Understanding the Easy2Boot folder structure

It is difficult to understand the folder structure used in E2B and to know where to put your ISOs and .mnu files.

As there is so much to read in the E2B Tutorial, I thought I would try to explain it in my blog.

TWO GOLDEN RULES FOR E2B USER FILES

• E2B will only auto-detect payload files that are at the \_ISO\XXXXX folder level.
• E2B will auto-detect .mnu files that are at the \_ISO\XXXXX folder level AND also any sub-folders underneath that level.

'Payload' files are the files that you want to boot (e.g. .ISO, .IMA, .BIN, etc.).

.mnu files are grub4dos menu entry files (e.g. as required when booting linux from an ISO with persistence).

If you want to know more then read on, but if not, it would be worth re-reading the two rules above just to get them into your head before you close this browser tab and go and get that cup of coffee!

Add GeekSquad MRI ISO to Easy2Boot

I had a request today from Rob about how to add the GeekSquad MRI ISO to Easy2Boot. This is private s/w and is available to GeekSquad members.

I found that mostly it just worked as a .iso file added to E2B (after running WinContig to ensure it was contiguous). The menu system was checked and the results were as follows:

       1. System diag -     1 pc-check  RUNS OK

       2. Memory diag -     1 memtest86 4.2  HANGS!??
                                     2 memtest86+ 4.2 RUNS  OK
                                     3 windows memory diag 0.4 RUNS OK
                                     4 PC check mem diag  RUNS OK
                                     5 PC check diag RUNS OK

      3. Hard drive utils -   1 PC check RUNS OK
                                     2 Drive Fitness RUNS OK
                                     3 Seatools RUNS OK
                                     4 WD Tools RUNS OK
                                     5 Dariks Boot & Nuke OK
                                     6 MRI PE Utilities   - CANNOT LOCATE MRI DISK

     4. Password reset utils - 1 Samurai  RUNS OK UP TO CANNOT LOCATE MRI DISK
                                         2 Offline NT pwd RUNS OK

      5. MRI                         - CANNOT LOCATE MRI DISK

To fix the  - 'CANNOT LOCATE MRI DISK' issue I extracted the \sources folder and the \mri.exe file to the root of the E2B USB drive. Then I found that the MRI WinPE booted and ran the MRI.exe OK, but the menu had greyed out a lot of the utilities, to fix this I extracted some of the utility folders from the ISO.

This worked fine but left me with 1GB of folders on the E2B drive and a 1.2GB ISO!
To fix this, I ran Daemon Tools Pro and edited the .ISO file and simply deleted the first 7 folders in the list below to leave a <300MB ISO.

Note: For E2B v1.81+, try the .isoPECD file extension if you have a Removable USB E2B drive.

Instructions in a nutshell:

1. Extract using 7Zip and copy to root of E2B:

\Compression utilities\
\Diagnostics
\Disk Management
\Malware
\MRI
\Web Browsers
\Windows tools

\sources  (note: boot.wim seems to be needed or you get 'CANNOT LOCATE MRI DISK' error message)
\mri.exe

2. Run Daemon Tools Pro - Edit ISO - delete the first 7 folders in the list above - save ISO.

3. Copy the reduced ISO to \_ISO\MAINMENU and keep the file extension as .ISO

4. Run WinContig (RMPrepUSB - Ctrl+F2)

5. Boot E2B...

P.S. I found a real system worked better than Virtual Box which seemed to have some issues booting to MRI PE.


[Edit]
You can also convert the MRI ISO into a partition image using MakePartImage to make a .imgPTN image file. This saves having to edit the ISO file. This will allow you to boot the WinPE part.

If you also want to be able to boot some of the memory or HD diagnostics, you will need to add this menu to the bottom of the  menu.lst which is already inside the .imgPTN image (just switch to the CSM menu - unplug and reconnect the E2B drive and then edit the CSM menu.lst file.)
[Edit] or just SWITCH_E2B.exe to switch in the .imgPTN file.

To boot to the NT Offline Password Reset utility, use the Main or Syslinux menu entry which is already in the menu. To boot to WinPE, use the bootmgr menu entry.


iftitle [if exist /bootmgr] WinPE MRI \n Boot to WinPE
chainloader /bootmgr

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/gsdiag.ima] PC Check Diagnostic\n GSDIAG
set IMA=/EZBOOT/GSDIAG.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/gsHD.ima] PC Check HD\n GSHD
set IMA=/EZBOOT/GSHD.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/gsMEM.ima] PC Check Memory\n GSMEM
set IMA=/EZBOOT/GSMEM.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/gsMEMALL.ima] PC Check Memory ALL\n GSMEMALL
set IMA=/EZBOOT/GSMEMALL.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/PCCHECK.ima] PC Check \n PCCHECK
set IMA=/EZBOOT/PCCHECK.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1


iftitle [if exist /ezboot/MEMTEST.IMG] MemTest 86 4.0-4.2\n MEMTEST.IMG
set IMA=/EZBOOT/MEMTEST.IMG
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1


iftitle [if exist /ezboot/MEM TESTP.IMG] MemTest 86+ 4.20\n MEMTESTP.IMG
set IMA=/EZBOOT/MEMTESTP.IMG
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
rootnoverify (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/DFT.IMG] Hitachi Drive Fitness\nDFT
set IMA=/EZBOOT/DFT.IMG
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/DFT_NM.IMG] Hitachi Drive Fitness NM\n DFT_NM
set IMA=/EZBOOT/DFT_NM.IMG
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1


iftitle [if exist /ezboot/WMDIAG.ima] Windows Memory Diagnostic\n WMDIAG
set IMA=/EZBOOT/WMDIAG.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/DLGDV415.ima] Data LifeGuard Diagnostic\n DLGDV415
set IMA=/EZBOOT/DLGDV415.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

iftitle [if exist /ezboot/STDOSTXT.ima] SeaTools\n STDOSTXT
set IMA=/EZBOOT/STDOSTXT.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

# new
#DLGDV522.IMA
iftitle [if exist /ezboot/DLGDV522.IMA] Data LifeGuard v522\n Diagnostics
set IMA=/EZBOOT/DLGDV522.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

#STDOS.IMA
iftitle [if exist /ezboot/STDOS.ima] SeaTools DOS\n STDOS
set IMA=/EZBOOT/STDOS.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1


#DBAN.IMA
iftitle [if exist /ezboot/DBAN.ima] DBAN\n Nuke HDD!
set IMA=/EZBOOT/DBAN.IMA
map %IMA% (fd0)
map --hook
root (fd0)
chainloader +1

MRI 5.10.2 ISO

This version uses PC Doctor and has several WinPE menu entries.

