Tuesday 30 July 2019

SysRescueCD MBR+UEFI+persistence

The latest SysRescueCD v6.0.3  now uses Arch Linux, so I have updated the instructions in the previous SysRescueCD blog article.


Wednesday 24 July 2019

WARNING! Don't buy this 'BAD USB' cable from Amazon - it could start a fire!

I purchased this USB cable from Amazon yesterday for use in the car with my smartphone.

TECHGEAR: USB C Cable, 30cm USB Type C 90 Degree Right Angle Sync & Fast Charge Reversible Cable

I was intrigued by the 'reversible' design of the USB 2.0 connector as well as the right-angle connectors. I have never seen a USB Type-A male connector with a set of contacts on each side and I wondered how it worked...

So today I used it to connect my phone (a Moto G7) to the USB socket of my new VW Golf, but the Golf console failed to detect that any USB device was connected to it!

So I disconnected the phone from the cable but left the USB 2.0 cable connected to the car's USB port.

After driving back home from the supermarket, I went to unplug the USB 2.0 connector from the car in order to test it...

Updated version of E2B_Editor.exe with support for STAMPs

E2B_Editor.exe v1.0.97 now displays any STAMPs that you have specified in your .cfg file.

It is also in E2B v1.B5a Beta.


All ten stamps (STAMP1 to STAMP10) are supported but the transparency value (0x80) will be ignored - all stamps will be opaquely overlaid onto the wallpaper when displayed by E2B_Editor.

You can quickly experiment with the position of your STAMPs by editing the MyE2B.cfg file and then reloading it back into the E2B_Editor.exe to see how it looks.

If a non-existent STAMP file is specified then there will be no error message or warning - it just won't appear.

Please let me know if you find any bugs!

Tuesday 23 July 2019

E2B v1.B5a Beta now available

Booting Windows NT6 .VHD and .WIM files

Previously although .wim and .vhd files did not need to be contiguous, their file extension had to be unaltered so you could not use a file extension of say .wim64 so that it would only be listed on 64-bit systems, or perhaps  Win7Ult.vhd64ncq so that it would only be listed on 64-bit systems and so E2B would not complain about the fact that it was not contiguous.

Sunday 21 July 2019

E2B v1.B4 now available

I just noticed that the file extension suffixes '64', '32', '4GB' and '3GB' no longer work on recent versions of E2B!

e.g.  Ubuntu 64.iso64 should only be listed in the menu if the CPU is a 64-bit CPU. Similarly, Ubuntu.iso3GB should only be listed in the E2B menu if the system contains less than 4GB of RAM.

E2B extension suffixes (not case sensitive)

These should work with most file extensions (v1.B5 will also allow .wim and .vhd extensions to have these suffixes)...

32 - file is only listed in menu on systems with 32-bit CPU
64 - file is only listed in menu on systems with 64-bit CPU
3GB - file is only listed in menu on systems with less than 4GB of RAM
4GB - file is only listed in menu on systems with more than 4GB of RAM
pwd - user must enter a password before the payload file can be run
NCQ -  (non-contiguous+quiet), the payload will not prompt the user with suggestions, redir will be set and will not try to make the file contiguous
quiet - redir will be set so that most messages will be suppressed
quietp - redir and redirp will be set so that all messages including warnings will be suppressed

e.g.
Ubuntu amd64.iso4GB64pwdquietp
Ubuntu i386.iso3GBncq

Read more: http://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-files/list-of-file-extensions-recognised-by-e2b/

New feature in v1.B4

I have also added support for Debian\Kali + persistence by using the new .isopersistdebian file extension in E2B v1.B4 (details here). Although you still have to create the persistence file, you don't need to create a .mnu file for it now.

I noticed the issue '64' extension suffix bug because I tested .isopersistdebian64 as a file extension and found it was still being listed on a 32-bit system!

The new 1.B4 version is also available on the two Alternate Download Areas.


Tuesday 16 July 2019

Last Minute Amazon Prime deals!

Get them whilst they are hot!

Samsung 860 2TB SSD
Samsung 240GB SSD  (less than half-price!)
Crucial 1TB M.2 PCIe 
WD 500GB M.2 SATA  (combine with SilverStone USB for super-fast E2B drive)

P.S. If you are reading this you are too late now!


Friday 12 July 2019

E2B UEFI multiboot video now available on YouTube

A new (pretty bad!) E2B video is now up.


It shows you how adding a 2nd FAT32 partition will allow you to UEFI-boot to any .imgPTN23 UEFI payload and how you can boot to WinPE to run SWITCH_E2B.exe and switch to any other UEFI .imgPTN23 file you have on the E2B drive.

Note that Secure Boot is supported when using this scheme (as long as the UEFI payload files are signed) so you don't need to turn off Secure Boot.

You do not need to MBR-boot or run SWITCH_E2B.exe under Windows first.

I had problems finding a camera that worked - all mine seemed to have auto-focus always on (no manual/fixed focus) and so didn't work very well on LCD screens! I also had problems with reflections too. In the end I used my webcam.

I guess I should invest in a fancy capture card, but it hardly seems worth it for the occasional video where I need to capture the screen output from a real BIOS.

Wednesday 10 July 2019

Easy2Boot v1.B3 released (with bugfixes for v1.B2)

Some bugs in v1.B2 have come to light, the most serious being that XP installs no longer work and give an 'ntkrnlmp.exe file could not be loaded' error.


v1.B3 changes:
  1. BUGFIX for XP Install Step 1 giving 'File ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. Error code 14'
  2. BUGFIX for Change Language mnu
  3. BUGFIX some Windows Install ISOs did not give repair option
  4. Improve TURKISH help menu (thanks to dnecro) + few other tweaks
  5. Latest grub4dos
Please download update from here.

Friday 5 July 2019

Add Windows Install ISOs to your E2B grub2 menu system

I have made a new version of the E2B grub2 menu system - version 10W.

The 'W' is for Windows because it allows you to MBR or non-secure UEFI-boot directly from Windows Install ISO files.

Assuming you already have your E2B drive setup for the grub2 menu system, do this...

  1. Just download the new .imgPTN23AUTO file   UEFI_GRUB2_PTN2_Beta10W_Beta.imgPTN23AUTO   from the Alternate Downloads Area and copy it to your \_ISO\MAINMENU folder.
  2. Then switch to it in the usual way (e.g. using SWITCH_E2B.exe)
  3. Now create a new folder at \_ISO\WINDOWS\WIN10 on Partition 2 and add all your Windows ISOs into it (you can also use WIN8, etc. too if you wish).


4. Now you can MBR or UEFI boot to the grub2 menu system and then select the new Windows Install menu (W) and pick any ISO listed in the menu.

You don't need to make a menu for each ISO and the ISOs don't need to be contiguous and the filenames can contain spaces so you can rename them as you wish. Microsoft dual/both (x86+x64) ISOs should also work.

More info at the bottom of this page.

Switch to the new .imgPTN file (sorry about the background and the animated squirrel!)