30 replies to this topic

[steve6375]

OK, getting back to UDF and E2B.

First, is this really a better solution than NTFS or exFAT?

Read the comments under this article (esp. about the Windows 1TB limit and the linux full capacity bug).

See also here (we can only have one partition) - will all BIOSes boot from such a MBR+UDF single ptn drive?

Also look at the limited OS support for UDF in the table here (Vista+ only OS's).

Also what about the write speed?

Does grub4dos even support writes (e.g. using dd) to files on a UDF partition correctly?

 

Assuming we can live with all these issues, can we format a USB drive as UDF under Windows as well as under linux?

If we can, to work with E2B then it must have an MBR+partition table, it must have a grub4dos MBR + stage 1.5 boot code and must boot to grub4dos.

Assuming it gets this far, will all grub4dos commands such as partnew work on a MBR+UDF drive?

If we can boot to WinPE on such a system, does WinPE recognise a UDF-formatted USB drive and can read files from it (e.g . for Windows installation, etc.)?

 

I have not experimenter with UDF under these circumstances, so if anyone has any experience with these issues, please comment...

 

P.S. In order to use .imgPTN files with either exFAT or UDF USB drives, a GetFileExtents.exe version will need to be created which works with Switch_E2B. Also, WinContig would need to work with UDF (?) and a linux defrag utility would also be required for both exFAT and UDF.

Edited by steve6375, 08 January 2017 - 09:46 AM.

[wean_irdeh]

 

OK, getting back to UDF and E2B.
First, is this really a better solution than NTFS or exFAT?
Read the comments under this article (esp. about the Windows 1TB limit and the linux full capacity bug).
See also here (we can only have one partition) - will all BIOSes boot from such a MBR+UDF single ptn drive?
Also look at the limited OS support for UDF in the table here (Vista+ only OS's).
Also what about the write speed?
Does grub4dos even support writes (e.g. using dd) to files on a UDF partition correctly?
 
Assuming we can live with all these issues, can we format a USB drive as UDF under Windows as well as under linux?
If we can, to work with E2B then it must have an MBR+partition table, it must have a grub4dos MBR + stage 1.5 boot code and must boot to grub4dos.
Assuming it gets this far, will all grub4dos commands such as partnew work on a MBR+UDF drive?
If we can boot to WinPE on such a system, does WinPE recognise a UDF-formatted USB drive and can read files from it (e.g . for Windows installation, etc.)?
 
I have not experimenter with UDF under these circumstances, so if anyone has any experience with these issues, please comment...
 
P.S. In order to use .imgPTN files with either exFAT or UDF USB drives, a GetFileExtents.exe version will need to be created which works with Switch_E2B. Also, WinContig would need to work with UDF (?) and a linux defrag utility would also be required for both exFAT and UDF.

 

What a complete waste of my time, yeah, after a lot of time reading bash script (cmd is hard to understand), browsing a lot of webpage, I decide it would be better to just format the USB drive with NTFS for storing large file and use SWITCH_E2B to use FAT32 + imgPTN for maximum compatibility across major OS (plus more convenience when plugging USB drive to infected computer)

From macOS that won't be able to recognize UDF USB drive unless formatted without partition table (This means MBR cannot be used and no partition can be added anymore, several feature of E2B won't work) to Linux that have no write support with UDF version above 2.01, these issues take me back to square one, using NTFS formatted USB with FAT32 imgPTN.

If anyone near me wants to copy >4GB from macOS, I will just tell him to install NTFS-3G, or split the file first then copy, or I will just shove his mouth off

[steve6375]

Interesting, why SWITCH_E2B.exe does not work on FAT32 partition? I did test and was successful, 4th partition was pointing to the file .imgPTN on the first partition (FAT32).

 

Hmmm, this is odd. I was sure there was some issue with the GetFileExtents app and FAT32, but it does indeed seem to work now.

Maybe it was a compatibility problem with an earlier version of Win10 which is now fixed?

Trouble with Windows auto-updating that it is now difficult to be sure.

 

P.S. I think the issue was to do with when using two files (e.g. fred.imgptn and fred.) and re-ordering of the files for UEFI-booting...

Edited by steve6375, 08 January 2017 - 10:15 PM.

[nguyentu]

I do not know what GetFileExtents do, I have not tested my tool on OS versions older than 10.

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I've looked at the source of getFileExtents. It only supports NTFS, not FAT32.

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I'm thinking I need to backup the current partition table. Then I will point to the new partition files .imgPTN located on the first partition. The first partition will now be replaced, so I will have up to 4 separate partitions, so it will work like the real partition.

 

And if I want to, I just restore the partition table information that I have backup. Thus all .imgPTN file will back and reside on the first partition.

 

PS: if startingoffset of a partition located on another partition, I think it will not be compatible on some systems (such as VirtualBox UEFI).

Edited by nguyentu, 08 January 2017 - 11:12 PM.

[anonymous10]

I actually agree with the original post. I would like to see xboot have imgptn support. I need that for what I want to do with it.

[Wonko the Sane]

I actually agree with the original post. I would like to see xboot have imgptn support. I need that for what I want to do with it.

...but xboot is not anymore developed, the Author died and he never released the source, and even if he did, it missed a large number of features that are present in later tools such as Easy2boot.


Wonko