Silence grub4dos boot-up messages

As gub4dos boots, you may see the following messages as it boots.

If your E2B USB drive is an exFAT drive, you may see even more messages.

The \_ISO\Sample_MyE2B.cfg file contains some sample code lines which can suppress these and other boot messages by patching the code in the MBR and the \grldr file.

This should work on both grub4dos 0.4.6a and 0.4.5c versions.

E2B v1.97e now available

Changes from v1.97d are:

• Latest release version of grub4dos 0.4.6a
• Make_E2B_USB_Drive.cmd now prompts user to delete or change the size of CONTIG.ISO file at the end.

The download is available in .exe (may get a virus warning!) and .zip format (run Make_E2B.exe after extracting).

E2B v1.97d BETA available

New version available from the Alternate Downloads Areas (in both self-extracting .exe and .zip form in case of false-positive virus detection issues).

Changes from v1.96A

• Make_E2B.exe - Extract button now works even if no USB drive detected and not run as admin, now warns that user will require WinHelper USB Flash drive for WIndows Install ISOs if using Fixed Disk
• Desinfect 2017 sample .mnu file added
• Fix $Default E2B Menu.cfg by adding !BAT to prevent initial error message after using PimpMydrive.cmd (bugfix).
• Snappy SDIO .cfg file changed to suppress GNU licence EULA on first run + later version
• Change to all menus and language files - menu help text now does not have leading space at start of each help line. 
• New hstart and hwidth parameters can be set in MyE2B.cfg to set the x start offset and width of the menu help text. 
• 'No !BAT string in MyE2B.cfg' error message suppressed if no MyE2B.cfg file exists (bugfix).
• Small bugfix to E2B_Editor and it now lists both .bmp and .jpg files in open file dialog by default.
• New grub4dos version. String command bugfix in grub4dos and other small bugs fixed. New setmenu draw-box command added.
• CENTREHD code revised for better menu heading centering.
• Small \_ISO\SampleBackround.jpg file added for use with E2B_Editor.
• DrawBox.cfg theme added

Black Friday E2B Treats!

Why not upgrade your E2B drive to the fastest\best flash drive and take advantage of the Black Friday reductions?

SanDisk Extreme Pro USB 3.1 128GB - $60 or £66 (save $20/£27!!!)

or the 256GB version for only $100.

Tip: The 'Go' version is cheaper but slower (1\10th random 4K speed so not suitable for WinToGo)!

Now you can add WindowsToGo VHD files and boot to Windows 10 directly from your E2B drive - but you may forget that you are actually running from a USB drive!

E2B v1.96A released (bugfix for v1.96)

Due to a small bug in v1.96, I have decided to re-release v1.96 as v1.96A.

The bug was that if you had no \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file, you would see a 'ERROR IN \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file - Check first line starts with !BAT' message when you boot to E2B.

The new v1.96A does NOT include the latest changes in the v1.97c BETA version, so E2B v1.97c is currently the latest, most up-to-date version, although it is still at Beta status.

E2B v1.97c BETA available

Changes from v1.96 are:

1. New Make_E2B.exe - extract button now works even if no USB drive detected and not run as admin
2. Desinfect 2017 sample .mnu file added,
3. Fix $Default E2B Menu.cfg by adding !BAT to prevent initial error message after using PimpMydrive.cmd.
4. Snappy SDIO .cfg file changed to suppress GNU licence EULA on first run. 
5. Change to all menus and language files - menu help text now does not have leading space at start of each help line. 
6. New hstart and hwidth parameters can be set in MyE2B.cfg to set the x start offset and width of the menu help text.
7. No !BAT warning message if no MyE2B.cfg exists (bugfix)
8. SDI Origin .exe files updated.

Items 5 and 6 actually involved changing a great many .txt, .mnu, .g4b and language files to remove the space that was used in the menu help text.

The new version is available from the Alternate Downloads Areas.

E2B v1.97b available (with small bugfix)

E2B v1.97b is now available from the Alternate Download Areas.

There was a small bug in v1.96 reported by Nathan (thanks!).

If you run \_ISO\PimpMyDrive.cmd and then choose to add Themes, then when you next boot to E2B, you will see a warning message:

Press ENTER to continue and load the E2B menu.

This message occurs because E2B now checks that the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file starts with !BAT, but the new MyE2B.cfg that is initially used is just full of 00's.

Once you select a new Theme using the E2B menu, the error message will disappear because the contents of the MyE2B.cfg will be overwritten with new text.

Changes from v1.96 are:

• Make_E2B.exe - Extract button now works even if no USB drive detected and not run as admin
• Desinfect 2017 sample .mnu file added,
• Fix $Default E2B Menu.cfg by adding !BAT to prevent initial error message after using Pimp My drive.cmd.

If you have already run v1.96 PimpMyDrive.cmd and still see this error, selecting a Theme from the Main menu will fix it.

Add the E2B UtilMan password hack to any WinPE ISO's desktop

If your E2B USB drive contains bootable WinPE ISOs (e.g. Gandalf, Strelec, Bob Om, etc.), you can add shortcuts to the WinPE Desktops which will run the E2B UtilMan hack files. This will allow you to hack into any Windows system that is not encrypted.

YT video

1. First you need to add the PEStartup files and \TheOven_Startup.cmd to your E2B drive, as detailed in a previous blog here. For example, for a version with PortableApps already added, download and extract the PEStartup_Papps version to the E2B drive.

2. Next, boot to your WinPE ISO on the E2B USB drive (or if you prefer, you can double-click on the \AIO\Tools\PEStartup\PEStartup_x86.exe or PEStartup_x64.exe under your current Windows OS - but do not click on the 'Options - Perform' button or it will alter your Windows system!).

Some WinBuilder PEs such as Gandalf and Bob Om's PE v8 will automatically run PEStartup when WinPE boots. For other WinPEs, you will need to double-click on \TheOven_Startup.cmd to run PEStartup.

3. Now use PEStartup to add Shortcuts for \_ISO\docs\UtilMan\Utilman1PE_Patch.cmd and UtilMan4PE_Restore.cmd as shown in the screenshot below:

Add Desinfect 2017 + updates to E2B

I have updated the instructions in a previous blog on Desinfect.

You should be able boot from a Desinfect 2017 ISO with persistent virus signature updates if you follow the instructions carefully.

See the bottom of this page for details.

Add FreeBSD-based ISOs to E2B (+ new MPI Tool Pack released)

Bootable ISOs based on FreeBSD (e.g. FreeBSD-*11.1.iso) can now be booted by using .imgPTN image files.

I have just updated the MPI Tool Pack v.0.078.

Instructions are basically the same as for memstick images - see here (bottom of page).

For instance, you can MBR-boot to OPNsense ISOs (OPNsense-17.7.5-OpenSSL-dvd-amd64.iso) by creating a dummy .imgPTN file and removing the file extension from the ISO file so it is also loaded as a partition image.

To check if your ISO is compatible, load the ISO into 7Zip and look for a \boot\loader file inside the ISO.

Note: FreeNas .ISO files do not work using this method. You must use FreeNAS memstick images instead.

Geek notes

It is not possible to boot directly from the ISO using a simple menu such as: