BOOTHD.EXE for Windows NT4/2000/XP/2003 - Freeware



Written by John Hinkley.

BOOTHD.EXE allows you to boot DOS, run FASTVID.EXE and then boot the OS
drive C with the FASTVID optimizations still active. This should allow
you to boot Windows NT or any other operating system after enabling the
FASTVID features. Note that only one processor on a multiprocessor system
will have run FASTVID so only *that* processor will have all FASTVID
features enabled.

To use BOOTHD.EXE you need the following:

1) A bootable DOS 1.44 MB floppy diskette. Run this from native DOS:

FORMAT A: /S

2) BOOTHD.EXE, CONFIG.SYS + AUTOEXEC.BAT from this archive.

3) FASTVID.EXE + DOS4GW.EXE.

After creating the bootable DOS floppy, copy the files from 2) and 3)
above onto it. If you use a TSR type VESA driver for DOS programs (like
UNIVBE) you should copy it to the floopy diskette and modify the
AUTOEXEC.BAT to load it at the indicated position.

Get FASTVID working properly from DOS on your computer. Modify the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file on the floppy diskette: change the FASTVID command line
parameters to match the settings for your computer.

Run boot BOOTHD.EXE with the -R switch to "reset" the diskette:

BOOTHD -R

The diskette is now ready to be booted. It will actually boot 4 times:

1) The first time will boot DOS. BOOTHD will copy a new boot
block to the floppy diskette and automatically reboot.

2) The second time that modified boot block will be booted.
The boot block will copy the "virgin" vector table from DRAM to a fixed
location on the diskette (see caution below), and automatically reboot.

3) The third time will boot DOS, the vector table will be copied from that
fixed location to a file called VT.BIN on the diskette.

4) Finally, BOOTHD will simulate a boot of drive C.

In the future, each time the disk is booted, it will load DOS, execute the
AUTOEXEC.BAT (which runs FASTVID.EXE), restore the "virgin" vector table
from VT.BIN, and then simulate a boot of drive C. This simulated boot
should run NT or whatever OS or boot manager you have on that physical
drive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                CAUTIONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

BOOTHD writes a copy of the vector table and a copy of the original boot
block from the diskette to a fixed location on the floppy: cylinder 79,
side 0, sectors 1 through 3. This is the innermost (last) cylinder on the
floppy disk. If any files occupy those 3 sectors their data will be
overwritten. This generally shouldn't be a problem since those sectors
will usually be unused unless the diskette is very full. Since this
diskette will be used for a very specific purpose you shouldn't have any
need to fill it with other files.

BOOTHD automatically, through software, reboots the computer several times
in the initial setup. Some hardware may require "harder" reboots to fully
reinitialize. If the rebooting process seems to be stuck, go ahead and
press the RESET switch (if you have one) or power cycle the computer.

Since DOS only understands one CPU, multiple CPU systems will have only
one of the CPU's initialized by FASTVID. I don't know it this will cause
a problem or if the other CPU(s) will just run slower.

You can force BOOTHD to repeat the entire setup process by using the -R
switch. This will delete the VT.BIN file and write a flag value to the
diskette telling BOOTHD to start from the beginning. If you have
multiple computers you will probably need separate boot diskettes for
each one unless they are identically configured.

This program has been tested with DOS 6.2 and 7.0 (Windows 95) as the
bootable version of DOS on the diskette. It has successfully simulated
booting DOS/Windows 95 boot manager.