You can use the menu below for a Removable USb drive:

title MRI 5.10.2\n Run MRI menu (WinPE only works if Removable E2B USB drive used)
/%grub%/QRUN.g4b  force.isope $HOME$/MRI_5_10_2.ISO
chainloader (0xff)
boot

or use the new .isoPECD file extension in E2B v1.81+ 

E2B v1.10a available

The only difference is revised sample .mnu files in the \_ISO\docs folder. If you are going to use any of the sample .mnu files then I suggest you download the new version and overwrite your current 1.10 version.
Note that the V1.10+MassStorageDriver 30MB download is not v1.10a - it is still v 1.10. It will be updated when 1.11 is released.

Universal USB Installer (also YUMI) USB Flash drive does not boot on EeePC

I tried the Universal USB Installer from pendrivelinux.com today to format and prepare a USB flash drive with Hirens Boot CD 15.1 ISO.

The USB preparation was pretty quick and I then plugged the flash drive into my trusty EeePC 904HA netbook to test it. Sure enough it started to boot... but then failed to show a menu and left me at the grub4dos command shell!
When I typed 'find' in the grub4dos command shell, the reason was obvious - the EeePC showed that a floppy disk was present (fd0) which was actually my USB flash drive!

grub> find
(fd0,0)
(hd0,0)
(fd0)
(fd0,1)
(fd0,2)
grub> ls (fd0)/
ldlinux.sys hbcd hbcd.txt HBCDMenu.cmd autorun.inf changes.txt syslinux syslinux.cfg Uni-USB-Installer-Copying.txt Uni_USb-Installer-Readme.txt license.txt

This is typical of many system BIOSes. If they see a USB Flash drive with only one partition, they treat the USB drive as a floppy drive (actually a ZIP drive). The problem is the menu system used by the Universal installer expects the USB drive to be hd0 not fd0 and so it does not find the menu.

One way to fix this is to format the USB drive first with RMPrepUSB and make sure you tick the 'Boot as HDD (C: 2PTNS)' checkbox. This puts a small hidden extra partition on the USB drive and so the EeePC will now treat the USB Flash drive as a hard disk. After formatting as 'FAT32+Boot as HDD', run the Universal Installer but do not tick the 'We will format Drive as FAT32' checkbox and all should be well. You should now have a USB Flash drive that will boot on a lot more systems.

P.S. If you like Hirens Boot CD, try FalconFour's Ultimate Boot CD (there is a .mnu file for it in Easy2Boot too!).

Test your SD memory cards (and USB Flash drives)!

I recently ordered a 32GB Class 10 micro-SD card from a UK seller on eBay (electronicmemory) and it arrived in the post 2 days later.
The first thing I do whenever I buy a new Flash drive or SD card is test it using RMPrepUSB - Quick Size Test. I wrote this test specifically to test for 'fake capacity' memory devices.
Fake capacity memory devices  are created by doctoring the controller firmware which has been deliberately altered to lie about the capacity of the memory. The SD card was only £8.99 and I had my doubts when I purchased it, mainly due to this text at the very bottom of the item description:
'When these brand new Micro SD cards devices have been tested they vary in storage capacity, but are all listed as good and are from 4GB UP TO 32GB.

 The same as pretty much all cheaper micro sd  memory on e-bay, they just don't tell you this.  

Please note that whilst these cards are brand new and have been shipped to me straight from the factory they are sold as upgraded cards and therefore the capacity and speed may vary for each card, (They may experience read/write errors once max capacity reached - The one I have in my phone is up to 4GB at the moment with no issues) hence the very low price and free 1st class delivery! Approximately a third of what you would pay for brand new perfect condition products. Once you receive your card it is always recommended that you format it in your device before use.'

So the devices have been tested and are 'good' (the pack was unopened when I received it!). It is advertised as 32GB and it is not at all clear if this is a 32GB card or what!

Apparently, it is OK to advertise a 32GB card but supply fake SD cards that really are only 4GB!

Another eBay advert from a differrent seller states:

'BY PURCHASING ONE OF THESE CARDS IT IS ON THE BASIS THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE FOLLOWING:

All cards are tested with results ranging from 4GB to 32GB in capacity. These are offered as upgraded cards, therefore the speed and capacity will vary with each card. Errors may be experienced once the maximum capacity has been reached. We suggest formatting the card in FAT32 format if problems occur'

Again, it seems it is fine to sell deliberately faked cards! How many cameras would format a 32GB card as anything other than 32GB! Cameras don't run a size test on the card to see if it is fake!

The Quick Size Test in RMPrepUSB (3rd button up on bottom-right - see below) took just 5 minutes to run (it would have been quicker if it wasn't faulty!). Note: It is a destructive test and so you need to format the memory after the test has passed. Here is a screenshot of the result I got on my '32GB' SD card (click to enlarge):

The UK seller offered me a full refund, but that is not the point! The seller is knowingly deceiving the public (he even admits it in the small print!). It is like being paid by someone with a counterfeit £20 note and then when it is pointed out that the note is counterfeit, saying 'oh yeah - sorry - here have a real one instead' and then they are allowed to go away free! Since this seller had 10,000 sales, I hate to think how many people he has conned into thinking that they were 'unlucky' and that the memory must have been 'faulty'! It is not 'faulty' - it has been deliberately faked in order to deceive you and once you fill it up past 3.8Gb it will totally corrupt all your precious photos!

The worrying thing is that these sellers seem to think it is OK to sell fake memory as long as they mention in the small print that they are 'upgrades' - whatever that means (reprogram them and stick a 32GB label on them perhaps?). The memory that they use in these products is usually reject memory too and so even the 4GB part that works could lose 'bits' at any time - they get this memory from the reject bins at the back of the memory chip factory - after all, if the chips were any good then they would be sold as 4GB memory chips by the original manufacturer and branded correctly!

