116 replies to this topic

[fms]

Is there a way to test this MIUSB in a virtual environment ie to see if it boots and work, instead of testing in real/physical environment. I have VMWare but i dont find any USB booting option there. I also have portable VirtualBox but i dont find anything over there too, inorder to boot using the virtual USB (like a virtual CDRom where one boots using an iso file or directly from a CD/DVD).
Becos as off now have been testing each of the iso which i put in the MIUSB by starting the PC, and it's not good to constantly start and restart the PC.

[Wile.E.Warrigal]

Try MobaLiveCD

http://mobalivecd-en...t/download.html

[fms]

Hi
Thank you Wile.E.Warrigal for Moba.........
I had tried Moba Live CD before, but was wondering does it really do a emulation of an MIUSB.
In VMWare if we use a bootable DVD (real DVD) and it doesn't work there, than it doesnt work in real environment.
Is Moba doing the same way. The reason i asked is bcos say one uses Moba and tests around say 20-30 iso's and than when you really need to use it in a real environment for some emergency it just doesn't boot. Big trouble.
I know this is a tough question, but from people's experience has Moba done the work (emulation) and in real environment it has failed. Anybody has experienced such a scenario

EDIT:- Also is Moba slow for other's too bcos of QEMU (i had read somwhere QEMU is slow), or is it only the case with my 1 TB HDD.

[Wonko the Sane]

QEMU is slower than some other Virtual machines since it is an emulator.
Most Virtual machines normally use some "tricks" OS specific, to speed up things.

There is NOTHING that can tell you if something will work on specific machine "A" if not actual testing on specific machine "A".

Moba is an additional "shortcut", use the "real" thing, Qemu (+ Qemu Manager):
http://www.davereyn.co.uk/download.htm

which is more updated and much more "customizable".

But, again, you won't have EVER "100% certainty".

READ here:
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=9688
http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=8581


Wonko

[fms]

Tried QEMU direct (not via Moba).....way to slow, just loading...loading.....QEMU

Tried to follow the VirtualBox commandline to get
http://agnipulse.com...-in-virtualbox/
No success

Any other way, other than QEMU to test the MIUSB, even if it doesnt test the bootability (that is fine), it doesnt matter, i have done the too many times in the last few hours. Basically just wanted to test each of the ISOes lying in the USB (meaning whether the menu.lst command for each ISO works from the USB

[fms]

Hello
Okay, success , managed to boot the MIUSB 1 TB in VMWare and it is fast (say approx 120 secs and was already installing the Win 7 on the virtual hardirve).

PLoP + VMWare

Used PLoP to boot the VMWare, chose USB, and the 1TB booted directly. Now atleast i can test each of the ISOes inside the 1 TB (for defragmentation error60, error 15, menu.lst commands being proper etc).

Wonko The Sane needed your opinion on this. With this method what are the "cons" (disadvantages), other than not being able to test it on a specific machine. Meaning what are the chances that the particular ISO (lying in the MIUSB) will fail under physical PC conditions, if i can test and a particular ISO works fine (no defragmentation, error 60, no problem while loading via menu.lst commands, menu.lst commands are proper) under VMWare environment.

[Zug]

Hey Jamal et All,

Just letting you know that BT4 has been updated BT4 R1 release HERE and it is nearly a 2GB file now ;( any plans on implementing this in MIUSB? will take me nearly a week to DL it and try, so figured would see if anyone else is going to test it out.. hopefully same menu.lst code would be applied.. but not sure..

Also, just wondered.. why use bt3 and 4? trying to read on site the diff, but just figured would ask.. guessing that there is some older stuff in bt3 that 4 doesnt use or maybe due to platforms?

Anyway, be nice to see if someone gets new one to work and what the menu code needed and steps if any taken to make work.

Thx
Zug

[Jamal H. Naji]

Thank you all who posted in this subject, wait for 3rd edition soon, post your suggestions of what you want to be included.

