Use Tron to automatically clean an infected Windows system

Tron by 'vocatus' is a large Windows script that will automatically 'spring-clean' an infected/unwell Windows system. After Tron has been run, the system should be free from infection and may also run faster than before.

You will need to be able to boot to the Windows system (in Safe Mode+n/w mode) and you will need internet connectivity for best results.

If you download the self-extracting Tron .exe file, you can keep it on your E2B USB drive (but disconnect the E2B drive and any other USB drive before starting Tron.bat, or else it will needlessly scan those drives too).

How to check if you booted to WinPE via UEFI or MBR

If you have booted from a WinPE image, you can check what mode you have booted in (UEFI or MBR) using a small cmd script:

Report_UEFI_MBR_boot_mode.cmd

@echo off
wpeutil UpdateBootInfo > nul
color 1f
for /f "tokens=2* delims= " %%A in ('reg query HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control /v PEFirmwareType') DO SET Firmware=%%B
:: Note: delims is a TAB followed by a space.
if %Firmware%==0x1 echo WinPE booted in BIOS mode.
if %Firmware%==0x2 echo WinPE booted in UEFI mode.
echo.
pause

You can use this script to determine what mode you have booted in (original source here).

The script only works in WinPE not Windows.

This code may be useful when you write a diskpart script for instance, and you need to know whether to partition a disk using GPT partitions or MBR partitions depending on how the user booted to WinPE initially.

The Report_UEFI_MBR_boot_mode.cmd script can be downloaded from the Alternate Downloads - Other files folder.

E2B v1.86 is now available

Changes from v1.85 are:

• Bug fix for wsusoffline Win8 updates not working. 
• Win8/10 Repair option now offered (press a key within 4 seconds after selecting an ISO). 
• Language files updated to add a Windows Repair option prompt (see below).
• Self-extracting .exe versions available.

I have used WinRar to create self-extracting exe files from the zip files. This means you can download and click on the .exe file and it will automatically extract the files to a temporary folder and then run the Make E2B USB Drive (run as admin).cmd script.

This should make it easier for naive users to make E2B USB drives.

If you don't want the contents to be extracted to a temporary folder, just open the .exe file using 7Zip or WinRar and extract the contents, or download one of the .7z or .zip versions.

If you have a Win8/10/2016 ISO in the \_ISO\WINxxx menu folders, when you select the ISO file, you will be given 4 seconds to press a key before being prompted to select an XML file. If you press a key within 4 seconds, it will boot straight to the ISO and you will be able to use the standard Windows Repair option in the Windows Install Setup menu (you will NOT be able to install Windows though!). See my previous blog for more details.

The downloads are available from the Alternate Download Areas as usual.

Get Windows 10 Professional for £4 (legally)?

You can still upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 if you know how (see here), but what if you want to install Windows 10 Pro on a new home-built system?

It seems that some sellers on eBay (UK and USA) are selling Windows 7 Pro keys for approx £4.

Now, as far as I am aware, you can still use a Windows 7 key to perform a fresh install of Windows 10 (as long as you use a recent version of the Windows 10 install ISO and not the first version).

These eBay sellers seem to think that they are 'legal' because they are also selling a faulty mainboard together with the Product Key. The only catch being that although they email you the Product Key within an hour or so, if you want the faulty mainboard then you have to either pick it up yourself or pay for postage and packing (which is quite expensive, so they clearly don't expect anyone to request the faulty mainboard!).

Whether this is actually within the terms of a Microsoft 'system builder' licence is debatable. I am sure MS never meant that a seller could sell faulty mainboards and that MS intended that the part and the Windows 7 COA should be shipped together.

I don't know if these keys actually work because I have not personally tried one, but for £4 it may be worth a try!

Here's why you may need to block the Windows 10 update prompt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNBkJSyaeYc&feature=youtu.be&t=418

New Gandalf WinPE available

The latest Gandalf WinPE ISO (2016-10-24) is available from here.

Convert it to a FAT32 .imgPTN file and add it to your E2B drive as usual. Then it will MBR or UEFI-64 boot.

If you like the Desktop analogue clock (which can be positioned anywhere on the Desktop), and want to add it to your own Windows Desktop, you can get it from here.

E2B 1.86b Beta available

E2B v1.86b has a few changes from 1.85

• Windows 8/10 ISOs now give user the option to run a 'Repair' - see here for details.
• STRINGS.txt language files updated for new 'Repair' feature
• wsus offline update bug fix for Win8/2012R2 updates (SDI_CHOCO) - thanks to JW for reporting it.