One eBay advertiser even tries to explain that the memory compresses the data and so even if it formats as 4GB it actually can hold up to 32GB of data! Utter twaddle!

'electronicmemory' is still happily selling these fake SD cards today - even though I pointed out to them that these cards were fake and had been deliberately manufactured to deceive! They could 'legally' advertise them as '4GB SD cards pretending to be 32GB' in the subject title, but they choose to advertise them as '32GB SD cards' and add some 'doublespeak' in the text right at the bottom of the ad instead. What conclusions about the seller can we draw from this?

If you come across any similar companies selling fake products on eBay, please report them to eBay as selling counterfeit goods using the link on this page (use the Be sure to report listings that offer counterfeit items or replicas. link).

The Quick Size Test in RMPrepUSB is quick to run (unlike H2TESTW which takes hours) - so there is no excuse for you not to run it. Test your SD cards and USB Flash memory sticks NOW and remember to test any new ones as soon as you get them. If they fail, ask for your money back immediately (before the eBay time limit expires!), then give negative feedback (if you haven't already left +ve feedback!) and report them to eBay.
If you don't check your memory devices, you will lose all your data/photos when you least expect it!

Note: I have also written FakeFlashTest, which has a simple interface and two test options:
1. Quick Test - This is the same test as in RMPrepUSB (but improved/faster)
2. File Test - this is a similar technique to H2TESTW (i.e. non-destructive), it fills the unused filespace with large files, but is much quicker.

http://rmprepusb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/a-faster-test-for-fake-sd-cards-and-usb.html

Add the ESXi Installer ISO to Easy2Boot

I found today that the ESXi Installer ISO (I used VMware-VMvisor-Installer-5.1.0-799733.x86_64.iso) can be simply copied to your Easy2Boot MultiBoot USB drive and it will 'just work'. No doubt other versions will also work too.

To test it, I used Oracle VirtualBox + DavidB's 'Virtual Machine USB Boot' (VMUB) to install it to a virtual hard disk by booting directly from my E2B USB Flash drive using VMUB.

If you are using VBox, you will need these settings for the VM.

CPUs:   x2 or more (x64 + VT)
Memory: 2.1GB or more
Network: Host-only Adapter - VirtualBox Host Only Ethernet Adapter - Intel Pro/1000MT

More details here.

P.S. See Tutorial 4 if you don't know how to boot directly from a USB drive with Virtual Box and DavidB's great new utility which gives the VM full read/write access to the USB drive - great for testing Easy2Boot USB drives!

RMPrepUSB 2.1.712

Minor change
I got tired of having to untick 'No user prompts' when I wanted to install grub4dos to the MBR and then install grub4dos again to the PBR. Now if you have 'No user prompts' ticked, it will prompt for MBR or PBR, but there are no more prompts after that.

RMPrepUSB 2.1.711 now available

In previous versions of RMPrepUSB, if you wanted to make a file containing an ext2 filesystem that had a different volume name from that of the ext filename, you had to first create the ext2 file first and then rename it.

This is because when you specified the filename, the volume label was automatically set to the same name as the filename by RMPrepUSB.
i.e. if you set the Filename as 'casper-rw' then:

Filename = casper-rw
Volume Name = casper-rw

This meant that if you wanted a file called  'fred' but with a volume label of 'casper-rw' you first had to create the ext2 file with the filename (and volume label) of casper-rw and then rename the file to 'fred'.

This new version of RMPrepUSB prompts you for the Volume Label as well as the File Name, so you can now specify 'fred' as the filename and 'casper-rw' as the volume label before the ext2 file is made.
This means you don't have to rename the file after it is made.

Slax 7.0 with persistence for Easy2Boot

I spent a few hours today trying to get Slax 7 working with persistence on an NTFS USB drive.
It seems this does not work. I tried various switches/cheat codes but the closest I came was to make an ext2 filesystem file and copy the ISO contents to the mounted ext2 filesystem - then use a grub4dos menu and the partnew command to map the ext2 file as partition 3 and then boot Slax from that, this almost worked, persistence was set up on the ext2 volume and it almost fully booted to the Desktop but got some errors on the very last stage and stopped with I/O errors.

Here are the conclusions I came to:

• Slax recognises the source folder if it contains any *.sb file (the  .sb file can be any name but there must be at least one present in the 'source' folder that it looks at) and then mounts that folder. The folder path can be set using the from= parameter which can be the path to the source ISO file (in which case it will be read-only and so persistence will not be enabled), or the path to the source files which have been extracted onto a disk drive (which is what we need in our case). Slax then looks for a folder called changes under this folder. If it finds one, it tries to create a changes.dat file for persistence. If this fails then persistence is not enabled.
  Therefore - whatever source is used, Slax tries to create the persistence file on the same drive as the source .sb module files.
• Slax seems to fail to create a changes.dat folder on an NTFS volume - therefore your source boot files must be on a FAT32 (or maybe ext2/3/4) volume. It will boot from an NTFS volume (via ISO or flat files), but it won't enable persistence.
• Using the toram switch (to run Slax in memory) means that persistence will be temporarily disabled until it is run without the toram parameter.
• The changes=  cheat code did not seem to affect anything??
• Some USB devices are not detected by the Slax 9.11.00 boot kernel and therefore will not fully boot - e.g. SilverStone MS09. Try the 'fdisk -l' command if the kernel aborts to the console on booting and see if USB is listed.

In the end, this is the grub4dos .mnu file I came up with for Easy2Boot. It can be adapted for different versions of Slax each with a different persistence file by changing the slaxsrc folder location.

