Monday 16 September 2013

Slax 7.0 with persistence for Easy2Boot

I spent a few hours today trying to get Slax 7 working with persistence on an NTFS USB drive.
It seems this does not work. I tried various switches/cheat codes but the closest I came was to make an ext2 filesystem file and copy the ISO contents to the mounted ext2 filesystem - then use a grub4dos menu and the partnew command to map the ext2 file as partition 3 and then boot Slax from that, this almost worked, persistence was set up on the ext2 volume and it almost fully booted to the Desktop but got some errors on the very last stage and stopped with I/O errors.

Here are the conclusions I came to:
  • Slax recognises the source folder if it contains any *.sb file (the  .sb file can be any name but there must be at least one present in the 'source' folder that it looks at) and then mounts that folder. The folder path can be set using the from= parameter which can be the path to the source ISO file (in which case it will be read-only and so persistence will not be enabled), or the path to the source files which have been extracted onto a disk drive (which is what we need in our case). Slax then looks for a folder called changes under this folder. If it finds one, it tries to create a changes.dat file for persistence. If this fails then persistence is not enabled.
    Therefore - whatever source is used, Slax tries to create the persistence file on the same drive as the source .sb module files.
  • Slax seems to fail to create a changes.dat folder on an NTFS volume - therefore your source boot files must be on a FAT32 (or maybe ext2/3/4) volume. It will boot from an NTFS volume (via ISO or flat files), but it won't enable persistence.
  • Using the toram switch (to run Slax in memory) means that persistence will be temporarily disabled until it is run without the toram parameter.
  • The changes=  cheat code did not seem to affect anything??
  • Some USB devices are not detected by the Slax 9.11.00 boot kernel and therefore will not fully boot - e.g. SilverStone MS09. Try the 'fdisk -l' command if the kernel aborts to the console on booting and see if USB is listed.
In the end, this is the grub4dos .mnu file I came up with for Easy2Boot. It can be adapted for different versions of Slax each with a different persistence file by changing the slaxsrc folder location.

# Extract the iso \slax folder using 7Zip to \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux and rename it to slax708_32  
#   (so, for example, the first file will be at \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux\slax708_32\01-core.sb)
# Copy this .mnu file to \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux
# The  \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux\slax708_32\changes   folder must exist for persistence to activate
# Persistence does not work if the slax source folder is on an NTFS or read-only volume!

iftitle [if exist %MFOLDER%/Linux/slax708_32/01-core.sb] SLAX 7.0.8 32-bit persistent \n Run Slax with persistent changes (FAT32 ONLY)
if not exist %MFOLDER%/Linux/slax708_32/changes/changes.dat echo Info: Persistence file is not yet present... && pause --wait=2
set slaxsrc=%MFOLDER%/Linux/slax708_32
kernel %slaxsrc%/boot/vmlinuz vga=773 rw slax.flags=perch,xmode  from=%slaxsrc%
initrd %slaxsrc%/boot/initrfs.img

Sunday 15 September 2013

E2B v1.10 released (bug fix)

The DEFMENU=0 setting was not working (thanks to Sergei for pointing it out) - now fixed.
Also added a   'set NOUNIFONT=1' setting which disables the loading of the 1MB unifont.hex.gz file for people who do not need or want the non-ASCII character support.

Saturday 14 September 2013

new Video - Install Windows XP using Easy2Boot



E2B v1.09 released

This version has a few minor changes as described below:

v1.09 2013-09-14 Some sample .mnu files revised and added, .vhdmem, imz, imggz extensions supported, set DEFMENU=0 supported for no 'set default' menu item, .txt files now checked for 'title' keyword and user warned if missing.

If you set 

set DEFMENU=0

in your MyE2B.cfg file then the 'set default menu entry and timeout' menu item will not appear in the Main menu.

Also, if you accidentally create a .txt file for a payload file and forget to precede the entry with the word 'title' then E2B will warn you when it enumerates the files on boot. I have had several cases where users have forgotten to add the word 'title'.

.vhdmem will load the whole vhd file into memory.

.imz and .imggz are now recognised as valid fdd images.

I have also made available a 30MB download of E2B + the XP Mass Storage DriverPack files to make it easier to create an XP install E2B USB drive.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Add GeeXBox ISO to Easy2Boot

GeeXBox is an XBox Media Centre linux release (XBMC). You can boot it from an ISO file in E2B but you need to also extract and copy the rootfs file from the ISO and place it in the root of the USB boot drive.

e.g.
\_ISO\MAIMENU\GeexBox-3.0-i386.iso
\rootfs




Using the following .mnu file you can have persistence too but it seems to cause some problems which I haven't managed to solve yet.

