Hi,
I think the bug has nothing to do with the fat boot code from freeldr. If ReactOS stops after 'reactos setup' and two red lines, it is somewhere between running setupldr and starting smss.exe (usetup.exe). Possible ReactOS hangs while the initialisation of one of the boot load drivers. If you are able to compile and build a bootcd, you can disable line #346 in ntoskrnl\io\driver.c. After this you should see which drivers are loaded.
- Hartmut
M:\Sandbox\ros_work\reactos>svn diff ntoskrnl\io\driver.c Index: ntoskrnl/io/driver.c =================================================================== --- ntoskrnl/io/driver.c (Revision 17508) +++ ntoskrnl/io/driver.c (Arbeitskopie) @@ -343,7 +343,7 @@ BOOLEAN Unicode) { CHAR TextBuffer[256]; - if (SetupMode) return; +// if (SetupMode) return; if (Unicode) { sprintf(TextBuffer, "Loading %S...\n", (PWCHAR)ServiceName);