Download from the Alternate Download Area as usual.

I have also made a self-extracting exe file Easy2Boot v1.86b_Make_E2B_USB_Drive.exe available.

This self-extracts the E2B files to a temporary folder and then automatically runs MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE (run as admin).cmd from the temporary folder. This may be useful for less experienced users because they don't need to extract the E2B files to a new folder.

If you want to update your USB drive, download the .ZIP file as usual.

Windows Startup Repair (StartRep.exe) crashes on Windows 8/10 in E2B

A few days ago I used E2B to boot to a Windows 10 install ISO in order to repair a notebook that had some boot issues.

I ran the Win10 ISO from the \_ISO\WINDOWS\WIN10 folder and chose the 'S' Startup Repair option in the blue console window and it immediately crashed...

Coincidentally, a user also contacted me yesterday about the same issue! StartRep works fine on Win7 ISOs, but there seems to be something 'special' about the Win8/10 version of StartRep.exe!

Upon investigation, I found that the StartRep.exe also crashed if you chose the Windows Troubleshooter option (recenv.exe) and then ran the Startup Repair option (which runs StartRep.exe)! All the other troubleshooting functions worked, but not Startup Repair.

I also found that if I ran the ISO without using an XML file which had a WinPE section in it, then StartRep.exe worked OK. Also, Windows Setup only gives the user the 'Repair' option (Alt+R) in the Windows Setup menu as long as the XML file does not contain a WinPE section.

So, you can run Windows Repair if you place the Windows 8/10 ISO in one of the other menu folders (e.g. \_ISO\WIN or \_ISO\MAINMENU) and name it with a .iso01 file extension. However, this would mean having to have two copies of each Windows Install ISO on the E2B drive, which is not very convenient!

So, E2B v1.86 will now prompt the user to press a key within 4 seconds for a 'Repair' option whenever they choose a Windows 8/10/2016 Install ISO file from one of the Windows Install menus. If they press a key, the ISO will be run as .iso01 and the standard Repair option will be available. However, in this mode you cannot install Windows because the ISO will not be loaded as a virtual DVD by ImDisk.

Restore disk images across the network using AOMEI Image Deploy (free PXE-boot deployment system)

If you take disk backups using the free AOMEI Backupper software (from a bootable ampe.iso file), then you can use AOMEI Image Deploy to write that image to multiple PCs across the network using PXE booting.

There are instructions on their site here.

This allows you to restore a disk image to any system that has a PXE boot ROM (pretty much all systems do!) without needing to boot it from a USB drive or CD or any 'media'.

Lakka - Take 2!

I have revised the instructions to make a bootable Lakka image in my previous post.

There is now no need to make a Lakka USB flash drive first, and you can make the storage partition any size you like too. Much easier!

Windows 10 bug found in Calc App!

On PC-Welt a Windows 10 bug has been reported in the Calc App.

Can you spot the problem?

Add Lakka to your E2B USB drive and play SuperMario (and 100's of other console games)

Lakka is an open source game console emulator. See the YouTube demo here (there are many YouTube videos too, including a Hak5 intro video here!).

You can boot to Lakka from a variety of different computers including a Raspberry Pi. On an x86 PC you can directly boot from a USB drive (or install it onto a dedicated PC, if you have one to spare!).

Lakka does not support\work on a Virtual Machine - you must boot from a REAL SYSTEM!

You also need to connect USB or WiFi controllers to the PC too (recommended because using the PC keyboard is very difficult/impossible when playing games using the PC keyboard!).

I downloaded the Windows 32-bit version for a PC from here and then wrote the .img file (Lakka-Generic.i386-devel-20161002110423-r21593-g03241bf.img) to a spare 8GB USB 3.0 drive using RMPrepUSB (see below for details). For Nintendo 64 games, use Lakka 64-bit.

I then booted from the Lakka USB drive on my IdeaPad 300 (does not work on Virtual Box).

E2B v1.85 now available

E2B v1.85 is now available from the Alternate Downloads Areas.

After a few days, I will add the 1.85 download files to the www.easy2boot.com site.