# For persistence, create an ext2 file called casper-rw in the root of the boot drive using RMPrepUSB Create ext2 FS button
# Then rename the file to geexbox-rw  (do NOT create a file called geexbox-rw - you MUST create a file called casper-rw first and then rename it!)
# Place ISO in \_ISO\Mainmenu\linux or \_ISO\Linux\Linux (and this .mnu file too)
# Extract the file rootfs from the ISO using 7Zip and copy it to the root of the USB drive
# DOES NOT WORK UNDER NORMAL VM  (you can use VBox + DavidB's USB VM Starter app)!!!
# If it complains about broken repositories, do not disable them if prompted.

iftitle [if exist %MFOLDER%/Linux/GeexBox-3.0-i386.iso] GeexBox \n GeexBox using /geexbox as a persistence file
if exist CD echo WARNING: Cannot use partnew command! && pause && configfile (bd)/menu.lst
set ISO=GeexBox-3.0-i386.iso
#enable parttype output
partnew (hd0,3) 0x0 %MFOLDER%/Linux/%ISO%
# make empty table entry in 3rd position in ptn table
debug 1
parttype (hd0,2) | set check=
debug off
set check=%check:~-5,4%
if "%check%"=="0x00" partnew (hd0,2) 0 0 0
if not "%check%"=="0x00" echo WARNING: PTN TABLE 3 IS ALREADY IN USE! && pause
debug 1
if not exist /geexbox-rw echo WARNING: /geexbox-rw persistence file not found! && pause
errorcheck off
if "%check%"=="0x00" partnew (hd0,2) 0x0 /geexbox-rw
errorcheck on
map %MFOLDER%/Linux/%ISO% (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 ro vga=789 persistent
initrd /initrd

Sunday 8 September 2013

RMPrepUSB v2.1.710 available

RMPartUSB code has been updated to v 2.1.710. RMPrepUSB has just had it's version number updated to match that of RMPartUSB.

When MAX size is specified in RMPrepUSB to partition and format a drive, RMPartUSB used all available drive space as reported to it by the drive's 'get-size' function call under Windows. However, some USB drives seem to report their size inaccurately (at least under Win7) leading to a partition being created by RMPartUSB that was actually slightly larger than the end of the physical drive. As a result the last few sectors of the partition could not be accessed and this seemed to cause very slow access (BIOS timeouts) when running the Easy2Boot 'check-access' test or in grub4dos when accessing some volumes when looking for the WINHELPER.USB file or in XP when booting from a vhd (and possible when booting from flat files too?) - but only on some BIOSes. It may be that some BIOSes set up the disk geometry as modulo 255*63 as they expect the partitions to be modulo 255*63 and then try to access the end of the disk (for some strange reason).
The new version of RMPartUSB now reduces the reported drive size to a whole cylinder (nearest 8MBish) and checks that the end is accessible (and reduces it further if it is still not accessible). This should reduce the occurrence of some strange 'slow' access problems occasionally seen in grub4dos and booting XP from a USB drive and with Easy2Boot on some systems.
I recommend updating to this new version which I will release as the standard version in a few days if no problems are reported with it. If practical, reformat your E2B flash drives with this new version if you were having any 'slow' or 'hanging' problems using E2B.
The DriveInfo command has also been tweaked to show the end LBA sector of each partition and to report the drive size as reported by the drive as well as the size that RMPrepUSB will use if you partition the drive using 'MAX' for the volume size.

Three new 'Tutorials' added

109 - USB Rubber Ducky Hack Device (Hak5)  (just information rather than a tutorial!)
110 - Run full Windows XP to Go! from a USB drive Install full XP to a VHD in 30 minutes (works on some systems but not all!)
111 - How to semi-automate and speed-up Windows driver installs (if you often manually re-install Windows using Setup.exe on the same model of system, why not semi-automate the driver installation and save time).

