33 replies to this topic

[breaker]

This is some stuff about BOOTNXT http://www.verboon.i...tartup-options/

[ericgl]

Well, I guess it's required for WinPE10.

[wimb]

I can boot Win10 PE from exFAT USB without the need of bootmgr.exe

 

 BexFAT-2015-12-04_082920.png   232.23KB   0 downloads

 

What I did:

 

- prepared FAT32 USB booting with Win10 PE by using UFD_FORMAT.exe and UEFI_MULTI.exe

- copied content of FAT32 USB-Drive to folder on harddisk

- In Win10 x64 OS I used Format to make exFAT USB-drive

- content of folder made earlier needed for booting Win10 PE is copied now to my exFAT USB-drive

- boot in BIOS mode with Win10 PE from exFAT USB-drive

 

exFAT format is not very useful to me since it does NOT boot in UEFI mode and can only be used for booting in BIOS mode.

[breaker]

wimb,

 

I am not familiar with those utilities. What boot files do you end up with in the root? Have you tried bootmgr.efi from Windows 10? Maybe that will allow UEFI mode.

[wimb]

wimb,

 

I am not familiar with those utilities. What boot files do you end up with in the root? Have you tried bootmgr.efi from Windows 10? Maybe that will allow UEFI mode.

 

My FAT32 USB-drive can boot Win10 PE and Win8.1 PE both in BIOS and in UEFI mode.

UEFI_MULTI creates the Boot and EFI folder necessary for booting both cases.

http://reboot.pro/to...ve/#entry168079

 

However, when I copy the complete content to exFAT USB-drive, then only booting in BIOS mode remains available.

exFAT is NOT supported for UEFI booting. UEFI requires FAT32 format of the boot drive.

 

For the illustration given earlier I copied only the working case to the exFAT USB-drive.

The picture gives the files and folders in the root of the exFAT drive for the working case (BIOS booting using Boot folder)

[ericgl]

Well, I haven't tried exFAT in UEFI mode, but I believe Wimb.

 

BTW, there's one more downside to using exFAT:

After I successfully created the exFAT USB drive, I created a Ghost image of it.

This is useful to duplicate it to multiple USB drives.

Then, when I wanted to see the contents of the .GHO file using Ghost Explorer, it could open the file, but could not read the contents of the exFAT image like it can with FAT32 and NTFS.

So, if you like using Ghost, like I do, be aware of this caveat.

 

*By the way, I'm using the latest released version of Ghost - version 12.0.0.8011. I guess they haven't yet added support for reading exFAT partitions in Ghost Explorer.

 

Here's an excerpt from the latest Ghost Explorer Help file:

Ghost Explorer supports the following partition types:

FAT12,  FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Linux Ext2/3

 

 

[wimb]

For creating multiple USB-drives, I can simply copy to other formatted USB-drives using the content of the mother USB-drive as collected in a harddisk folder.

There is no need to use Ghost in this case. Booting of Win10 PE or Win8.1 PE is not drive specific.

 

Strange thing remains that you seem to need bootmgr.exe, whereas I can boot in BIOS mode Win10 PE and Win8.1 PE from exFAT USB-drive without adding bootmgr.exe

[ericgl]

Yes, strange indeed.

Maybe it's because I'm using the boot files of the latest Win10 build 10586? 

[wimb]

Yes, strange indeed.
Maybe it's because I'm using the boot files of the latest Win10 build 10586?

I don't think so.

I redid the whole procedure using my fresh installed Win10 x64 10.0.10586 OS.
The Win10PE can boot in BIOS mode from exFAT drive without adding bootmgr.exe

 BexFAT-2015-12-04_105701.png   213.21KB   0 downloads

May be BCD Settings are different in your case
You might try my procedure by using UFD_FORMAT.exe and UEFI_MULTI.exe