# Extract the iso \slax folder using 7Zip to \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux and rename it to slax708_32  
#   (so, for example, the first file will be at \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux\slax708_32\01-core.sb)
# Copy this .mnu file to \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux
# The  \_ISO\MAINMENU\Linux\slax708_32\changes   folder must exist for persistence to activate
# Persistence does not work if the slax source folder is on an NTFS or read-only volume!

iftitle [if exist %MFOLDER%/Linux/slax708_32/01-core.sb] SLAX 7.0.8 32-bit persistent \n Run Slax with persistent changes (FAT32 ONLY)
if not exist %MFOLDER%/Linux/slax708_32/changes/changes.dat echo Info: Persistence file is not yet present... && pause --wait=2
set slaxsrc=%MFOLDER%/Linux/slax708_32
kernel %slaxsrc%/boot/vmlinuz vga=773 rw slax.flags=perch,xmode  from=%slaxsrc%
initrd %slaxsrc%/boot/initrfs.img

E2B v1.10 released (bug fix)

The DEFMENU=0 setting was not working (thanks to Sergei for pointing it out) - now fixed.
Also added a   'set NOUNIFONT=1' setting which disables the loading of the 1MB unifont.hex.gz file for people who do not need or want the non-ASCII character support.

new Video - Install Windows XP using Easy2Boot

E2B v1.09 released

This version has a few minor changes as described below:

v1.09 2013-09-14 Some sample .mnu files revised and added, .vhdmem, imz, imggz extensions supported, set DEFMENU=0 supported for no 'set default' menu item, .txt files now checked for 'title' keyword and user warned if missing.

If you set 

set DEFMENU=0

in your MyE2B.cfg file then the 'set default menu entry and timeout' menu item will not appear in the Main menu.

Also, if you accidentally create a .txt file for a payload file and forget to precede the entry with the word 'title' then E2B will warn you when it enumerates the files on boot. I have had several cases where users have forgotten to add the word 'title'.

.vhdmem will load the whole vhd file into memory.

.imz and .imggz are now recognised as valid fdd images.

I have also made available a 30MB download of E2B + the XP Mass Storage DriverPack files to make it easier to create an XP install E2B USB drive.

Add GeeXBox ISO to Easy2Boot

GeeXBox is an XBox Media Centre linux release (XBMC). You can boot it from an ISO file in E2B but you need to also extract and copy the rootfs file from the ISO and place it in the root of the USB boot drive.

e.g.
\_ISO\MAIMENU\GeexBox-3.0-i386.iso
\rootfs



Using the following .mnu file you can have persistence too but it seems to cause some problems which I haven't managed to solve yet.

# For persistence, create an ext2 file called casper-rw in the root of the boot drive using RMPrepUSB Create ext2 FS button
# Then rename the file to geexbox-rw  (do NOT create a file called geexbox-rw - you MUST create a file called casper-rw first and then rename it!)
# Place ISO in \_ISO\Mainmenu\linux or \_ISO\Linux\Linux (and this .mnu file too)
# Extract the file rootfs from the ISO using 7Zip and copy it to the root of the USB drive
# DOES NOT WORK UNDER NORMAL VM  (you can use VBox + DavidB's USB VM Starter app)!!!
# If it complains about broken repositories, do not disable them if prompted.

iftitle [if exist %MFOLDER%/Linux/GeexBox-3.0-i386.iso] GeexBox \n GeexBox using /geexbox as a persistence file
if exist CD echo WARNING: Cannot use partnew command! && pause && configfile (bd)/menu.lst
set ISO=GeexBox-3.0-i386.iso
#enable parttype output
partnew (hd0,3) 0x0 %MFOLDER%/Linux/%ISO%
# make empty table entry in 3rd position in ptn table
debug 1
parttype (hd0,2) | set check=
debug off
set check=%check:~-5,4%
if "%check%"=="0x00" partnew (hd0,2) 0 0 0
if not "%check%"=="0x00" echo WARNING: PTN TABLE 3 IS ALREADY IN USE! && pause
debug 1
if not exist /geexbox-rw echo WARNING: /geexbox-rw persistence file not found! && pause
errorcheck off
if "%check%"=="0x00" partnew (hd0,2) 0x0 /geexbox-rw
errorcheck on
map %MFOLDER%/Linux/%ISO% (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 ro vga=789 persistent
initrd /initrd

RMPrepUSB v2.1.710 available

RMPartUSB code has been updated to v 2.1.710. RMPrepUSB has just had it's version number updated to match that of RMPartUSB.

When MAX size is specified in RMPrepUSB to partition and format a drive, RMPartUSB used all available drive space as reported to it by the drive's 'get-size' function call under Windows. However, some USB drives seem to report their size inaccurately (at least under Win7) leading to a partition being created by RMPartUSB that was actually slightly larger than the end of the physical drive. As a result the last few sectors of the partition could not be accessed and this seemed to cause very slow access (BIOS timeouts) when running the Easy2Boot 'check-access' test or in grub4dos when accessing some volumes when looking for the WINHELPER.USB file or in XP when booting from a vhd (and possible when booting from flat files too?) - but only on some BIOSes. It may be that some BIOSes set up the disk geometry as modulo 255*63 as they expect the partitions to be modulo 255*63 and then try to access the end of the disk (for some strange reason).
The new version of RMPartUSB now reduces the reported drive size to a whole cylinder (nearest 8MBish) and checks that the end is accessible (and reduces it further if it is still not accessible). This should reduce the occurrence of some strange 'slow' access problems occasionally seen in grub4dos and booting XP from a USB drive and with Easy2Boot on some systems.
I recommend updating to this new version which I will release as the standard version in a few days if no problems are reported with it. If practical, reformat your E2B flash drives with this new version if you were having any 'slow' or 'hanging' problems using E2B.
The DriveInfo command has also been tweaked to show the end LBA sector of each partition and to report the drive size as reported by the drive as well as the size that RMPrepUSB will use if you partition the drive using 'MAX' for the volume size.

Three new 'Tutorials' added

109 - USB Rubber Ducky Hack Device (Hak5)  (just information rather than a tutorial!)

110 - Run full Windows XP to Go! from a USB drive Install full XP to a VHD in 30 minutes (works on some systems but not all!)

111 - How to semi-automate and speed-up Windows driver installs (if you often manually re-install Windows using Setup.exe on the same model of system, why not semi-automate the driver installation and save time).