Thursday 5 September 2013

FAST! Windows NTFS file search of your entire system in a few seconds! - SwiftSearch

SwiftSearch requires Admin privileges, however, it is VERY FAST!
You can use regular expressions or use a search pattern like t*.xl??  to find Excel files beginning with t or T. On my 250GB nearly full C: volume it did this search in about 1 second (after reading the NTFS file table on the first search, which took about 5 seconds)!
Not only is it fast, but it actually finds the files I am looking for (even if it is a hidden or system file) unlike the next-to-useless Win 7 search engine! Finally you can disable the resource hungry and delay-causing Windows Search Service and no need for an enormous index file either. Shame MS couldn't do this!
SwiftSearch is a standalone executable and therefore is a portable application - it ran fine under a vanilla Windows 7 PE environment too. This means it could be very useful for booting a system to WinPE from a USB drive and then quickly using SwiftSearch to find and copy an important file (or all .doc files?) onto your USB drive. Unfortunately you can only select and copy one file at a time in the search results (no Ctrl+A function) but at least right-click works as expected on individual files. Maybe this will be improved soon?
See here for a forum thread on SwiftSearch and comments from the author of SwiftSearch about hidden (previously undocumented) features:
  • F5 - re-index target volume (use this if you have copied files to the same volume since you launched SwiftSearch)
  • Ctrl+Search = find all files included deleted files (right-click on result to see file number) - combined with DiskBuddy's ability to read the MFT, that should be enough to tell you where a file is located on the disk.
  • Shift+Search = display all NTFS attributes
  • ESC - minimise to System Tray (re-indexes every 15 minutes)




Wednesday 4 September 2013

Easy2Boot v1.08 - few minor changes

v1.08 2013-09-04 bitdefender mnu file added to docs folder, Windows 8.1 temporary Product Keys added, master pwd option in MyE2B.cfg

Setting a master password prevents the user from running E2B unless they know the password.

Tested with Windows 8.1 x86 ISO (no E2B code changes were required but new Windows 8.1 keys need to be entered to install Win8.1).

Link for leaked Win8.1 ISOs is available in External Links page on www.rmprepusb.com site.

Tuesday 3 September 2013

'Hide' grub4dos menu.lst and other 'sensitive' files

If you have made a grub4dos bootable USB drive and you have password protected the menu.lst (or maybe just some of the menu entries) using the grub4dos password command, it is really quite easy for someone to hack the menu.lst file and simply remove the password lines just by using Notepad.

Another scenario is that you have set up an expiry date in the menu.lst file, so that when the expiry date is reached, a message will warn the user that it has expired and it should be updated and you don't want this to be circumvented! . See here for details on how to set this up.

Here are two ideas which I use to deter the amateur hacker.

1. Use 7Zip to compress the menu.lst file (or any sensitive .g4b batch files or other files loaded by grub4dos) to GZip format. Ensure that the resultant filename and extension is not changed and grub4dos will still run it just fine.

2. Set the file attribute on the 'sensitive' files (e.g. menu.lst) to Hidden (right-click - properties - Hidden).
You could also set the file attribute to System+Hidden+ReadOnly to make it even more difficult to see in Windows Explorer. You can use the Windows command line and the attrib menu.lst +h +r +s command or use NirSoft BulkFileChanger to do this.

This (compression to Gzip +  attribute change) will also work on most of the grub4dos Easy2Boot files (e.g. all .g4b, .lst and .mnu files and even your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file). Just keep the filename and the extension the same. Any file loaded by grub4dos that is detected as being in compressed gzip format is automatically uncompressed by grub4dos when it is read.

Of course, now I have told everyone this, it is no longer a secret!


Footnote: Another format that grub4dos can read is lzma, but not the standard lzma compression used by 7Zip. This format is slightly better because if you open it in NotePad, you don't see any tell-tale header information. For this lzma compression which grub4dos understands, we need to use the Windows lzma.exe utility

1. Download lzma.exe from https://code.google.com/p/grub4dos-chenall/downloads/detail?name=lzma.exe
2. Open command prompt
3. Type
                  lzma.exe e J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg.lzma
4. Delete the original file and rename the lzma so it is the same name as the original (e.g. MyE2B.cfg).

To decode the compressed file, use the d parameter:

              lzma.exe d J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg.txt

P.S. 7Zip can also decode the compressed lzma files if you add the .zip extension - 7Zip lists them as LZMA:23 encoded files.

For more details and also a handy drag&drop utility to compress E2B files (without changing the original filename) see Tutorial 72a here. It also has a decompress drag&drop utility included too. Each file selected is checked first to ensure you don't try to double-compress a file by mistake!