[evilgoat]

the tutorial instructs to format the usb stick to fat32, installing windows xp from a fat32 file system is extremely slow tho, personally it took me over 2 hours which is not really an acceptable solution.
formatting it ntfs solves the windows xp problems, also works fine for some other things too but it totally messes up the workings of stuff like hbcd and ubcd.

i've looked around and as far as i can tell these things need to be run in the proper filesystems for them to work correctly (correct me if i'm wrong). my solution to this would be to partition the usb and have both a fat32 and an ntfs partition to get things to run properly.

usb sticks can be a bit tricky to partition tho, windows dosn't recognize more then the first partition on any removable media. the way around this is to make your usb sticks appear as fixed disks, there are tools to flip the fixed/removable bit on sticks out there but only a limited variety of models are supported a more sure-fire way is to do the following (this is only for xp machines):

- open regedit and goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBSTOR
- as subfolders to USBSTOR you should have identifiers to any usb sticks you might use, there is one for every one of them. find the one of the usb device you want to turn to fixed, right click and select "copy key name"
- open a noteped, paste the keyname, you only need the part beginning from \USBSTOR\...
- download the driver from http://xpefiles.com/...e/entry616.aspx and unpack it
- edit cfadisk.inf
- on every line that starts with %Microdrive_devdesc% replace starting from IDE\... with the key from the notepad (USBSTOR\...)
(ex: %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_A-DATA&Prod_USB_Flash_Drive&Rev_0.00
)
- go to control panel -> system -> hardware -> device manager and under disk drives find your usb. right ckick -> update driver -> install from a list or specific location -> don't search. i will choose the driver to install -> have disk -> browse -> and search for cfadisk.inf (that now contains the modified lines)
- click yes to any questions, hit finish at the end and restart your computer.

your usb should now be listed as a fixed drive allowing you to use any normal partitioning tool to partition it (in two in our case for an ntfs and a fat 32 partition)

remember tho that this tweak only affects the windows installation it is done in, the stick will still be seen as removable on any other machine and since windows only sees the first partition on removable drives i'd advise you to put your most important stuff there and keep only the software that needs a different file system on the second. for example i plan to have my first partition as ntfs and keep everything there except ubcd/hbcd which goes on the second fat32 partition.

Edited by evilgoat, 03 November 2010 - 08:35 PM.

[garodoran]

hey thanks for this tutorial,i managed to install this on my 16gb flashdrive.
however, some errors occur when i try to boot some files.
these include:

1> HBCD10.6 & HBCD10.6 mini winXP = error 13: invalid or unsupported format.
2> Linux Mint9 Isadora, YLMF3, Ubuntu 10.4 rescue remix = error 25:disk read error.
3> BT4 framebuffer boots normally, but the BT4(persistent) returns an I/O error, and then loops from there.

hope you guys can help me solve these errors,as i am a beginner in this.
i appreciate any help. thanks.

[steve6375]

Did you follow the tutorial exactly (format as FAT32,etc.)?
Did you check the MD5 of the files you downloaded to ensure no file corruption?

[garodoran]

yes i followed the pdf exactly,step by step. i tried editing the menu.lst, because the pdf's UBCD version is 502,and i downloaded 503 and it worked.maybe my menu.lst got messed up?i'm not really sure because i deleted the "boxes" and replaced it with "enter".
i am not sure about the md5,i will try to download again and return here if something happens.
thanks.

[Mostashian]

thanks man i am really need it thank you again

[Tibix]

Hi Jamal,

Great tutorial!!!

Could you please tell if you have encountered the error saying that HBCD folder was not found and any workaround for that?

Regards,
Tibi

[health]

Dear Mr. Jamal !

Please answer this question - Part 5 - Install Windows 7 on USB HDD via Portable Virtual Box.
After booting the new Virtual W7 shows ONLY virtual disk C:.
How can I see all my real disks and the wireless modem(CD-drive) ?

Warm Wishes

[hardcorepber]

Has anyone heard anything about the all in 1 mission impossible usb 3rd edition?
This is a great tutorial and I wanted to say thank you! Has anyone have trouble using scandisk usb drives? I'm wondering if the U3 partion messes anything up? Any imput would be great!

Thanks!

[Kamakiro]

Im currently serving in the Peace Corps as an IT Officer at the Deptartment of Education. I have been looking for something like this tutorial for weeks now! I wanted to thank the creator of the tutorial for the easy step by step methodology.

hey Hardcorepber- I am using a 16gb Scandisk flash drive with no real problem.

quick question:
In the tutorial we are using Hiren's Boot CD 10.6. I'm running into trouble using Hiren's Boot CD 14.1. there seems to be no boot.gz file in the 14.1 version. Has anyone found a method (or menu.lst code) to integrate the latest Hiren's Boot CD 14.1 into the Mission Impossible USB?