FAST! Windows NTFS file search of your entire system in a few seconds! - SwiftSearch

SwiftSearch requires Admin privileges, however, it is VERY FAST!
You can use regular expressions or use a search pattern like t*.xl??  to find Excel files beginning with t or T. On my 250GB nearly full C: volume it did this search in about 1 second (after reading the NTFS file table on the first search, which took about 5 seconds)!
Not only is it fast, but it actually finds the files I am looking for (even if it is a hidden or system file) unlike the next-to-useless Win 7 search engine! Finally you can disable the resource hungry and delay-causing Windows Search Service and no need for an enormous index file either. Shame MS couldn't do this!
SwiftSearch is a standalone executable and therefore is a portable application - it ran fine under a vanilla Windows 7 PE environment too. This means it could be very useful for booting a system to WinPE from a USB drive and then quickly using SwiftSearch to find and copy an important file (or all .doc files?) onto your USB drive. Unfortunately you can only select and copy one file at a time in the search results (no Ctrl+A function) but at least right-click works as expected on individual files. Maybe this will be improved soon?
See here for a forum thread on SwiftSearch and comments from the author of SwiftSearch about hidden (previously undocumented) features:

• F5 - re-index target volume (use this if you have copied files to the same volume since you launched SwiftSearch)
• Ctrl+Search = find all files included deleted files (right-click on result to see file number) - combined with DiskBuddy's ability to read the MFT, that should be enough to tell you where a file is located on the disk.
• Shift+Search = display all NTFS attributes
• ESC - minimise to System Tray (re-indexes every 15 minutes)

Easy2Boot v1.08 - few minor changes

v1.08 2013-09-04 bitdefender mnu file added to docs folder, Windows 8.1 temporary Product Keys added, master pwd option in MyE2B.cfg

Setting a master password prevents the user from running E2B unless they know the password.

Tested with Windows 8.1 x86 ISO (no E2B code changes were required but new Windows 8.1 keys need to be entered to install Win8.1).

Link for leaked Win8.1 ISOs is available in External Links page on www.rmprepusb.com site.

'Hide' grub4dos menu.lst and other 'sensitive' files

If you have made a grub4dos bootable USB drive and you have password protected the menu.lst (or maybe just some of the menu entries) using the grub4dos password command, it is really quite easy for someone to hack the menu.lst file and simply remove the password lines just by using Notepad.

Another scenario is that you have set up an expiry date in the menu.lst file, so that when the expiry date is reached, a message will warn the user that it has expired and it should be updated and you don't want this to be circumvented! . See here for details on how to set this up.

Here are two ideas which I use to deter the amateur hacker.

1. Use 7Zip to compress the menu.lst file (or any sensitive .g4b batch files or other files loaded by grub4dos) to GZip format. Ensure that the resultant filename and extension is not changed and grub4dos will still run it just fine.

2. Set the file attribute on the 'sensitive' files (e.g. menu.lst) to Hidden (right-click - properties - Hidden).
You could also set the file attribute to System+Hidden+ReadOnly to make it even more difficult to see in Windows Explorer. You can use the Windows command line and the attrib menu.lst +h +r +s command or use NirSoft BulkFileChanger to do this.

This (compression to Gzip +  attribute change) will also work on most of the grub4dos Easy2Boot files (e.g. all .g4b, .lst and .mnu files and even your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file). Just keep the filename and the extension the same. Any file loaded by grub4dos that is detected as being in compressed gzip format is automatically uncompressed by grub4dos when it is read.

Of course, now I have told everyone this, it is no longer a secret!


Footnote: Another format that grub4dos can read is lzma, but not the standard lzma compression used by 7Zip. This format is slightly better because if you open it in NotePad, you don't see any tell-tale header information. For this lzma compression which grub4dos understands, we need to use the Windows lzma.exe utility

1. Download lzma.exe from https://code.google.com/p/grub4dos-chenall/downloads/detail?name=lzma.exe
2. Open command prompt
3. Type
                  lzma.exe e J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg.lzma
4. Delete the original file and rename the lzma so it is the same name as the original (e.g. MyE2B.cfg).

To decode the compressed file, use the d parameter:

              lzma.exe d J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg J:\_ISO\MyE2B.cfg.txt

P.S. 7Zip can also decode the compressed lzma files if you add the .zip extension - 7Zip lists them as LZMA:23 encoded files.

For more details and also a handy drag&drop utility to compress E2B files (without changing the original filename) see Tutorial 72a here. It also has a decompress drag&drop utility included too. Each file selected is checked first to ensure you don't try to double-compress a file by mistake!

E2B - bitdefender ISO + persistence now supported

You can run a BitDefender .ISO with persistence from an E2B USB drive which keeps AV updates on the USB drive's persistent ext2 filesystem. I have added a new .mnu file to the E2B download - look in the \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu files folder (as usual).

New Easy2Boot Intro Video

Easy2Boot v1.07 Video now on YouTube

Easy2Boot v1.07 now available

Download Version 1.07 here.

• Latest grldr gives better alphabetical sorting (e.g. _fred.iso now listed in E2B menu before afred.iso).
• .isope file extension support - if WinPE2/3/4 iso then when wpeinit runs, the iso will be loaded as a virtual CD/DVD.  See here for more info.
• WinPE ISOs (.isope) can mount the .ISO after booting and user can define any drive letter for the ISO and auto-run a post-cmd batch file once ISO is loaded. See here for more info.
• ISOASK variable supported (is set, will ask user how to run every .iso). See here for more info.
• Can force any .iso to run as if it had a different file extension by creating a .mnu file for the iso file. See here for more details.

E2B v1.07 Beta5

Another small change for Zalman ZM-VE200/300/400 CD emulator owners! You do not have to change the .iso file extension for E2B now.

This version allows you create a .mnu file for each .iso file that requires a different extension for E2B.

For instance, if you have a Hirens iso file and you want to run it with the .isowinvh file extension in E2B, but leave the hirens iso file with a .iso extension on the Zalman E2B drive, use this .mnu text:

title Hirens ISO\n Boot direct from Hirens ISO\n If running DOS utilities from an NTFS drive you may need to select the NTFS driver when offered a choice instead of AUTO
/%grub%/qrun.g4b force.isowinvh %MFOLDER%/Utility/Hiren's.BootCD.15.2.iso
boot

The force.isowinvh is a dummy filename (any filename will do!) followed by the extension that you want E2B to use. Whatever extension is specified in this first dummy parameter will be used to run the .iso file that is specified in the second parameter. So in this case, the Hirens .iso file will be run by E2B as if it had a .isowinvh file extension.

