9 replies to this topic

[Nuvo]

Hello everyone, I've just recently discovered the wonderful WinBuilder tool and have been been trying to create a bootable USB flash drive to have a play with.

I'm using WinBuilder [083] and I have an OEM XP SP3 disc (I don't have the preferred SP2 release).
I started with a minimum build and successfully created an ISO file with no script errors. So far so good.
I then formatted my USB flash drive using the make_usb tool found on here (using the default settings).
I copied the ISO to a folder named XPE and the copied over the files found in G4D_UFD.rar (downloaded from here too).

Then I edit the menu.lst file to reflect the name of the XPLive iso file.

I then rebooted the machine to test it and was greeted with the 7B stop error.

I edited the menu.lst to load the ISO to RAM which works perfectly, so I have confirmed that the ISO is good as expected.

Having searched the forum for a solution the only thing that I considered to be relevant the problem was the related to the version ntdetect.com used.
I would have expected the file included in G4D_UFD.rar to be the right one though.

Can anyone offer me some help to get this to boot properly please?

Thank you.

[Sha0]

Can anyone offer me some help to get this to boot properly please?

I am not too familiar with LiveXP. Did you read somewhere that you could boot it from an .ISO without having it as a RAM disc? Do you know what RAM disk driver it is using? (Maybe you could check Device Manager after booting it to RAM to find out.)

[wimb]

You probably are missing the right MassStorage driver needed for your hardware.

The ready to use WinBuilder project of amalux LX.061412 will add DPs Mass Storage Drivers.
Download and use that project.
http://reboot.pro/to...350#entry162656
http://reboot.pro/to...-portable-apps/

Instead of Make_USB you should use BOOT_USB.exe
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=24424

- Format USB-stick e.g. NTFS by using Format Stick button
- Make Grub4dos Menu on USB for booting Boot Image files (types IMG or ISO or VHD) e.g.
Select LiveXP_WIM.ISO as Boot Image file and USB Target Drive and press GO
- Reboot from USB with LiveXP_WIM.ISO selected in Grub4dos Menu

[Nuvo]

I am not too familiar with LiveXP. Did you read somewhere that you could boot it from an .ISO without having it as a RAM disc? Do you know what RAM disk driver it is using? (Maybe you could check Device Manager after booting it to RAM to find out.)

Well, I came to that conclusion (rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure) based on the contents of menu.lst supplied in the G4D_UFD.rar file.
no longer have the project files or that particular iso but from memory I think it used the firadisk driver.

You probably are missing the right MassStorage driver needed for your hardware.

That would seem to be the most likely reason for this. I'll maybe try rebuilding my original project using the updated drivers supplied in the LiveXP Project LX.061412.

The ready to use WinBuilder project of amalux LX.061412 will add DPs Mass Storage Drivers.

This worked without a hitch following your mini guide. Thank you very much indeed.

This project build works very well, but it takes a fair bit longer than I had hoped to boot. I'm looking for a version of XP that boots as quickly as possible to use if possible. Having a boot time at least as fast as booting of an HDD is desirable.

Is this possible and what would you recommend I do to achieve this?

My main objective is to have portable environment on a USB stick that I can use on most PCs, I would also like to have the ability to be able to perform an installation of XP on a netbook pc from the same USB stick if possible.

Thank you for your help guys.

Edited by Nuvo, 22 November 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[steve6375]

You could look at Tutorial 42 and 63 on my site...

[wimb]

For slow USB bootspeed then in case of LiveXP it mght take some time to load the RAMDISK.
What is your boottime in this case ?

Portable XP VHD as FILEDISK on USB will boot faster since you don't need to load a RAMDISK.
Also Portable USB-harddisk is much faster than USB-stick.

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=23553
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=24424

Step 1 - VHD_XP_Create.exe - Make 2GB VHD file and Install XP in VHD by using Grub4dos Boot Menu on HDD
Step 2 - IMG_XP_Compact.exe - Make Portable XP VHD Image file that can boot from Grub4dos Menu on HDD or USB

[Wonko the Sane]

More generally there is an approach that few people (and I guess no pre-made Winbuilder projects) use (or use not "normally") in order to make booting faster, which is simply that of making a very small "core" image to be loaded to RAMDISK and have the "mass" of the actual system in another image, mounted later by the already booted "core image" as mountpoint or junction.
In some cases compressing the image may help (gzip is compatible with grub4dos, with server 2003 SP1 ramdisk.sys one can use a MAKECAB .is_ or .im_)

Normally the "bottleneck" when using RAMDISK (but also with "flat" builds) is that of the sheer amount of data that is read from the (slow) USB device.

The filesystem used on the device may also make a difference, as well as alignment used in the partitioning.

Additionally (and this is also another aspect that noone seems to care about) in the case of "flat files" the actual order in which the files are written to the USB stick may make a sensible difference, as well as the filesystem used on the device.

Finally, for the case of the motherboards that do have USB 2.0 support but boot at 1.1 speed an "XP Kansas City Shuffle" or "chainboot" approach makes a HUGE difference.

Some related info:
Check the MOA project by sanbarrow (which uses extensively junctions):
http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=19737



http://www.msfn.org/...d-on-usb-stick/
http://www.msfn.org/...n-its-clusters/
http://reboot.pro/in...showtopic=16775
http://reboot.pro/in...showtopic=16783

http://reboot.pro/in...?showtopic=6041
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=21702 <-yes, loong thread
http://www.911cd.net...&st=40&start=40 <- you can start reading from around here
http://reboot.pro/in...?showtopic=7032

http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=21939
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=21242


Wonko

[Nuvo]

You could look at Tutorial 42 and 63 on my site...

Thank you Steve, your site is an absolute gold mine of information. Lots to try here. I'm a little confused why you cite tutorial #42 as this refers to building a mini Win 7 usb image? Can this this tut be used directly with Win XP too?

For slow USB bootspeed then in case of LiveXP it mght take some time to load the RAMDISK. What is your boottime in this case ?

Hi Wim, the ramdisk loading time on the first old PC I tried took approximately two minutes, after which a further 60 seconds elapsed before the PE had fully loaded. On the second boot the PE only took around 30s to fully load. I then tried booted the usb stick on a net book, the ram disk loading time took a mere 30 seconds and the same amount of time to load the PE.

So the netbook boot times are perfectly acceptable. I must say how impressed I am by how functionality is packed into such a small space. Can you tell me if it is possible to install the latest version of Adobe flashplayer into this build as it would be nice to be able able to view BBC iplayer programmes online. Can you tell me how how to integrate this if it is possible please?

I'll be sure to try building a VHD image for comparison too. Thank you.

@Wonko, I think my old system must be booting as USB 1.1 as this would certainly explain the slow ramdisk load times.
I'll look into what is you mean by "XP Kansas City Shuffle" and "chainboot" and try to put them to good use. It looks like I've got a fair amount of reading and experimenting ahead of me. Well, that's what long cold winter evenings are for I'm told.

Many thanks for all your assistance gentlemen.

[steve6375]

My main objective is to have portable environment on a USB stick that I can use on most PCs

Making WinPE3 will give you that as it is likely to have more modern drivers already integrated (e.g. SATA), etc.

You did not say you wanted an XP PE portable environment... if that is the case try Hirens Mini XP.

[pscEx]

My main objective is to have portable environment on a USB stick that I can use on most PCs

Making WinPE3 will give you that as it is likely to have more modern drivers already integrated (e.g. SATA), etc.

You did not say you wanted an XP PE portable environment... if that is the case try Hirens Mini XP.

Or multiPE XP track.

Peter