1396 replies to this topic

[steve6375]

1. I have seen the delay you speak of. It seems to be certain systems\BIOSes. I dont know why it happens but I think it is to do with using a graphics mode menu and grub2.

 

2. Not sure what you mean - what happens in this black command window? 

You did not follow the E2B instructions. You should use the .imgptnlbaa23 file that I provided.

 

In order to boot using grub2, you need to run a specific command line full of linux kernel parameters - these vary from linux version to version and from distro to distro. There is no generic way to boot linux ISOs, they are all different.

That is why most multiboot utilities need you to tell them what the ISO is based on, so that they can guess what kernel parameters are needed.

It is also why they never work 100% with very new ISOs or old ISOs, the authors have to continuously change the parameters whenever a new version is released.

 

Now E2B uses the partnew trick (as first mentioned by cdob). This provides a generic way to boot 99% of any and all linux ISOs (MBR boot).

 

So, I could write a script to auto-detect any ISO you place in a folder - but then what parameters should I use to boot it?

Every new version of every distro continuously changes them! So the script would need to detect what version each one was and have a database - or it could perhaps look for existing grub.cfg or isolinux.cfg files and try to either run them directly or parse them to make a new grub menu file.

However, grub2 does not allow disk writes (it does not even have dd so I cannot mimic a partnew command).

 

With my version of grub2 menu, you can add your own  cfg files (as xxx.grub2 files). My menu system will automatically add the .grub2 files to the grub2 menu (in a similar way to .mnu files in E2B). So it is 'easy' to add (and delete) your own ISOs and .grub2 files.

 

UEFI booting will always display a 1024x768 as it boots. If you use the E2B .imgptnlbaa23 file, you will see the grub4dos menu first if it MBR boots.

[steve6375]

PassPass now supports Windows 10. The new version is included in E2B v1.87c.

[john012]

Follow these steps to attempt to fix your Startup problems.

<removed>

Cheers.

Edited by Wonko the Sane, 01 December 2016 - 10:25 AM.
Wonko was here

[Wonko the Sane]

Follow these steps to attempt to fix your Startup problems.

 

Thank you very much, but we don't have any Startup problem.

 

Wonko

[pscEx]

@Wonko

I cannot read what you removed. A new spammer here? Or an "old" spammer under a new name?

The IP adress looks rather familiar for me. It reminds me on some banned near- and east-asia buddies.

Peter

[Wonko the Sane]

@Wonko

I cannot read what you removed. A new spammer here? Or an "old" spammer under a new name?

The IP adress looks rather familiar for me. It reminds me on some banned near- and east-asia buddies.

Peter

Yep, that's normal, I removed it .

Not really a spammer, just promoting a site by a (seemingly nice) Indian kid, who is a (self-proclaimed) tech guru, I have already seen that site senselessly promoted, but cannot say if here or somewhere else, anyway the link is (was) this one:

hxxp://www.deskdecode.com/how-to-fix-bootmgr-is-missing-error-on-windows-desktop-or-laptop/

 

Wonko

[steve6375]

I have improved the PassPass batch file a bit in v1.87d.
When you Restore the DLL file (after first backing it up), it will now check the first 512 bytes to make sure you are restoring the same file and same version.

[Mansen]

Hiya.

 

New to E2B (And I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask these questions, but I feel like I've hit a bit of a brick wall at this point)

 

I've been using E2B on a 64gb USB stick for PC repair, maintenance and install (Windows 7-10) for a few weeks, and everything's been running great - Until I met with a PC that would not boot in Legacy mode AT ALL.

 

Now I've been trying to read up on UEFI booting E2B, but I feel more confused now than before - All I want is to boot E2B itself through UEFI in the BIOS - but all of the tutorials start talking about converting every single app and iso into partition files. Do I really need to do this as a side effect of having E2B UEFI boot if I just want to launch things like Memtest, Hirens and Windows installs from ISO files? Seems like an awful lot of conversion work to me

 

I should mention that I need to use NTFS because some of these "multi" Windows ISO files are over the 4GB FAT32 limitations.

 

PS: I consider myself pretty well experienced in the field - But UEFI eludes me completely right now. Again very sorry if this isn't the place to be asking for support.

[loveyoumario]

Hiya.

 

New to E2B (And I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask these questions, but I feel like I've hit a bit of a brick wall at this point)

 

I've been using E2B on a 64gb USB stick for PC repair, maintenance and install (Windows 7-10) for a few weeks, and everything's been running great - Until I met with a PC that would not boot in Legacy mode AT ALL.