In the example above, the hirens iso file and .mnu file would be present in the \_ISO\UTILITIES\Utility folder or \_ISO\MAINMENU\Utility folder  (i.e. at the \_ISO\xxxx\Utility level).

E2B v1.07Beta 4 now available - BUGFIX!

bugfix for v 1.00 and all later versions - %MFOLDER% was set to ()/_ISO/xxx instead of /_ISO/xxx by AUTOMN.g4b. This meant that some sample .mnu files that used (bd)%MFOLDER% did not work and you needed to remove the (bd) portion to get them to work.
Beta4 fixes AUTOMN.g4b so that MFOLDER is now /_ISO/xxxx  as it was in most previous Beta versions.
If you are having problems getting the sample .mnu files to work, try this new version!
See Easy2Boot V1 Tutorial 72a  (bottom of page) for the download.

E2B v1.07Beta3 now available

If you add the line
set ISOASK=1
to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file, then any ISO file listed in the E2B menus will run as if the extension was .isoask  (i.e. it will run the .iso and ask you to choose a way to run it).
This means if you have a Zalman CD/DVD  USB HDD caddy, you do not have to have duplicate copies of all the iso files (e.g. have hirens.isowinvH for E2B and hirens.iso for the Zalman). All your files can be .iso but when running E2B, it will ask you how to run them.

Easy2Boot 1.07 Beta 2 now available

This has enhanced WinPE2/3/4 ISO support.

If you place a file that is the same filename as the ISO in the same folder as the WinPE ISO, e.g.

\_ISO\MAINMENU\WinPEx86ABC.isoPE

\_ISO\MAINMENU\WinPEx86ABC.cmd

WinPEx86ABC.cmd
===============
set ISOLETTER=S:

then if no <isoname>.cmd file exists then Y: is used, otherwise the letter set in your .cmd file is used. If Y: is already used then the next free letter will be used to mount the WinPE ISO.

Now .cmd files as well as .mnu and .txt files will not be listed in the menu.

This version also supports the .isoPE01  extension. This has the same function as .isoPE but swaps hd0 and hd1 over before booting to the ISO. This may be useful for some repair ISOs that expect hd0 to be the primary internal system disk.

Beta2a has minor change to add double-quotes around the iso filename when ImDisk is called to load the ISO - this should (may) allow filenames with spaces in them to work (e.g. SVR2012).

Easy2Boot v1.07Beta now available

This version recognises iso's with a .isoPE extension.

This can be used with Vista/7/8 WinPE ISOs. If the extension is .isoPE then when WinPE runs and wpeinit starts, the .ISOPE file will be automatically loaded in WinPE as a virtual CD/DVD drive.
This means that once the WinPE is fully loaded, it will have access to all the files in the ISO as a virtual CD/DVD drive.
Note that this only works if you use an E2B USB flash drive, or use an E2H USB HDD + USB 'Helper' Flash drive, as the \unattend.xml file is required to be on a 'removable' USB drive for this to work.

This version is available from the downloads section of the E2B Tutorial here.

There have also been some minor changes to the LOADISOxx.cmd files used for Vista/7/8 install ISOs but hopefully this should not affect their function at all.

Easy2Boot v1.06

If you update your current E2B USB drive, it will make quite a few changes and you will need to delete some files from your existing E2B USB drive - otherwise you may get duplicate entries in the menu!

The big change in this version is that ALL files are sorted alphabetically. In previous versions you could either have all .mnu files listed in the menu first and then all payload (e.g. .iso) files OR all payload files first and then all .mnu files.

With version 1.06  .mnu and payload files are enumerated in one go, so the menu will list entries according to the files alphanumeric order. This means you can arrange the menu better (just sort the files by name in Windows Explorer to see what order they will be in). It also means that the boot is quicker as the whole \_ISO folder is only enumerated once instead of twice.

I have had to re-organise some files in the \_ISO\Mainmenu folder.  Mainmenu.mnu is gone and so are the SubMenuxxx.mnu files. Instead we have some ZZxxxxx.mnu files. Obviously these will be listed last in the main menu.

Although all menu entries will now be listed in the menu according to their filename, it is important to realise two things:

1. If a .txt file is specified for a payload file, or a .mnu file is found, then the actual text that appears in the menu is that contained in the file.
e.g.
a.mnu   (contains 'title X files')
z.iso  
z.txt     (contains 'title Runs z.iso')

then the menu will look like this

X files
Runs z.iso

2. Files in sub-folders will be listed alphabetically as each folder name is discovered. This means that a .mnu file entry from a file at \_ISO\MAINMENU\A\Zlot.mnu will appear in the main menu before a payload file at \_ISO\MAINMENU\backup.iso.



If you want to try the new version, you can download it here.

I recommend you make a new USB E2B drive and re-copy your payload files onto the drive.

If you want to just update your current E2B drive then you will need to delete the following files:

All \_ISO\MAINMENU\SubMenuxxxxx.mnu files
\_ISO\MAINMENU\mainmenu.mnu
\_ISO\e2b\grub\adf2mm.g4b (no longer required)

Note that you can now control the position of each individual menu entry (except F9 and F10 which will always be last in the menu) by renaming the payload and .mnu files.

Files in \_ISO\MAINMENU folder
=========================
ZZSubMenuAntiVirus.mnu
ZZSubMenuAuto.mnu
ZZSubMenuBackup.mnu
ZZSubMenuDos.mnu
ZZSubMenuLinux.mnu
ZZSubMenuUtilities.mnu
ZZSubMenuWinPE.mnu
ZZWindowsInstall.mnu

ZZZF7BootHdd.mnu
ZZZF8ReloadMenu.mnu

If you want the sub-menu entries for the sub-folders to be listed first in the main menu, just add $ in front of the first 8 ZZxxxx.mnu files.

Note that ZZZF7BootHdd.mnu and ZZZF8ReloadMenu.mnu must not be deleted and must be alphabetically last so that the F9 and F10 entries, which are automatically added to the end of the menu by E2B, will be listed in order and look nice!