Changes from v1.84 are:

• Add udefrag linux utility for making NTFS files contiguous under linux. 
• ZGRUB_USB_046.mnu menu improved. 
• Improve error checking in MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE.cmd to fix problem if you are using a proxy - now it just does not show the latest version available if a proxy has been set instead of bombing out! (thanks to JH for reporting it)
• German language files updated (thanks Frettt!).

Experimenting with large fonts, line spacing and animation (GreatLakes_DNA)

If you want a 800x600 theme which use the 24-pixel high large fonts in E2B and increases the spacing between lines, you can try the GreatLakes_DNA.zip download in the Alternate Download Area - Themes folder. It includes the rotating DNA animation and the background is a shot of the Great Lakes taken from space.

As with all animations, you can use the F2 key to make it disappear and then press F2 again to make it reappear. The space between menu lines has also been increased.

The F1 Help menu is suppressed because the help text does not fit on the screen when using large fonts.

GreatLakes_DNA.zip

The .bmp file is actually compressed using LZMA.exe.

There are several different 24-pixel high large fonts to choose from - try using a different one by changing the MyE2B.cfg file.

When using Windows ISOs, etc., you may need to reduce the number of XML files, so that they will fit on the screen nicely.

Add Easy Recovery Essentials Windows 10 (EasyRE) to E2B

The Easy Recovery Essentials Win10 ISO (not free!) does not seem to boot from E2B as a .ISO file or if simply converted to a .imgPTN file. The ISO seems to be based on FreeBSD and does not seem to contain the necessary grub2 boot loader for USB booting in an easily-accessible form.

Note that the ISO file can be booted using the E2B grub2 menu system (you must also extract some files and use a FAT32 partition, there is an example .grub2 config file in the \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files folder on the 2nd partition).

Instructions

Here is how to get it working as an MBR-only bootable .imgPTN file under the standard E2B grub4dos menu system (not the E2B grub2 menu system):

Beware of this 'fast' USB 3.0 Flash drive!

I already own a 64GB SanDisk Extreme, but I was looking for a larger 128GB USB 3.0 Flash drive.

As you may know, I am a big fan of the SanDisk Extreme USB 3.0 drives. They are amongst the fastest USB 3.0 Flash memory drives that you can buy, but also represent extremely good value for money.

So, I consulted a few league tables such as UserBenchmark, thewirecutter  and everythingusb.

I was looking for a fast drive, so although the SanDisk Ultra Fit drive was good value for money, I did not consider it because it is slower than several others and also it is just too small - I do have one but I keep 'losing' it, and only find it a few weeks later 'hidden' in a USB port on one of my other devices.

So the main contenders were: (with advertised speed and links to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com):

SanDisk Extreme     128GB £48 or $61   245MB/s Rd, 190MB/s Wr
SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB £67 or $60   260MB/s Rd, 240MB/s Wr 
Lexar P20           128GB £52 or $49   400MB/s Rd, 270MB/s Wr

Disabling System Volume Information folder for Removable drives

If you read my previous blog and tried the Registry fragment I provided in a previous blog post, you may have found that it does not actually seem to stop Windows from making a System Volume Information folder on some systems.

It used to work (honest!), but recent versions of Windows 10 also require you to stop (disable) the Storage Service too (type 'Services' into the start menu to find the management applet). I think this service used to be called 'Removable Storage' in earlier Windows versions.

Double-click and disable the service.

So, for recent Win10 versions:

1. Disable the Storage Service

2. Install the Registry Fragment

3. Reboot

4. From an Admin command prompt, type rd /s "L:\System Volume Information" to delete the folder on the L: drive if it is already there (or whatever letter your USB drive is using).

I am not sure what affect disabling the Storage Service has on the system, Microsoft seem very sketchy with information about it. So far I have not noticed any issues (famous last words...)

RMPrepUSB v2.1.734 and new version of Disk Doctor available (with bug-fixes)

I found that the SpeedTest function in RMPrepUSB/RMPartUSB no longer seems to work on Windows 10 and gives a write error. This is now fixed in v2.1.734.

I also took the time to look into some niggly bugs in DiskDoctor (use CTRL+D inside RMPrepUSB to launch it after selecting a disk (does not work on disk 0) in RMPrepUSB).

DiskDoctor

DiskDoctor is a disk testing and editing tool which must be run with Admin privileges. The version included in RMPrepUSB has been stripped down quite a bit since I wrote it some years ago, and some functions and command line support have been removed. It was originally used as an automated test tool in a factory environment and used to test literally millions of computers.

