparation as described at Little Angel Tutorial 0 -- Before Start:

http://windrv.net/viewthread.php?tid=289&extra=page%3D1


You now have installed the following applications for use:

1. grub4dos
2. imdisk
3. erunt
4. diskless angel
5. little angel

You can now go to the dala folder to run up la.exe again for making the system image file for booting up to ram for use.

After running up la.exe, you will see the following screen:

By clicking No, you will be taken to a more complicated screen with advanced functions as described in Little Angel Tutorials 1B, 1, 2 & 3 at this forum.

By clicking Yes, you will be taken to a simple screen with just 4 buttons of selection as below:

If you select System Backup, it will make a System Backup of your system drive into a .dsk image file for you.

Files bigger than 20M in size will not be copied.

It will try using vshadow services for LiveImaging first. If LiveImaging is not available, it will do StillImaging for you using ERUNT for registry backup and restore.

For the use of LiveImaging, it relies on the use of vshadow services in your system. The simplest way is to have a full xp/2k3 system installed in your computer first.

And then you download the vshadow sample codes for use with your system:

VShadow: vshadow.exe is freely available from Microsoft as part of the VSS SDK, at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloa ... &displaylang=en

You should rename the vshadow sample codes as:

vshadow_xp.exe

for use in xp system

or

vshadow_2k3.exe

for use in 2k3 system

and put them into the \Program Files\Diskless Angel folder and the dala folder and for use with da & la.

About the use of vshadow services in system image running on DisklessAngel virtual memory disk, please see the following notes at:

http://windrv.net/viewthread.php?tid=314&extra=page%3D1

For the time being, just try it yourself to click any of these 4 selection buttons to see how a system image .dsk file could be auto-built.

However, you should select a drive with sufficient drivespace for storing the .dsk image file when prompted later in the process after selecting any of the above buttons. The .dsk image file has to be put at the root of your selected drive for storing it.

And the selected drive can be in FAT32 or NTFS format, but not in Compressed NTFS format as the grldr bootloader included in the g4dimdiskerunt.zip package does not support Compressed NTFS format. Or else, you move the .dsk image file to a FAT32 or NTFS drive after saving so that it can be loaded up by grldr later for rebooting.

If you are satisfied about the system images made, then you need not read ahead.

Below is a description of how to customize the image you want to make using any of the bottom 3 button selections.

These 3 button selections -- Full System, Optimal System & Mini System -- are customizable.

They will look at the following configuration files for filelists to be used for making the .dsk system image file:

                                                     xp system    or     2k3 system

Full System        -- automake.cfg  &    fullexp.cfg    or     fulle2k3.cfg

Optimal System  -- automake.cfg  &    optiexp.cfg   or     optie2k3.cfg

Mini System       -- automake.cfg  &    miniexp.cfg   or     minie2k3.cfg


automake.cfg is used by all 3 selections.

Each selection will also have use another configuration file corresponding to the version of windows used.

For example, selecting Full System for xp, it will look into automake.cfg & fullexp.cfg for filelists to be used for imaging. For 2k3, it will use automake.cfg and fulle2k3.cfg.

You can customize the above configuration files if you want to include any filelists for use by the imaging process.

*.cfg files designed by user can contain filenames ending in .cfg or .txt

so *.cfg files are containers for .cfg and .txt files.

.txt is the filelist file that is used by Imaging functions for copying files into images. *.txt file is therefore a text file containing filenames of files to be copied into images.

For example, automake.cfg contains a file inside called automake.txt

automake.txt now does not include any valid filenames for copying.

if you want to include any files in the system drive to be copied into the .dsk image file, you could including such filenames into the automake.txt.

Or you could make another .txt file, for example xxx.txt; inside this xxx.txt you could include the filenames of files that you want to be copied into the .dsk image file.

If you include this xxx.txt filename into the automake.cfg, it will be used by all 3 bottom selection buttons.

If you just include it into optiexp.cfg, it will be used when you press the Optimal System button for an xp system.

If you include it into minie2k3.cfg, it will be used when you press the Mini System button for a 2k3 system.

Or you could make a configuration .cfg file, for example common.cfg,  for use.

Inside this common.cfg file, you could include *.txt filenames; and you then make such *.txt files containing filenames inside the system drive for copying.

For example, now the optiexp.cfg contains just a line optiexp.txt and inside optiexp.txt it contains many lines of filenames of files to be copied into the image file.