Please add a comment if you have tried this and give me your feedback!

Easy2Boot v1.05

This version has a few minor changes:

1. Some more sample .mnu files added to the docs folder
2. A new 'Jolene' menu theme added to docs folder (see below) For Star Trek fans!
3. Ability to suppress the E2B file enumeration messages by setting a new grub4dos variable in your MyE2B.cfg file.

set redir=> nul

If you also want to suppress the E2B progress messages (not recommended as they may be useful on systems with bad BIOSes) then add this line:

set redirp=> nul

See the \_ISO\Sample_MyE2B.cfg file (end) for an example of these two lines (note there is a space between the > and nul).

New 'Jolene' sample background and borderless menu (also redir is also set, so silent file enumeration is enabled).

Easy2Boot and XBMCBuntu

I have added a new .mnu file that can be used with an XMBCBuntu 12.2 ISO file to allow you to run XBMCBuntu with persistence. Please read the text in the .mnu file for details. The .mnu file is at the bottom of the Tutorial 72a page.

Puppy linux for E2B with persistence

If you want the 'Save on Exit' feature to work for Puppy Linux ISOs, you will need to add a .mnu file.

I have added two .mnu files to the bottom of the Tutorial 72a E2B page. One is for E2B USB HDDs and the other is for E2B USB Flash drives.

The .mnu file is for Puppy 5.4.3 but you can easily edit it for any other version just by changing the ISO filename.

For USB HDDs the cheat code pmedia=usbhd is required. For USB Flash drives the cheat code pmedia=usbflash is required. These codes are already in the .mnu file.

Puppy seems to work well on my Acer 7741G notebook. Audio, Video, trackpad scroll bar support and WiFi all worked on first boot.

RMPrepUSB v2.1.708 - Change partition type menu option added

V2.1.708 is now available. It has the latest grub4dos version (compatible with E2B v1.04) and also has a new menu option to change the primary partition type number.

This new option was added primarily to allow people to format a USB drive with a FAT32 partition and then use the new menu option to change the type to EEh which is the partition type number for EFI partitions. This means you can now create an EFI FAT32 partition which will boot to grub4dos if you install grub4dos, and boot to an EFI OS or secondary bootloader if you install rEFInd or gummiboot.

Easy2Boot v1.04 (minor changes)

The new version has only minor changes (not worth updating if you already have E2B working OK).

1. DPMS2 - minor changes to fix some issues with some drivers.
2. Improved grldr version warning
3. XP Installs Step 2 now allows user to press D or A to debug or abort

P.S. new version RMPrepUSB 2.1.708 installs the same version of grub4dos as used by E2B.

E2B v1.03 available (includes DPMS2)

Easy2Boot v1.03 can now be downloaded here.

It is essentially v1.01 of E2B + DPMS2 + small changes/bugfixes:

1. DPMS2 added (but not the mass storage drivers - you must download and add these files yourself)
2. New grub4dos version - files/folders can now be sorted alphabetically and are NOT case sensitive (bugfix in grub4dos).
3. Bugfix for large HDDs (>1TB) - E2B reported bad BIOS when it wasn't!
4. Change to XP Step 1 install code - now correct choice is automatically made for the user for most questions.

DPMS 2 Update Package now available!

Update: You can now download Easy2Boot+DPMS2 in one download - see Tutorial 72a for the link.

Using E2B and a vanilla unmodified XP ISO, you can now install to any SATA/RAID/SCSI system without needing to integrate the mass storage drivers into the ISO!

Auto-F6 SRS floppies made. Adds [Config.xxx] sections to txtsetup.oem so should work with scsi drives too.

If using an E2B USB-HDD and FiraDisk then you need to load the ISO into memory (answer Y to the question just after DPMS2 runs).

If using an E2B USB-flash drive and FiraDisk then you don't need to load the ISO into memory (just press Enter or let it timeout).

Includes improved alphabetical menu sort code for E2B.

Instructions on how to use it here.

You can disable alphabetical sorting of menus (if you find it too slow), by adding

set NOSORT=1

to your MyE2B.cfg file.

DPMS 2 coming soon!

I have heavily modified chenalls DPMS script during the last week and have been testing it on both virtual and real hardware.
In VBOX I have tested in IDE, SATA(AHCI ICH8) and SCSI systems. These all install XP correctly in text-mode and GUI Mode.
I also tested on a real ICH8 notebook in IDE and SATA mode with success.
I have had to test using Firadisk and WinVBlock drivers so this doubled the testing.
I have also added code to copy the PnpInstances section over to the txtsetup.oem file, so it should work with most SCSI systems.
I have got to the stage now where it all works but the code is not pretty!
I should be able to make the early package for E2B available for anyone who has made donations soon.
I will then be making some YouTube videos demonstrating E2B and the DPMS auto-detection feature and after a month or so I will release the DPMS Update package for everyone.
It has been a hard week and there have been lots of frustrations (twice I 'broke' the code without realising it until later and then spent a day on each problem trying to find out what had gone wrong!) - really frustrating!
David B's VM Starter app has certainly helped as I can boot from my USB on VBox and have full read/write access to the USB stick.

The new DPMS 2 batch file also copies the F6 floppy txtsetup.oem's and directory listings to some log files on the USB stick. This will help in the event of any problems found by users as they can just send me these 'log' files.

Here is the DPMS output on a VBOX SCSI system.

Description of txtsetup.oem files for F6 floppy disks for Windows XP Mass Storage drivers

When you make your own txtsetup.oem file, you can just combine several txtsetup.oem files by simply joining them in Notepad.