If you want to try DD, use a disk that contains unwanted data first, until you become familiar with it!

For instance, if you start a Sequential Read of the whole disk, DiskDoctor (aka DD) will attempt to read all sectors, in blocks of a 'track' at a time, into a track buffer (63x255 sectors). This can take several hours for a 2TB HDD!

New USB_BOOT_v2.iso (Plop! CD)

I have updated the USB_BOOT CD ISO file to use the latest version of grub4dos. The CD may now work with a wider range of USB 2.0 controllers. Download USB_BOOT_v2.ISO from here in the Alternate Downloads Areas and burn it to a CD (remember those?).

Latest v2.2 IS HERE.

USB_BOOT_v2 CD with latest grub4dos version

1. The USB_BOOT CD will boot to a grub4dos menu and then will automatically install the grub4dos USB 2.0 read\write driver.
2. If no USB drive is detected, it will then automatically run Plop! to load a USB 2.0 read-only driver.
3. If a driver is loaded successfully, it should then boot from a USB drive (e.g. an Easy2Boot USB drive).

The CD is useful for systems that will not boot straight from a USB Flash drive or USB HDD but will boot from a USB CD (or IDE\SATA CD-ROM drive).

Note that modern USB 2.0/3.0 systems will probably not work (even if you use a USB 2.0 port), but these modern systems should boot from any USB drive anyway.

Quickly make WinPE ISOs using Lazesoft Recovery Suite

If you want to quickly make some 64-bit and 32-bit WinPE bootable ISOs, which also contain some useful utilities, try the free Lazesoft Recovery Suite Home Edition.

Note: I have not fully tested any of the Lazesoft utilities yet, this blog post is just to inform you of a useful set of ISOs.

You first need to download and run lsrshsetup.exe to install it onto your Windows system and then run it (or the separate Desktop entry for the Lazesoft recovery suite media builder).

Problems installing Ubuntu x64 UEFI in Virtual Box

I have been trying to compile my own grub2 boot code files (core.img and bootx64.efi) recently.

To do this, I needed to set up a VM with Ubuntu x64 in UEFI-mode.

Easy right?

Err.... no!

E2B v1.84 released

E2B v.1.84 full version is released.

Changes from v1.84c beta are:

• official grub4dos 2016-09-20 release (should be similar to the test version in 1.84c)
• Some more Download URL links added to \_ISO\docs folder
• Cub Linux + persistence Sample Mnu File added.

The 'SultryWoman' bitmap and MyE2B.cfg file are available
from the Alternate Downloads - Themes area.

Changes since v1.83 are:

RMPrepUSB v2.1.733 (Beta status) available - with grub2 USB drive installer

RMPrepUSB v2.1.733 changes are:

• Latest grub4dos 0.4.6a 2016-09-20 (grldr)
• Can install grub2 to MBR via BootLoaders tab
• FAT32 partitions now start at LBA 2048 instead of LBA63 (RMPartUSB v2.1.733)

You can now install grub2 boot code onto the first sectors of a USB drive.

UEFI_GRUB2_PTN2_Beta4 available

UEFI_GRUB2_PTN2_Beta4 has a few small bug fixes to some .grub2 files and the grub2 menu entries have been tweaked slightly so that the text in the menus aligns better.
I have also changed the Excel spreadsheet slightly.
The main changes in .grub2 has been around the naming of kali isos.
If you already have the Beta3 version on your E2B drive, instructions on how to update to a later version are here.

If you use the Grub2 menu system with E2B, please let me know. I have had very little feedback about it and so it is still in Beta status. If I get reports that people are using it successfully, then I will officially 'release' it.

The downloads are in the Alternate Download Areas - Other Files folder.

Registry fragment to prevent creation of System Volume Information folder

For Windows 8/10, you can add a Registry fragment that will stop Windows from creating a System Volume Information folder on all your USB drives.

The download is available from the Alternate Download Area - Other Files folder (direct link here).

I will also include the registry fragment in E2B v1.84 in the folder:
\_ISO\docs\E2B Utilities\Disable_System_Volume_Information_Folder_Creation.

Note: In recent versions of Windows 10, as well as the Registry Fragment, you need to stop (disable) the Storage Service too (type Services into the start menu to find the management applet).
For more info, see my previous blog here (the Take Ownership reg tweak is really useful too!).

