I really don’t like repairing old computers because they are very sensitive and doesn’t support new technologies like booting from CDROM or USB. A lot of tech tools are built into LiveCDs (such as Trinity Rescue Kit, Windows PE, Antivirus Rescue Disks) where you boot up the computer with the CD and you can access a list of tools that can help you fix the problem on the computer. Since all these LiveCDs are updated very often, I put them into my USB flash drive so I can update them easily. Problem is like I mentioned above, old computers don’t support booting off USB and even CDROM.
Boot up computer USB
It depends on the BIOS whether to be able to boot from CDROM or USB. Some motherboard manufacturers are hardworking enough to provide a BIOS update for old motherboards so it can support booting from USB or CDROM. However, what if you encounter an old computer that doesn’t support booting from either USB or CDROM and there is no BIOS update that supports this feature, it is not hopeless yet because here is an excellent boot manager called PLoP which can do the impossible which is allowing you to boot the computer from USB or CDROM even if BIOS is not supported.

The PLoP Boot Manager is a small program to boot different operating systems. You can boot the operating systems from harddisk, floppy, CD/DVD or from USB. You can start the boot manager from floppy, CD, network and there are many more ways to start the boot manager. You can install the boot manager on your harddisk. There is no extra partition required for the boot manager.

PLoP Boot Manager Features:

  • CDROM boot without BIOS support
  • USB boot without BIOS support (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI)
  • Floppy boot
  • Different profiles for operating systems
  • Define up to 16 partitions
  • No extra partition for the boot manager
  • Hidden boot, maybe you have a rescue system installed and the user should not see that there is another system installed
  • Boot countdown
  • Hide partitions
  • Password protection for the computer and the boot manager setup
  • Backup of partition table data
  • Textmode user interface 80×50
  • Graphic user interface 640×480, 800×600, 1024×786, 1280×1024
  • MBR partition table edit
  • Start of the boot manager from harddisk, floppy, USB, CDROM
  • Starting from Windows boot menu
  • Starting from LILO, GRUB, Syslinux, Isolinux, Pxelinux (network)
  • The boot manager is freeware

    • PLoP boot manager is not like other boot manager where it installs and itself and overwriting the original master boot record. All you need to do is to edit boot.ini in Windows XP or use BCEDIT in Vista to add PLoP Boot Manager to the current Windows boot menu. Even if you are not a Windows user, you can still start PLoP using floppy or boot up CD called PLoP Linux.

    There are a lot of possibilities on how you can run PLoP but I will only explain on how to install PLoP boot manager into Windows boot menu.

    1. Download http://download.plop.at/files/bootmngr/plpgenbtldr-0.5.zip

    2. Extract plpgenbtldr-0.5.zip, copy plpbt.bin and plpgenbtldr.exe to your c:\ directory.

    3. Go to Start > Run, type cmd and click OK.

    4. Change to C:\ directory by typing CD\ and hit enter.

    5. Now type plpgenbtldr, hit enter and you will see a few lines of debug infos on the screen. Most importantly is at the end where it should say “plpbtldr.bin created”.
    boot from usb
    6. If you’re in Windows XP, type start boot.ini at the command prompt and boot.ini file will open. Add the line below to boot.ini file and save it.
    c:\plpbtldr.bin="Start PLoP Boot Manager"
    Edit Boot.ini for PLoP
    6a) If you’re using Windows Vista, you have extra steps to perform. In command prompt, type the following command.
    bcdedit /create /d "Install PLoP Boot Manager" /application bootsector
    You should see a message that says “The entry {XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-000000000000} was successfully created.” The number between { and } is an ID.
    BCDEDIT The entry was successfully created
    Next, replace the ID with your number in the following commands
    bcdedit /set {id} device boot
    bcdedit /set {id} path \plpbtldr.bin
    bcdedit /displayorder {id} /addlast

    7. Restart your computer and you should see an extra line that says “Start PLoP Boot Manager” in the boot menu.
    Boot from USB
    8. Select “Start PLoP Boot Manager” and a menu will appear. If you want to start the computer from CDROM, enter the CD and select CDROM from the menu. Same thing with USB, if you have a bootable USB and want to boot it up, just select USB from the menu.
    Boot from USB
    If you’re having problems with PLoP such as unable to generate plpbtldr.bin or PLoP boot manager hangs when you select from boot menu, click here to chat with Elmar, the creator of PLoP Boot Manager. I wasn’t able to get it to work at first and Elmar was very helpful to update PLoP to v0.4 to support my partition.

    [ Visit PLoP's Website For More Information ]

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