 

Now I've been trying to read up on UEFI booting E2B, but I feel more confused now than before - All I want is to boot E2B itself through UEFI in the BIOS - but all of the tutorials start talking about converting every single app and iso into partition files. Do I really need to do this as a side effect of having E2B UEFI boot if I just want to launch things like Memtest, Hirens and Windows installs from ISO files? Seems like an awful lot of conversion work to me

 

I should mention that I need to use NTFS because some of these "multi" Windows ISO files are over the 4GB FAT32 limitations.

 

PS: I consider myself pretty well experienced in the field - But UEFI eludes me completely right now. Again very sorry if this isn't the place to be asking for support.

 

The E2B itself will not boot via UEFI since it's based on grub. By the way, NTFS drives cannot UEFI-boot

[Mansen]

I see - Guess I'll have to look elsewhere for an all in one solution then. Thanks for saving me a lot of headache.

[loveyoumario]

I see - Guess I'll have to look elsewhere for an all in one solution then. Thanks for saving me a lot of headache.

 

What do you mean by "all-in-one"? just Windows 64-bit installers? If so, this page [http://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-files/adding-windows-install-isos-without-needing-a-helper-flash-drive/] may help. Of course, what you need to do is just follow the steps but without making .imgPTN file. 

[Mansen]

Well it needs to be able to boot through UEFI (On non-legacy capable hardware*), Install Windows 32/64 (XP upward preferably), run memtest and such bootable tools as well as boot into something like Mini XP,7 and 8.

 

Right now I can do all of that except for the UEFI boot part - which some laptops and tablets just enforce, so legacy booting isn't possible. (Which means I have to drag out an external optical drive or such)

Edited by Mansen, 07 December 2016 - 10:54 AM.

[steve6375]

I should mention that I need to use NTFS because some of these "multi" Windows ISO files are over the 4GB FAT32 limitations.

 

 

This is not quite true. In order to UEFI-boot, at least one partition needs to be FAT.

Most solutions always extract the contents of an ISO onto a FAT32 partition.

This means that the size of the original ISO file does not matter, as long as there is no single file INSIDE the ISO that is larger than 4GB, we can extract the contents of the ISO to a FAT32 drive and UEFI-boot from it.

 

Now some solutions combine MBR and UEFI-booting. The boot partition is FAT32 and usually have only the one partition.

 

If you want a universal USB drive that will boot to MBR and EFI, then you will find that there is a problem with these types of multiboot USB drives. Some UEFI systems (even those that do have a CSM option) will refuse to MBR-boot from a USB drive that contains valid EFI boot files. What this means is that you can never MBR-boot to any of your MBR payloads (e.g. grub4dos, MS-DOS, FreeDOS, syslinux, etc.) from any of these systems because they will always UEFI-boot so you can only boot to UEFI-payloads.

 

A few years ago I added the Memtest86 EFI boot files to E2B so that if anyone made a FAT32 E2B USB drive, they could UEFI-boot to Memtest. I immediately received complaints that some systems could no longer boot to the E2B grub4dos menu because they ALWAYS booted to Memtest86! 

 

WinSetupFromUSB can UEFI-boot as well as MBR-boot, but I think only Windows is supported for UEFI-booting (and it will have the above mentioned problem). If you are only concerned with Windows payloads this may be the best option for you.

 

MultiSystem is based on grub2 and is mainly for linux payloads and has the same issue. Solutions based on grub2 have a problem in that each grub2 menu must be generated by the program. For linux, each distro and version tends to be different. They use different 'cheat codes' (kernel parameters) and new versions change these parameters from month to month. This means that the developers are always playing 'catch up' and you will find lots of (old and very new) linux ISOs just don't work correctly.

 

E2B requires you to convert each UEFI-bootable ISO into a .imgPTN file and then 'switch-in' that partition image. This means that you cannot just stick an E2B USB drive into a system and UEFI-boot from it. If E2B contained UEFI boot files, then we would have the problem mentioned above (it would not MBR-boot on some systems).

So E2B converts each image into a separate 'clean' FAT32 partition. This has the advantage that it will support Secure Boot and can boot nearly any type of Secure Boot payload (something that is pretty unique!) provided the payload supports secure booting too.

 

E2B converts ISOs (or other sources) to .imgPTN files by using some string replacement scripts. This means that the utility does not need to know what the correct cheat codes are for each and every linux distro under the sun - it just tweaks the existing config files (at least, that's the theory!).

 

E2B has various ways to UEFI boot and use files on an NTFS partition too.

 

For more info on UEFI see here.