E2B - bitdefender ISO + persistence now supported

You can run a BitDefender .ISO with persistence from an E2B USB drive which keeps AV updates on the USB drive's persistent ext2 filesystem. I have added a new .mnu file to the E2B download - look in the \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu files folder (as usual).

Saturday 24 August 2013

Easy2Boot v1.07 now available

Download Version 1.07 here.

  • Latest grldr gives better alphabetical sorting (e.g. _fred.iso now listed in E2B menu before afred.iso).
  • .isope file extension support - if WinPE2/3/4 iso then when wpeinit runs, the iso will be loaded as a virtual CD/DVD.  See here for more info.
  • WinPE ISOs (.isope) can mount the .ISO after booting and user can define any drive letter for the ISO and auto-run a post-cmd batch file once ISO is loaded. See here for more info.
  • ISOASK variable supported (is set, will ask user how to run every .iso). See here for more info.
  • Can force any .iso to run as if it had a different file extension by creating a .mnu file for the iso file. See here for more details.


Sunday 18 August 2013

E2B v1.07 Beta5

Another small change for Zalman ZM-VE200/300/400 CD emulator owners! You do not have to change the .iso file extension for E2B now.

This version allows you create a .mnu file for each .iso file that requires a different extension for E2B.

For instance, if you have a Hirens iso file and you want to run it with the .isowinvh file extension in E2B, but leave the hirens iso file with a .iso extension on the Zalman E2B drive, use this .mnu text:

title Hirens ISO\n Boot direct from Hirens ISO\n If running DOS utilities from an NTFS drive you may need to select the NTFS driver when offered a choice instead of AUTO
/%grub%/qrun.g4b force.isowinvh %MFOLDER%/Utility/Hiren's.BootCD.15.2.iso
boot


The force.isowinvh is a dummy filename (any filename will do!) followed by the extension that you want E2B to use. Whatever extension is specified in this first dummy parameter will be used to run the .iso file that is specified in the second parameter. So in this case, the Hirens .iso file will be run by E2B as if it had a .isowinvh file extension.

In the example above, the hirens iso file and .mnu file would be present in the \_ISO\UTILITIES\Utility folder or \_ISO\MAINMENU\Utility folder  (i.e. at the \_ISO\xxxx\Utility level).

Friday 16 August 2013

E2B v1.07Beta 4 now available - BUGFIX!

bugfix for v 1.00 and all later versions - %MFOLDER% was set to ()/_ISO/xxx instead of /_ISO/xxx by AUTOMN.g4b. This meant that some sample .mnu files that used (bd)%MFOLDER% did not work and you needed to remove the (bd) portion to get them to work.
Beta4 fixes AUTOMN.g4b so that MFOLDER is now /_ISO/xxxx  as it was in most previous Beta versions.
If you are having problems getting the sample .mnu files to work, try this new version!
See Easy2Boot V1 Tutorial 72a  (bottom of page) for the download.

Thursday 15 August 2013

E2B v1.07Beta3 now available

If you add the line
set ISOASK=1
to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file, then any ISO file listed in the E2B menus will run as if the extension was .isoask  (i.e. it will run the .iso and ask you to choose a way to run it).
This means if you have a Zalman CD/DVD  USB HDD caddy, you do not have to have duplicate copies of all the iso files (e.g. have hirens.isowinvH for E2B and hirens.iso for the Zalman). All your files can be .iso but when running E2B, it will ask you how to run them.

Easy2Boot 1.07 Beta 2 now available

This has enhanced WinPE2/3/4 ISO support.
If you place a file that is the same filename as the ISO in the same folder as the WinPE ISO, e.g.
\_ISO\MAINMENU\WinPEx86ABC.isoPE
\_ISO\MAINMENU\WinPEx86ABC.cmd

WinPEx86ABC.cmd
===============
set ISOLETTER=S:


then if no <isoname>.cmd file exists then Y: is used, otherwise the letter set in your .cmd file is used. If Y: is already used then the next free letter will be used to mount the WinPE ISO.

Now .cmd files as well as .mnu and .txt files will not be listed in the menu.

This version also supports the .isoPE01  extension. This has the same function as .isoPE but swaps hd0 and hd1 over before booting to the ISO. This may be useful for some repair ISOs that expect hd0 to be the primary internal system disk.

Beta2a has minor change to add double-quotes around the iso filename when ImDisk is called to load the ISO - this should (may) allow filenames with spaces in them to work (e.g. SVR2012).

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Easy2Boot v1.07Beta now available

This version recognises iso's with a .isoPE extension.

