E2B v1.81a Beta available

I have uploaded E2B 1.81a. The changes are fairly minor:

• Alternate Power off sample .mnu file added for systems where F10 does not turn off the system.
• Change Admin detection test in MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE script so does not rely on a Windows exe file. 
• Improve MOVE_IMGPTN script.
• Improve windows install from ISO for XML path specification and check /autounattend.xml is not empty. Either full path or just the filename can be used to specify the XML file. Now updates Helper Flash drive (if present) with XML file contents.

The file is available in the Alternate Download Areas as usual.

Note: v1.81b has an extra bugfix in QRUN.ISO for .isoPE and .ISOPE01 file extension causing the LOADISOPE.cmd file to error.

www.easy2boot.com and the new Ezoic page layout

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the www.easy2boot.com domain is now routed through Ezoic.

These guys reformat the original site layout for me (for free) and add more AdSense and other adverts which increases the ad revenue that the site earns and this helps towards the site costs (due to the large bandwidth load, the E2B site costs me £200 a year and many people use AdBlock to block the adverts on the site).

Ezoic experiment with different site layouts to find the 'optimal' layout. So one person may see a different site layout from another person (try Chrome 'Incognito' and you will get a different layout!). The first time you load an easy2boot.com page from Ezoic, it stores a cookie in your computer's browser cookie folder so that you will always get the same format each time you visit the site.

10% of new users will receive the original site layout. This is so that Ezoic can compare the original site performance with the new layouts.

A few users (who don't use AdBlock - thanks!) have complained about the misleading ads (e.g. 'Download Now' buttons).

You can use AdBlock to stop the ads, but you will still get the same 'Ezoic' layout and you will not see the original page layout.

A few people have been generous by donating and I am very grateful to them. If the new site layout annoys you and if you have donated £5 or more (or have contributed in other ways), please contact me for instructions on how to view the original site pages which have less ads and the original page layout. 

Adding Lenovo Maintenance Utilities (IBM DOS-based) to E2B

Some Lenovo (ex-IBM) maintenance utilities make an IBM-DOS bootable USB flash drive.

These USB flash drives are formatted with a FAT12 volume which boots to IBM DR-DOS via IBMBIO.com. Typically, they are in floppy diskette format (i.e. no partition table).

Under grub4dos, it is possible to boot from a FAT12 drive using:

chainloader --pcdos /ibmbio.com

However, if you convert the Lenovo USB flash drive to a FAT32 .imgPTN file and try to boot from it using E2B, you will find that it does not boot. The reason for this is that, unfortunately, IBM DR-DOS does not seem to boot from a FAT32 volume.

The IBM DOS boot chain is:

IBMBIO.COM -> IBMDOS.COM -> COMMAND.COM

We can fix this by using FreeDOS boot files in the .imgPTN partition image or by making an image .IMA file...

SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 64GB for just £17 (UK)

If you are fed up waiting for your E2B USB stick to boot or for your large .ISO, .imgPTN or .VHD files to be copied across, why not treat yourself to one of these?

SanDisk Extreme 64GB USB 3.0 - up to 245MB/s read speed and up to 190MB/s write speed. I have recommended these drives for about 2 years now and they routinely come out top in most USB Flash drive reviews for speed+value.

The cheapest I have found is from Tesco Direct here for £17 (+£3 P&P). Note: Looks like the price has now gone up to £22!!!

Note that very old versions of this drive were of the 'Fixed Disk' type, but all versions for the last year or so should be of the 'Removable' type.

Download official Microsoft Windows ISOs

I just saw an article on Dave's Computer Tips about a utility that will download official MS Windows Install ISOs + Office. Looks very handy! Why not subscribe too whilst you are there...

Note: 'English'  = American (USA)
          'English International' = English (UK)   !!!

Add Anvi Rescue Disk, Sophos Bootable AV, Trend Micro AV and Panda AV to your E2B drive

Note: None of the AV utilities below contain EFI boot files.

Anvi Rescue Disk 11

This is a free 100MB download from AnviSoft here. It supports several languages (see screenshot below).

E2B $$AddWin2Main.mnu bugfix!

If you want to directly run a Windows 8 or 10 Install ISO from the Main Menu and specify an XML file, you may find that it does not work!

Nikki reported that when using the $$AddWin2Main.mnu with a Win10 ISO and when setting the XML variable, a "Windows could not parse or process unattend answer file [D:\autonattend.xml]. The answer file is invalid" error was produced.

It turns out that the $$AddWin2Main.mnu file example was incorrect!

For Vista\Win7, you need to specify the XML variable with the full path of the XML file, but for Win8\10, you should only specify the XML filename (not the full path)!

The new $$AddWin2Main.mnu file is here.

I am very sorry if anyone has been tearing their hair out trying to get this to work for Win8/10!

I have also updated the web page documentation here and E2B v1.81 will work with the XML variable containing either a full path or just the XML file name for both Win7 and Win8/10 and also will now work if using a USB Helper Flash drive + E2B HDD USB drive too.

Two new E2B themes from Frettt (English and German)

I have uploaded two new themes provided by Frettt (thanks!) to the Alternate Download Areas - Themes folder and also added some screenshots to the Gallery page of E2B. There is a German and English MyE2B.cfg file for each wallpaper.

UEFI Grub2 PTN2 menu system - Beta 3 now available (Release Candidate?)

Beta 3 is now in the 'Other Files' folder in the 'Alternate Downloads' areas.
Full documentation is here.
Just in case you are new to this grub2 menu system, it's main purpose is that it allows you to boot some ISOs via UEFI that will not-UEFI boot using .imgPTN files because those ISOs do not contain EFI boot files (grub2 gets around this).

• Over 60 ISOs supported
• fix AVG booting in MBR mode
• systemrescuecd can now UEFI-boot (but startx may not work in EFI64)
• archassault menu bugfix - now works on NTFS 64-bit, but not on FAT32 for some reason!
• blackarchlinux x64 now works on NTFS (ISO too big for FAT32)
• opensuse (4.5GB) works on NTFS
• Excel spreadsheet updated
• All xxx_extracted.grub2 menu files have been removed from the menu folders and placed in the \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files folder on partition 2. This speeds up the grub2 Main menu loading. Anyone who wants these 'extracted' menus will need to copy the correct .grub2 file to the correct menu folder.
• Some menu bugfixes
• Some .cmd scripts improved/updated

Fedora + persistence using grub2

In Tutorial #67 on the RMPrepUSB.com website, I describe how to get Fedora booting as a flat-file configuration with persistence.

I decided to try this using the new grub2 menu system, and here is the final menu: