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*** Universal Boot Disk (UBD) ***      RAM Attack Software     ***
***  Version 3.6  (May 2002)  *** http://ramattack.mailru.com/ ***
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A universal boot disk specifically assembled to access NTFS drives 
and to provide comprehensive native language support (NLS) under DOS

Based on DOS 8.00 (Windows ME)

*** Critique of standard bootdisks available under DOS, Windows 9x and Windows ME ***
	Even when Microsoft bootdisks provide access to Extended Memory (XMS) (above the first Mb), they, as a rule, do not support Upper Memory Area (between 640 kb and 1 Mb), which may be a significant drawback when booting into DOS. (For example, SCANDISK requires somewhere over 500 kb of free conventional (under 640 kb) memory, which may be unavailable if device drivers, disk caching or other TSRs are loaded.)
	The DOS kernel, IO.SYS, is limited to recognising just FAT (and FAT32 with versions 7.10 and above) filesystem, so additional drivers must be loaded to gain access to CD. While they are not loaded at all with elder MS bootdisks, with Windows 98/ME the drivers included are not the best ones available (in terms of the amount of memory they consume, and in terms of cross-manufacturer universality).
	One may forget about retrieving long file names. Of course, network drivers are missing on MS bootdisks.
	Windows 9x or Windows ME would normally not load after booting from such a bootdisk, or would issue a list of error messages.
	The chances are that the usual bootdisk would fail to support preferred code page or keyboard layout properly.
	The DOS sessions started from a bootdisk are notorious for being slow (even after loading). This is due to using old DOS default values for FILES and BUFFERS, absence of disk caching and other factors.
	Moreover, it is necessary for the bootdisk to remain in the floppy disk drive (FDD) in order to perform certain operations. COMSPEC variable refers to COMMAND.COM on the floppy. (Norton- or Volkov Commander display a dialogue box asking to insert disk with COMMAND.COM upon executing a command.) Not only is this unsatisfactorily slow, but the FDD remains occupied in case it is needed for transferring data. Windows ME bootdisk provides a virtual disk (RAM drive), but it is by far not used to its full potential. The drives are often assigned in an illogical and unintuitive order.
	Small wonder that Microsoft boot disks do not come with a set of utilities relevant to bootdisk sessions, mostly freeware.
	One of them is NTFSDOS, a driver that maps NT filesystem partitions (used by another family of Microsoft's (sic!) operating systems, Windows NT) to logical DOS drives.

*** End of dark ages ***
	The above drawbacks are alien to the Universal Boot Disk. It presents a choice of several memory managers and multiple codepages on start-up. It has an advanced NTFS support, including write access. It contains a universal CD-ROM device driver for DOS and has a customisable procedure for supporting specific ASPI, SCSI or parallel storage devices. It relies on a virtual disk and copies COMMAND.COM thereto _before_ loading it. (Thus it can be removed once and for all after booting.) It includes a number of useful DOS utilities, which are automatically transferred to the virtual disk at boot time. It loads SmartDrive disk caching utility on demand, ensuring that both FAT and CDFS volumes are cached properly, and that no UMA conflict occurs on caching a floppy disk. It sets PATH variable appropriately. It includes drivers necessary to connect to a Novell NetWare network (other networks not supported at this stage). Screen fonts and keyboard layout are prepared to comply with the codepage chosen at start-up.
	It is suitable for use both as a physical floppy bootdisk and as an image for CD-R with floppy-emulation technique (supported by Nero and other CD-burning software).

*** Possible uses ***
- accessing NTFS volumes from outside WinNT;
- accessing ext2 (ext3) volumes;
- partitioning and formatting disks;
- OS installation;
- fixing filesystem errors;
- restoring hard disk partitions from images over a network or otherwise;
- boot sector modification;
- NT and BIOS password workaround;
- NT and BIOS password retrieval and recovery;
- assessing potential security holes on a particular machine;
- connecting to Novell NetWare LAN (in 16-bit mode);

*** Contents ***
The software included with the disk was obtained from various websites including the ones below and the links therefrom 
http://www.sysinternals.com/
http://www.opus.co.tt/dave/
http://members.aol.com/axcel216/
http://dos.li5.org/
http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/hs_freeware/freew.html
http://a2.swlibero.org/the_valuable_dos_freeware_page.html
http://www.cgsecurity.org/


Includes: 
PRECOPY.ZIP:LOADSYS.EXE   	TSR and device driver loader and unloader
PRECOPY.ZIP:LOADHI.COM    	TSR upper-memory loader (from QEMM386 package)
PRECOPY.ZIP:SHSUCDX.EXE   	unloadable CD-ROM redirector substitute for MSCDEX
PRECOPY.ZIP:NTFSDOS.EXE   	NT File System redirector (mounts NTFS volumes under DOS)
PRECOPY.ZIP:NTFSDOS.VXD   	Long filename (LFN) support for NTFSDOS under Win9x
PRECOPY.ZIP:SMARTDRV.EXE  	MS-DOS disk caching utility
PRECOPY.ZIP:CHOICE.COM    	Keyboard response determining programme

CDROMDOS.ZIP 	a set of CD-ROM device drivers for DOS
DOS.ZIP      	standard MS-DOS utilities
NETWARE.ZIP  	16-bit Novell NetWare Client with a universal network card driver
UTILS.ZIP    	various utilities
VC.ZIP       	Volkov Commander (a pseudographics-based DOS shell)

TOOLS.ZIP:PART.EXE        	Ranish Partition Manager
TOOLS.ZIP:FDISK.EXE       	Microsoft FDISK

LTOOLS.ZIP   	LTools (ldir.exe, l*.bat) -- ext2 (ext3) filesystem drivers

Plus others (see authors' documentation for details)

The Real DOS-Mode Patch for Windows Millennium http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/ has been applied to the system files on the UBD from version 3.4 onwards.

The version of QEMM386.SYS is the one patched by W0rm. It is taken from TechW0rm bootdisk. 
For links to bootdisks see http://www.bootdisk.com/

*** Download links (changes possible) ***
http://purl.oclc.org/NET/UBD/files/UBD.ZIP
http://ramattack.mailru.com/files/UBD.ZIP
http://ramattack.by.ru/files/UBD.ZIP

http://jump.to/ubd


*** Other bootdisks ***
	Out of the ones listed on http://www.bootdisk.com/ W0rm's bootdisks seem to be by far the most advanced. TechW0rm bootdisk uses a slightly different approach to the Universal Boot Disk. All third-party files are compressed in an executable form and included in the root directory. Many drivers and utilities are also patched, including HIMEM.SYS and the DOS kernel. UBD stores all the third-party programmes in their original form, using ordinary ZIP compression, and decompresses them to the virtual drive upon booting up. With TechW0rm, all selections are made within CONFIG.SYS, whereas UBD mainly relies on AUTOEXEC.BAT and its derivatives, using CHOICE.COM and analysing its exit codes.