This can be used with Vista/7/8 WinPE ISOs. If the extension is .isoPE then when WinPE runs and wpeinit starts, the .ISOPE file will be automatically loaded in WinPE as a virtual CD/DVD drive.
This means that once the WinPE is fully loaded, it will have access to all the files in the ISO as a virtual CD/DVD drive.
Note that this only works if you use an E2B USB flash drive, or use an E2H USB HDD + USB 'Helper' Flash drive, as the \unattend.xml file is required to be on a 'removable' USB drive for this to work.

This version is available from the downloads section of the E2B Tutorial here.

There have also been some minor changes to the LOADISOxx.cmd files used for Vista/7/8 install ISOs but hopefully this should not affect their function at all.

Monday 5 August 2013

Easy2Boot v1.06

If you update your current E2B USB drive, it will make quite a few changes and you will need to delete some files from your existing E2B USB drive - otherwise you may get duplicate entries in the menu!

The big change in this version is that ALL files are sorted alphabetically. In previous versions you could either have all .mnu files listed in the menu first and then all payload (e.g. .iso) files OR all payload files first and then all .mnu files.

With version 1.06  .mnu and payload files are enumerated in one go, so the menu will list entries according to the files alphanumeric order. This means you can arrange the menu better (just sort the files by name in Windows Explorer to see what order they will be in). It also means that the boot is quicker as the whole \_ISO folder is only enumerated once instead of twice.

I have had to re-organise some files in the \_ISO\Mainmenu folder.  Mainmenu.mnu is gone and so are the SubMenuxxx.mnu files. Instead we have some ZZxxxxx.mnu files. Obviously these will be listed last in the main menu.

Although all menu entries will now be listed in the menu according to their filename, it is important to realise two things:

1. If a .txt file is specified for a payload file, or a .mnu file is found, then the actual text that appears in the menu is that contained in the file.
e.g.
a.mnu   (contains 'title X files')
z.iso  
z.txt     (contains 'title Runs z.iso')

then the menu will look like this
X files
Runs z.iso
2. Files in sub-folders will be listed alphabetically as each folder name is discovered. This means that a .mnu file entry from a file at \_ISO\MAINMENU\A\Zlot.mnu will appear in the main menu before a payload file at \_ISO\MAINMENU\backup.iso.



If you want to try the new version, you can download it here.

I recommend you make a new USB E2B drive and re-copy your payload files onto the drive.

If you want to just update your current E2B drive then you will need to delete the following files:
All \_ISO\MAINMENU\SubMenuxxxxx.mnu files
\_ISO\MAINMENU\mainmenu.mnu
\_ISO\e2b\grub\adf2mm.g4b (no longer required)
Note that you can now control the position of each individual menu entry (except F9 and F10 which will always be last in the menu) by renaming the payload and .mnu files.

Files in \_ISO\MAINMENU folder
=========================
ZZSubMenuAntiVirus.mnu
ZZSubMenuAuto.mnu
ZZSubMenuBackup.mnu
ZZSubMenuDos.mnu
ZZSubMenuLinux.mnu
ZZSubMenuUtilities.mnu
ZZSubMenuWinPE.mnu
ZZWindowsInstall.mnu

ZZZF7BootHdd.mnu
ZZZF8ReloadMenu.mnu

If you want the sub-menu entries for the sub-folders to be listed first in the main menu, just add $ in front of the first 8 ZZxxxx.mnu files.

Note that ZZZF7BootHdd.mnu and ZZZF8ReloadMenu.mnu must not be deleted and must be alphabetically last so that the F9 and F10 entries, which are automatically added to the end of the menu by E2B, will be listed in order and look nice!

Please add a comment if you have tried this and give me your feedback!






Saturday 3 August 2013

Easy2Boot v1.05

This version has a few minor changes:

1. Some more sample .mnu files added to the docs folder
2. A new 'Jolene' menu theme added to docs folder (see below) For Star Trek fans!
3. Ability to suppress the E2B file enumeration messages by setting a new grub4dos variable in your MyE2B.cfg file.

set redir=> nul

If you also want to suppress the E2B progress messages (not recommended as they may be useful on systems with bad BIOSes) then add this line:

set redirp=> nul

See the \_ISO\Sample_MyE2B.cfg file (end) for an example of these two lines (note there is a space between the > and nul).

New 'Jolene' sample background and borderless menu (also redir is also set, so silent file enumeration is enabled).