How to add older versions of the Hirens Boot CD to E2B

Older versions of the Hirens boot CD earlier than version 9.7 were based on DOS and designed to run from a CD only.

Here is how I converted HBCD v8.1 to run from E2B.

MPI Tool Pack v0.081 fixes 'ERROR: Please install Grub4dos to the MBR' error!

If you are getting this error a lot when trying to switch to .imgPTN files, the reason is that you are probably using RMPrepUSB v2.1.740 or later to install grub4dos or BootIce+grub4dos 0.4.6a.

To fix this, you can either use an older version of RMPrepUSB, or use v 0.081 or later of the MPI Tool Pack and remake your .imgPTN file.

The problem is due to the grub4dos boot code changing. The code in the menu.lst file looks for 'Missing MBR-helper' but the code has now changed with 0.4.6a to be 'Missing helper' and so it does not restore the original grub4dos MBR sector when you switch back to the E2B MBR, but restores the backup sector from LBA 1 instead (which usually does not contain the grub4dos boot code).

The new \menu.lst in MPI v0.081 will work with either version of the grub4dos boot code.

Add AROS AspireOS Titan to E2B

The AspireOS ISO seems to have a problem booting if we just try to add the ISO to E2B.

Here is how to add it to E2B as a .imgPTN file for MBR and UEFI-32-bit booting.

References

Amiga Board forum

Instructions

Boot from an E2B USB drive using VMWare

You can test install Windows (7/8/10 etc.) from an E2B drive to a virtual hard disk using VMWare.
The advantage of this process is that a Removable-type USB flash drive will appear in the VM as a Removable drive and thus will load the 'LOADISO.cmd' file in the same way as it runs on a real system. This means you can test E2B with Windows ISOs+Unattend XML files without using a real system.

There is also new page on the E2B site here which describes the process.

This process works using VMWare Player (free) or VMWare WorkStation...

E2B v1.98f/g BETA

E2B v1.98f BETA (in Alternate Download Area) now has a revised version of the FreeDOS boot image.

The disk image (\_ISO\DOS\MNU\ FreeDos288.ima.gz) is now actually a 7.6MB FAT32 disk image containing FreeDOS.FreeDOS now loads an NTFS driver, EMM386 and a DOS mouse driver. It also contains a selection of FreeDOS utilities.

This means you can just copy a mouse-enabled DOS utility, such as the DOS version of Ghost.exe to your E2B drive, boot to E2B, and then boot to the FreeDOS floppy image from the DOS menu and directly run C:\Ghost.exe directly from your NTFS or FAT32 E2B drive.

Because the FreeDOS image is over 7MB in size and has 5MB of free space available, you can also extract the .ima file and then add your own DOS utilities into the image. See the E2B DOS page for more details.

Adding Dos programs and utilities to E2B

If you have a DOS (FreeDOS or MS-DOS, etc.) floppy disk image (.ima or .img), you can just directly add it to the E2B drive and it should boot correctly.

If you want to be able to modify the contents, you can use a program like WinImage, or you could convert the image to a FAT32 .imgPTN file.

Using the E2B FreeDos image

E2B includes a FreeDOS disk image as \_ISO\DOS\MNU\Freedos288.IMA.gz.

If you boot to this, you can access and run small DOS programs directly from the E2B drive because the FreeDOS image also loads an NTFS driver and support (sort of!) for long-filename for FAT32.

My YouTube channel has just reached new dizzy heights!

Wow! It seems I am well on the way to making my first $million (not!).
Strange, as it says I have 2500 subscribers on the videos???

Please feel free to subscribe (before it goes back below 1000 again!).

E2B v1.98b/c BETA available

v1.98b BETA is available
v1.98c BETA (small change to QRUN to add NCQ tip message)
v1.98d BETA (small change to QRUN for .isopersist tip messages)
v1.98e BETA FreeDOS floppy image now has increased conventional memory (was 300K, now 530K) so can run larger programs

Download here - if you have problems with Windows Defender, download the .zip version or E2B instead - extract the files and run Make_E2B.exe.

Changes from v1.98a BETA

• Support for .iso filenames ending in new NCQ suffix (e.g. WinPEx64_ncq.iso)
• Other v. small changes

About the *NCQ filename suffix

Bob Omb's WinPE v1.5 (2018-01-14)

Bob Omb's latest release is v1.5. You can just add the .iso file to E2B as it is a WinBulder-based ISO.

Once at the Desktop, you can use CTRL+TAB to change languages. For a UK keyboard, pick the American flag which is shown immediately after the French flag (there is no UK flag available!). The second American flag shown is for USA (default).

Bob Omb's default desktop

It also works with PEStartup, so you can easily modify the default wallpaper, add your own desktop shortcuts to your own portable apps, drivers and auto-start any applications - see here for more details about PEStartup and how to add it to any WinPE. Note that it may take about a minute or two before PEStartup auto-runs, so be patient.

E2B v1.98a BETA available (with new .isopersist file extension for ubuntu-based ISOs)

v1.98a Beta changes are:

• patchme script now removes the grub4dos startup message 'If hangup, use 'geometry --lba1sector (128)'
• Variables SIZE_E2B and SIZE_HD1 can now be used in MyE2B.cfg files in HEADING and FOOTER (size of drive in GB)
• 'GodMode' folder added to \_ISO\docs\Download URLs for easy access to Windows GodMode list
• DrWeb900_Persistent.mnu added
• .isopersist ubuntu file extension supported (no .mnu file required for persistence)

.isopersist file exension details