Also I went through and added windows 7 32 bit repair CD, Windows 7 64 bit repair CD , Windows vista repair CD, UBCD (has Partition Magic 6.6already installed with it), and an updated Partition Wizard 7 to the MIUSB and all work fine. (all of these are drag and drop ISOs in the root folder and adding them to the menu.lst)

Still testing other ISO's and will comprise a list of the ones you can just add to the MIUSB and change the menu.lst.

once again excellent excellent program.

[Wonko the Sane]

Im currently serving in the Peace Corps as an IT Officer at the Deptartment of Education.

...

quick question:
In the tutorial we are using Hiren's Boot CD 10.6. I'm running into trouble using Hiren's Boot CD 14.1. there seems to be no boot.gz file in the 14.1 version. Has anyone found a method (or menu.lst code) to integrate the latest Hiren's Boot CD 14.1 into the Mission Impossible USB?

....

Interesting

Out of curiosity, is it an official policy of the Peace Corps (WHICH Peace Corps, BTW?) to use WAREZ releases?


Wonko

[Kamakiro]

Interesting like you have a solution? if so dont worry about it. 10.6 seems to have more functionality in terms of useful tools than the 14.1.

The country I'm serving in has no copyright laws.
and yeah we arent really suppose to be giving out our location....especially over the internet (safety and security issue). If you are truly interested though just DM me or something.

[sambul61]

Is it an official policy of the Peace Corps to use WAREZ releases?

Suddenly our In-Sanity^® Justice enforcer again has an opinion about warez? In spots... as you say? Very stubborn... and lacky too...

[Wonko the Sane]

Suddenly our In-Sanity^® Justice enforcer again has an opinion about warez? In spots... as you say? Very stubborn... and lacky too...

Naaah, suddenly he has an interest in Peace Corps policies. That's all.


Wonko

[sbaeder]

Im currently serving in the Peace Corps as an IT Officer at the Deptartment of Education. I have been looking for something like this tutorial for weeks now! I wanted to thank the creator of the tutorial for the easy step by step methodology.

Good for you!

In the tutorial we are using Hiren's Boot CD 10.6. I'm running into trouble using Hiren's Boot CD 14.1. there seems to be no boot.gz file in the 14.1 version. Has anyone found a method (or menu.lst code) to integrate the latest Hiren's Boot CD 14.1 into the Mission Impossible USB?

Go checks out RMPrepUSB.com web site...lots of good grub4dos stuff there!

Still testing other ISO's and will comprise a list of the ones you can just add to the MIUSB and change the menu.lst.

once again excellent excellent program.

Yes - please also give back as you have recieved!


Scott

[AVENOCTURNO]

Trillion thx Jamal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, after dozens of reading hours i've finally found your work, all has been tested & working 100%. God bless you!

[Kamakiro]

Good for you!

Go checks out RMPrepUSB.com web site...lots of good grub4dos stuff there!

Yes - please also give back as you have recieved!


Scott

Thanks! so I went through the website and made some changes to the code they offered and got Hirens Boot CD 14.1 to run! thinking about trying the same technique with 14.1 rebuild 2.0 (just cuz the rebuild adds back older tools as well as things 14.1 was missing). here are the steps I took:

-placed the HBCD folder in root directory of the flash
-opened up the MIUSB menu.lst and changed the Hiren's Entry there to this:

title Hiren's Boot CD 14.1.1nA  The Goods

find --set-root/HBCD/menu.lst

configfile /HBCD/menu.lst

boot

Everything ran and worked fine.

[Jamal H. Naji]

I would like to thank every one that contributed to this tutorial, either by nice words or by engaging their experiences to enrich this subject, and I encourage and urge anyone that can add more info to this tutorial that everyone will benefit from, I feel very glad that this was a useful subject to thousands and thousands of readers around the globe and that it is after 16 months since I posted it, it is still an important source of information regardless of the fact that the info is outdated, but it represents a solid and easy to understand and apply step by step follow the procedure, and that everyone liked it and found it very useful.

Once again I would like to thank especially the members of boot-land empire that engaged and shared with us their experiences in this tutorial, thank you Lawtil, Master of Disaster, Shiggidy_ , Stefany, Micha041, Jefimija, Fxchby, Zug , Fms, Pazzie, Wonko the Sane, SuPaNooB, Wile.E.Warrigal, EvilGoat, Garodoran, Mostashian, Tibix, Health, Hardcorepbar, Kamakiro, Sambul61, sbaeder, AVENOCTURNO .