If you include a line -- common.cfg -- into the optiexp.cfg, when you press the Optimal System button on an xp system, LA will look into the automake.cfg and optiexp.cfg for files in the system drive to be copied into the .dsk image file. After processing the automake.cfg, it will process optiexp.cfg, which now contains 2 lines:

optiexp.txt
common.cfg

so it will copy the files of the filenames inside the optiexp.txt and then it will look into the common.cfg.

If common.cfg now contains two lines as below:

common.txt
all.txt

LA will copy files of filenames listed inside common.txt and all.txt from the system drive to the .dsk image file.

By pressing the selection buttons described above, LA will not only copy the files (on the system drive) listed in the *.txt files into the .dsk image file; it will also copy files so far accessed since the system starts up.

So by pressing the Mini System button, it will give you a .dsk image file containing files accessed since the system starts up until you press the button.

So the longer the time you use the system since it starts up that session, the more files will be included into the Mini System image file.

Therefore if you really want to have a very small system image file for use, you could reboot your system and then after it starts up again, you immediately run up LA and press the Mini System button.

If you find this minimal system no good for use, then you could use your system as you wish until the point you are satisfied and you could then press the Mini System button. It will build a bigger system image file for you which contains the files you often use with your system.

To let you build a system that is more useful and you could easily customize it afterwards, the automake.cfg now contains the following entries:

automake.txt
storage.txt
usbstor.txt
vshadow.txt
ie.txt
flash.txt
msi.txt
dsound.txt
sundry.txt
cpl.cfg

automake.txt is a blank file, containing no filenames to be copied.

storage.txt contains filenames that are needed for atapi storage.

usbstor.txt contains filenames that are needed for usb storage.

vshadow.txt contains filenames that are needed for vshadow services.

ie.txt contains filenames that are needed for using internet explorer to access the internet.

flash.txt contains the filename of an ActiveX Control for displaying flash.

msi.txt contains filenames that are needed for running *.msi files.

dsound.txt contains filenames that are needed for using dsound.

sundry.txt contains some other filenames that may be of use.

cpl.cfg contains entries of:

cpl.txt
appsman.txt
compman.txt

for using 2 Control Panel tools:

Add or Remove Programs (appsman.txt)

Computer Management inside Administrative Tools (compman.txt)

cpl.cfg illustrates how the concept of component filelists is implemented.

cpl.txt contains filenames of files that are required by both [Add or Remove Programs] and [Computer Management], so are taken out to be put into a common filelist file inside cpl.cfg, the configuration filelist file for the Control Panel component.

You could experiment to add into cpl.cfg other filelist files for other Control Panel tools.

The filelist files (*.txt) and configuration filelist file (*.cfg) included in dala.zip package are just sample files on which you could further make improvement if required.

If you do not need any of the above component files, you could remove the corresponding entry/entries from automake.cfg.

For example, some people may wish to disable the use of usb storage in their system. Then they could remove usbstor.txt from automake.cfg to do so.

After the .dsk image file is made for you, you could exit LA and then reboot your machine and go into the grub4dos menu.

You will find 4 more Titles are listed there for the .dsk image file you have just made.

So you could select each of these Titles for booting and see which one is good for your use.

Most machines will succeed with the 2 Titles using memdisk raw for booting.

If you boot up the image file, it stops at a black screen telling loading booting code, you could go back booting up into Windows on hard disk and try to run up bootimage.exe inside the g4dimdiskerunt folder and select the .dsk image file again. This will help putting the bootcode into the .dsk image file for use.

If you could not go back booting up into Windows on hard disk, you could reboot and go to select the grub4dos menu and then select the first Title inside the menu:

reboot from hard disk ntldr

and then select booting into Windows again when you are presented with the boot.ini menu again.

If after booting up the .dsk image file again, Windows informs you on a black screen that a certain file is missing, you could write down the filename and its path and then copy such file from your system drive into the .dsk image file for booting again.

And you could also include such lines of filenames into:

wdlst.cfg

for inclusion of such files in future builds.

If it fails after you select Windows in the boot.ini menu, it will probably be due to some bugs found inside the drivers of some specific video card.

You could go back to run your system from hard disk and then use the control panel and the system tool to remove the video card driver you are using.

After removing the specific video card driver and without rebooting, you could now make the .dsk image file again using LA.

The .dsk system image file thus made when booted up will use the standard video card driver that comes with the setup cd when the system is first setup.

You may then have to go to your video card manufacturer to see if they have a fix for you or you go to find if there are good universal video card drivers for use with your specific video card.

Another common cause for failure is that your windows system on hard disk is not installed in the first primary partition of the hard disk.

If it is so, you have to re-install your windows system onto the first primary partition of your hard disk to make it easy for you to make a bootable .dsk image file for use.