Wednesday 3 April 2019

UEFI-multiboot for E2B now supports UEFI 32-bit and 64-bit

I have made a dual WinPE partition image for use with Easy2Boot X4 files.
This allows you to select and boot from a variety of UEFI payloads on an E2B USB drive without the need to Legacy\CSM-boot or find another Windows system to run SWITCH_E2B.exe.



Here is how to do it...

Requirements


  1. Latest version of E2B
  2. Latest version of the MPI Tool Kit
  3. Latest version of SWITCHPE_x32_x64 (see eBook #3 for download link)
  4. A variety of UEFI32-bootable and UEFI64-bootable payloads (e.g. ISO files converted to .imgPTN23 files)

Method

  1. Download the SWITCHPE_x32_x64 zip file and extract the file which is inside it. You can rename the file if you wish.
  2. Copy the SWITCHPE_x32_x64 file to the \_ISO folder on the 2nd Primary NTFS partition of your E2B USB drive. If you don't want to make a 2nd partition, you can use the \_ISO folder on the E2B partition, but this may cause problems because SWITCH_E2B.exe may need to move the files so that they are in the correct order. I strongly recommend you delete the small 31K 2nd partition and create a larger (say 1GB+) NTFS Primary partition on your E2B drive.
  3. Use the MPI_FAT32 shortcut to convert each of your payloads to .imgPTN files. Answer R for REFIND when prompted. If you have already made .imgPTN files which include REFIND, you do not need to remake them.
    Note: Even if the payloads are not UEFI-bootable, you may want to add REFIND into them in case you need to boot the USB drive from a UEFI-only system.
  4. Copy the .imgPTN files to your E2B menu folders and change their file extension to .imgptnX4switchpe_x32_x64, or use .imgptnautoX4switchpe_x32_x64 if you don't want to be prompted by E2B to switch.
E2B: \_ISO\MAINMENU\Ubuntu64.imgptnX4switchpe_x32_x64
Ptn2: \_ISO\switchpe_x32_x64

Be aware that adding REFIND into a .imgPTN file will break Secure UEFI booting. You can still however Secure Boot by enrolling the \refind.cer key file using Mok Manager. However, this is not always reliable and it does update the target system's NVRAM and make it less Secure.

Usage

You must select the first .imgPTNX4 image before you can UEFI-boot from any system. This can be done by Legacy\CSM-booting to the E2B menu and selecting any .imgptnX4 file, or by running SWITCH_E2B from any Windows system

Once you have switched in the .imgPTNX4 file, you can UEFI-boot to the payload (e.g. UEFI64-boot if the payload and system are both UEFI64, or UEFI32-boot if both payload and system are UEFI-32). You can also boot to WinPE on both UEFI32 and UEFI64 systems and then run SWITCH_E2B.exe to restore the E2B partitions and then (if required) select another .imgPTNX4 file.

First select an 'X4SwitchPE_x32_x64 image

Select the correct WinPE OS


WinPE x64 64-bit Desktop

WinPE x86 32-bit desktop

How to UEFI-boot from the E2B USB drive to start with

The above system must be first started by switching to a .imgPTNX4 file first. This may not always be possible however if you find yourself confronted by a UEFI-only system and have no other Windows system available to run SWITCH_E2B.exe on.

There is a simple way to add the WinPE files to your E2B drive so that it will MBR-boot to the E2B menu or UEFI-boot to WinPE where you can run SWITCH_E2B.exe and switch in any .imgPTN file.

This is described in a new eBook on UEFI-booting with E2B coming soon...

14 comments:

  1. For me the changes are too fast to keep up: I really need a new E2B eBook update ("How to make a multiboot USB drive using Easy2Boot").

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  2. The old eBook will be updated soon and there will be a new eBook 'How to make a multi-boot UEFI Easy2Boot USB drive' soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey, the WinPE image when booted is not in English even though eng is selected. The start menu etc is in cyrillic text

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, but it was the smallest WinPE x64 I could find at only 220MB. The smallest English WinPE with WoW64 is 400MB. So the Russian one loads twice as fast! You can download and replace the SWITCH_x64.wim file with the larger English one if you like.

      Delete
  4. thanks for the reply. Do you have a link for the larger English one?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the Beta folder with all the others! CustomPE_v3 (old) for instance. Just replace the switch_x64.wim with the larger one from CustomPE.

      Delete
    2. UEFI BIOSes dont like overlapping or out-of-order partitions. They just seem to regard all partitions on the disk as 'invalid'.

      Delete
  5. Excellent. "Hiding" right under my nose! Excellent work. Moving all my .imgPTN images over to the X4 setup.
    One other thing. Previously, when using the imgPTN23 extension, I was able to also have the second partition on my USB drive available when I switched in an image. Is there a way to also get this behavior when using the imgPTNX4SWITCHPE type setup?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. yes, just use .imgPTN23X4switchpe.

      Delete
    2. P.S. I just tried this and UEFI BIOSes don't seem to like USB drives with 3 partitions!
      They don't show any boot option and the UEFI shell does not see any volumes!
      Ptn1: FAT32
      Ptn2: FAT32
      Ptn3: empty
      Ptn4: FAT32 or NTFS
      = no UEFI boot at all! Not in VBox or on real systems (Ideapad 300 and Asus Z87-A).

      Delete
    3. I was thinking of throwing 23 into the extension mix and see what happens! I will test on my beater thinkpad L530 and get back to you. Will set BIOs for UEFI boot only and no CSM. That is the scenario I am looking to deal with with (1 USB stick / no windows needed to switch). Your latest easy2boot update is very promising. Thanks for the help, much appreciated.

      Delete
    4. Same here... no boot when adding the 23 option with two partitions on the drive.

      Delete
  6. Hello,

    The SwitchPE_x32_x64 link is dead. (I spent 15 minutes signing in, updating, and verifying my Live.com account). It says the file no longer exists. I also tried googling for the file. No luck. Please update.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi - try now. The text says that the WinPE download may only be available for a limited time.
    EBook #3 contains all up to date download links.
    http://www.easy2boot.com/download/ebook/

    ReplyDelete