 

HTH (and hasn't confused you even more!)

[Mansen]

Certainly a lot of information to digest - But I think I get the gist of it? I'd be better off having a separate UEFI drive just for Windows and basic memtest functionality, than try to cut everything with one swiss army knife? I mainly use this drive as a sort of protest against my colleagues always trying a PXE boot from our server (that fails far too often I might add)

 

I'll give it a proper read and look up some more tutorials on the site - Thanks a ton for taking the time to help me out here.

[Wonko the Sane]

@Mansen

Having a single *something* that does everything is of course "cool", and much more "elegant".

But in real life it is more practical (and foolproof) to have two sticks, one for BIOS and one for UEFI.

Given the size of many modern sticks (I mean physical size of the device) you can easily make a "Janus stick":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus

by gluing together two similar sticks and lose not the convenience of the "single device".

This can be made half-@§§edly with - say - a piece of duck tape or "cleanly", example:
http://www.instructa...SB-flash-drive/

 

As a side note it is strange that you have issues with your PXE booting, AFAIK PXE is usually a lot of trouble to setup properly initially, but then it works flawlessly and reliably.

 

Wonko

[Mansen]

The PXE issue mostly stems from driver mismatches or hardware that claims to support PXE but doesn't really. Anyway that's definitely off-topic as far as this thread goes.

[nicecube]

I have just created a usb boot key with e2b, all works well I add all my iso. The only problem I have is that no xml file will work I always have an error, if I enter the iso load but not the Unatended.xml

 

 

I have tested with all the xml files included by default

 

ERROR: Bad XML File (/_ISO/e2b/FiraDisk/au.xml)

 

Someone can help me to troobleshoot plz

 

Tested with win7, win8,1 and 10

 

Exemple xml im using (Default) http://pastebin.com/Fncqb1nq

 

 

 

Edited by nicecube, 01 January 2017 - 06:30 AM.

[steve6375]

The selected XML file is copied into \AutoUnattend.xml by E2B, then

E2B checks \AutoUnattend.xml for the word 'component'

 

Are you using a Removable USB drive or a Fixed USB disk + WinHelper Flash drive?

Do they have the \AutoUnattend.xml  100K files present?

[nicecube]

The selected XML file is copied into \AutoUnattend.xml by E2B, then

E2B checks \AutoUnattend.xml for the word 'component'

 

Are you using a Removable USB drive or a Fixed USB disk + WinHelper Flash drive?

Do they have the \AutoUnattend.xml  100K files present?

 

Hi, im using a USB removal drive, i have a 100K autounattend.xml in the root of the USB drive

 

The autounattend.xml content the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<unattend>
<settings>
</settings>
</unattend>

[nicecube]

I have formated my Kingston USB drive and start from scratch, i copied my Windows 7 ISO, i got the same error, this time i formated it to NTSF

[nicecube]

The selected XML file is copied into \AutoUnattend.xml by E2B, then

E2B checks \AutoUnattend.xml for the word 'component'

 

Are you using a Removable USB drive or a Fixed USB disk + WinHelper Flash drive?

Do they have the \AutoUnattend.xml  100K files present?

 

I just try in a real PC and its working, i just have the error with VMware and virtual box, ty for this great tool

[steve6375]

Under a VM, a USB flash drive appears as a hard disk and not as a Removable device.

Windows only picks up the XML from removable devices.

Also, writes may not work correctly under a VM unless the USB volume is first dismounted.

Use VirtualBox+VMUB to get full write access (but the USB drive will still be a Fixed-disk type).

https://youtu.be/mvYkujvUXhc

[Wonko the Sane]

This maybe is where dummydisk.sys and reversed dummydisk.sys may become of use?

 

Wonko

[nguyentu]

Related to SWITCH_E2B, you can use GetFileOffset instead of getFileExtents. It adds support for FAT32.

 

GetFileOffset.exe (50,0 KB)

 

 

GetFileOffset.exe D:\ubuntu.img

 

Offset On Disk 0        : 119680217088

Offset On Drive D:      : 56067305472

Disk ID                 : 0

Disk Style              : GPT

Bytes Per Sector        : 512

File Size               : 1,58 GB

Edited by nguyentu, 09 January 2017 - 08:52 AM.

[Wonko the Sane]

Related to SWITCH_E2B, you can use GetFileOffset instead of getFileExtents. It adds support for FAT32.

 

GetFileOffset.exe (50,0 KB)

But one needs file extents, i.e. besides the offset, also the number of sectors used, knowing that D:\ubuntu.img is 1,58 GB doesn't help much.

 

Wonko