dt acting as an usb drive for an other computer

[landmark]

My suggestion is to expand daemon tools in a way that it behaves as an USB DVD drive for an other computer, e. g. for a notebook.

For illustration: daemon tools are running on pc #1, an image is mounted there. As soon as an usb cable is connected between pc #1 and pc #2, pc #2 sees an external usb drive which can be used for booting and installing its OS.

Such a feature would be unbelievably helpful when testing unattended OS installations. I do them a lot and though much testing is possible in a vmware environment, certain hardware related things can only be evaluated on real hardware. To burn a disk for every testing instance simply is a pain in the ass.

If this has been done before - with or without dt - I'd be very grateful for any hint or link.
Thanks for reading!

[Copytrooper]

How about using this meanwhile?

http://sysoft.zdwx.com/isoemu/bin/

[landmark]

Thank you for your suggestion, I already took a look into it. As far as I understand ISOEMU is a boot loader which bases upon NTLDR or GRUB. I need to have either of them installed and in addition a hidden partition for the ini and iso files.

Though that premises might be bearable in some cases, unfortunately it's not for mine.

I need a 'bare metal' approach without any software involved at pc #2.

Anyway, thanks again for the suggestion.

[vak76]

landmark

My suggestion is to expand daemon tools in a way that it behaves as an USB DVD drive for an other computer, e. g. for a notebook.
For illustration: daemon tools are running on pc #1, an image is mounted there. As soon as an usb cable is connected between pc #1 and pc #2, pc #2 sees an external usb drive which can be used for booting and installing its OS.

Special designed cable (with special drivers on host computer) needs for this project.

Such a feature would be unbelievably helpful when testing unattended OS installations. I do them a lot and though much testing is possible in a vmware environment, certain hardware related things can only be evaluated on real hardware.

You can start unattended installation under DOS from HDD with FAT32 partition (on PC#2). See command line parameters of installer for details (winnt.exe AFAIR).

[landmark]

You can start unattended installation under DOS from HDD with FAT32 partition (on PC#2). See command line parameters of installer for details (winnt.exe AFAIR).

Yes. Or I could boot via PXE. That is, if my target systems would run Windows. Or an unixoid OS. They don't. It's a tailor made realtime OS not based on DOS, Win or Unix technology.

I do understand that the advices given are well meant. Nevertheless, I asked for an usb drive emulation functionality and I do have my reasons for doing so. Please be assured that I'm familiar with installing almost any mainstream OS flavour.

Special designed cable (with special drivers on host computer) needs for this project.

Your're right on that point. However those cables are being sold for ages. They're used for file copy purposes and can be bought for a few dollars everywhere. All that's missing to actually emulate an usb drive is a decent software.

[bombur]

landmark

However those cables are being sold for ages. They're used for file copy purposes and can be bought for a few dollars everywhere.

I think what these cables not suitable for you purposes.
I suppose what existent USB-to-USB cables are:
a) vendor specific
b) symmetric:
* they needs driver installation on both computers;
* they can't change hardware IDs (to USB-CD/DVD, on the fly) on the one (PC#2) side.