There are some rules for txtsetup.oem and I will explain the syntax by highlighting the bits that need to match:

KEY
DriverKey - different Config sections can be defined for each driver
Service      - matches the driver name (convention that drivers use)
ID              - ID of the device which may have more than one PCI ID

So in the txtsetup.oem file below, the keys which are the same colour need to match each other. You may find that in some txtsetup.oem files, both the ID and the DriverKey are the same, but they don't need to be!
[Disks]
d1="DPMS Installation Disk by chenall(diskd)",\disk1,\

[scsi]
iastor7="Intel ICH9/ICH10 SATA AHCI/RAID RST 11.2"

[Files.scsi.iastor7]
inf=d1,iaAHCI.inf
catalog=d1,iaAHCI.cat
driver=d1,iastor.sys,iastor6

[HardwareIds.scsi.iastor7]
id="PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3B29&CC_0106","iastor"

[Config.iastor6]
value = parameters\PnpInterface,5,REG_DWORD,1

[Defaults]
scsi=iastor7

If you want to specify a default driver, just have one entry (as shown) in the [Defaults] section and only have one [Defaults] section in the whole file.

\disk1 is a file that must be on the source F6 floppy disk. XP will identify which floppy the driver is on by looking for this file.

The PCI IDs used in txtsetup.oem is NOT checked by Setup - whatever driver you tell it to load is loaded by Setup - if the driver reports that if failed to load or recognise your hardware, Setup will report a problem.

If you want to add more txtsetup.oem files, just add them on to the existing txtsetup.oem file, one after the other (but just have one [Defaults] section).

Note that the driver.sys name MUST match the 'service' name used in the HardwareID driver line.

You can only have one driver= line (any others will be ignored).

Note that the (single) driver.sys file specified in the driver= line will be the one copied over to the hard disk. Therefore, this needs to be the one that is mentioned in the INF file, otherwise XP GUI Mode setup will complain about a driver missing from C:\Windows\OEMDir at about the 34 minute mark!

However, if you want to copy across more driver files than just the one allowed per section (or any type and number of extra files), just add more 'catalog=d1,fred.sys' lines, as many as you like! The files specified will then be copied across to the hard disk C:\Windows\OEMDir folder.

For FiraDisk:

[Disks]

d1="DPMS Installation Disk by chenall(diskf)",\disk1,\ 

[scsi]

firadisk=FiraDisk_Driver

[HardwareIds.scsi.firadisk]

id="PCI\firadisk","firadisk"

[Files.scsi.firadisk]

inf=d1,firadisk.inf

catalog=d1,firadisk.cat

driver=d1,firadisk.sys,firadisk

[Defaults]

scsi=firadisk

Loading two drivers automatically (without pressing F6)

You can get XP to automatically load by default both an AHCI driver AND FiraDisk by having almost IDENTICAL floppy disks each containing ALL of the files needed by both the AHCI driver and the FiraDisk driver. Both disks should have the same identifying disk tag file (e.g. disk1 in this case).

The ONLY difference is that in one txtsetup.oem you set the [Defaults] section to your AHCI driver, and on the other txtsetup.oem file you set the [Default] to Firadisk.

(in fact, the txtsetup.oems don't have to have the non-default sections - e.g. on the FiraDisk default txtsetup.oem you can remove all the AHCI driver sections if you want to).

XP text-mode setup will get confused if you don't use the same disk name tag file for both disks and have the same files on both disks, so you need to have all the driver files on both disks so that 'Drive A:' (which is whatever it accessed last just before the 'copyfiles' stage) will always contain the correct files when it tries to copy them from the F6 floppy just after formatting the internal hard disk. (It is just possible to have different disk tag files but you will still need both sets of drivers on each disk and you have to swap over the disk tags (i.e. disk0 oemsetup has 'disk1' as a tag and disk1 oemsetup has 'disk0' as a tag). It is MUCH easier just to use the same tag file and same contents on both disks!

For more details about txtsetup.oem syntax, see here - but it does not mention the fact that the driver.sys name must be the same as the SERVICE name.

I hope this saves someone hours of work!

cheers


Steve

E2B DPMS package available for testing

Easy2Boot Upgrade DPMS package (BETA) now available for BETA testers only!

News - July 2013: New DPMS2 is now integrated in Easy2Boot and it is automatic - no need to press F6!

This enhances the current XP install from ISO menu. If you add the updated E2B files and download and add the DriverPack Mass Storage driver package (approx. 8MB download but 50MB when unzipped) you will have the option to autodetect the correct AHCI/SATA/RAID driver.

The DPMS package from chenall (and heavily modified by me) will auto-generate the F6 floppy disk image with the correct driver files. This MassStorage download seems the most bug free at the moment...

DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_1306202.7z - 9.18 MB a9922b31453aec34d46bdea5eb5a916f4f03589c

Or try Chenalls latest DPMS and just extract the D folder and DriverPack.ini (not dpms.bat!).

The installation method is still the same - you must manually use F6 and select the AHCI driver + Firadisk driver ( + WinVBlock driver (optional)) - however usually there will only be one AHCI driver present in the F6 list, so you will not have to guess which one to pick! Also, as the DriverPack contains non-Intel drivers, E2B XP installs from ISO should now work on non-Intel AHCI platforms.

Instructions are in the ReadMe.txt file.

News: After hours of hair pulling and midnight oil, I have a DPMS version now which loads firadisk AND the AHCI driver automatically (no F6 press required)! It is integrated in the Easy2Boot v1 download.

cheers
Steve

E2B Upgrade Package available

If anyone has made a PayPal donation to me for E2B or has contributed to its development, I would like to reward them with the E2B Upgrade Package. This is currently at v1.01 and the idea is that any further developments of E2B will go into this Upgrade Package.
The first version is v1.01 and will modify E2B so it lists the menus in alphabetical (alphanumeric) order.
So all you need to do is rename your ISOs to re-arrange the listing order, e.g.

_1fred.iso
_2doris.iso
_3george.iso
_4debian.iso
_5plop.iso

etc.

To have nice titles, just make a .txt file for them, e.g.:

_1fred.txt
=======

title This runs fred direct from the iso \n This is help text for fred

If you have any .mnu files, you can also cause their entries to be listed in sequence too, just by changing the name of the .mnu file - e.g. _1Ubuntu_with_Persistence.mnu  would be listed before the other .mnu entries. You can even rename the SubMenuxxxxx.mnu files in the MainMenu folder to change the order they are listed in.

Depending on the MNUFIRST setting in your MyE2B.cfg config file, either all payload (ISO) files will be listed alphanumerically first in the main menu or all .mnu file entries will be listed first. You cannot have .iso files interspersed with .mnu files in a menu.