FYI: The top three posts in my entire blog are:

1. A faster test for fake SD cards and USB Flash drives (*more popular by a factor of x10!)
2. Deleting the 'System Volume Information' folder from a USB drive (and other system files\folders)
3. Add Microsoft ERD Commander and MSDart Windows Recovery ISOs to Easy2Boot

Please tick one of the 'Reactions' boxes if you enjoyed a post.

Chromium OS (Cub Linux) with persistence

Cub Linux is Chromium+Ubuntu. Unlike ChromixiumOS, it comes in a nice LiveCD ISO format and so we can easily run this from an E2B drive. As it is based on Ubuntu, we can also add persistence.

Here is the .mnu for the 64-bit version (also added to \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files\linux\CubLinux-amd64_Persistent.mnu in E2B v1.84d).

Once you cancel your credit/debit card, it cannot be used again, right?... WRONG!

OK, this is nothing to do with USB drives (but you might use a card to buy a USB drive...;-)

So you lose your credit or debit card (or it is stolen). You contact the bank and they cancel it and issue you a new card. You check your next card statement at the end of the month and it looks OK. Panic over and you are safe, right?

WRONG! Actually someone could use your old card for months afterwards by using it for multiple 'contactless payments'. You could lose £100s.

How to overlay the E2B F1 Help text onto your wallpaper background

The E2B F1 Help menu is determined by the F1.cfg file, one for each language.

When you select one of the Help menu topics, the text is displayed on a plain (usually black) background. This is because the help text fills the whole screen and may get confused with the background picture in some situations (as you can see in the example below).

You can modify the F1.cfg file so that the text is overlaid on top of the current wallpaper by adding a few lines under each 'title' menu entry.

You can download the E2B v1.83 English F1.cfg file which includes these lines in all 'title' menu entries from the Alternate Download Area - Languages folder here.

You can quickly test it by adding the F1.cfg file to the \_ISO folder (but don't leave it there because it will override any language setting or normal F1.cfg file - if you want to use it permanently, make a new language folder). For more info about the F1 help menu and making a new language folder, see here and here.

P.S. The wallpaper shown above is called 'SultryWoman' and is in the  Alternate Download Area - Themes folder here. There are other wallpapers in the Themes folder too or you can download more from https://wall.alphacoders.com/  (choose 4:3 format and then reduce them to 800x600 using Paint and save as .bmp).

E2B v1.84c Beta available

v1.84c 

1. Parrot+persistence sample .mnu file added. 
2. New feature: if user presses u key during early booting to Main menu, the grub4dos USB 2.0 driver will be loaded. 
3. Change to SDI_CHOCO Sample_MyStartup.cmd so that -y and unchecksummed packages are accepted. 
4. Add 'Download URLs' folder to \_ISO\docs\ folder. 
5. Add Win7 SDI_CHOCO XML files. 
6. Fix SDI_CHOCO.cmd so does not pause if installing Win7. 
7. Add E2B_WINHELPER_&DW.zip for Zalman\IODD. 
8. Fix problem of F1 Help menu title not displayed (all languages). 
9. Sample WinNTSetup diskpart script files added to \_ISO\docs\E2B Utilities\WinNTSetup folder
10. Fix bug - if animated icon in menu, then XP+DPMS install is broken (asks for floppy disk).

I have found that if you have an animated E2B icon (or any animated icon) on the menu, this causes the installation of XP+DPMS to fail. Setup will prompt you to insert a Firadisk floppy disk and you cannot get beyond this point.
This was caused by the animated .bmp files being loaded as a virtual floppy (fd3) which interferes with the two other virtual floppies used by DPMS. This bug is fixed in this v1.84c Beta version.

Using a combination of WinNTSetup and DPMS, it is possible (I think!) to install XP onto a system that contains only USB 3.0 ports and a SATA or RAID HDD (from an unmodified MS XP SP3 ISO). The system's firmware/hardware needs to be XP-compatible however (many modern BIOSes are not).  The process is a bit messy though! See http://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-files/windows-install-isos/winntsetup/ for more details.

The file E2B_WINHELPER_&DW.zip contains E2B_WINHELPER_&DW.RMD. This file can be loaded by a Zalman or IODD drive so that it will appear as a E2B 'Helper' Removable Flash drive. This means you do not need to carry a separate Flash drive with your Zalman/IODD drive.

How to set up multiple backgrounds in E2B (video by Liu Evan)

A guy named Liu Evan has posted a YouTube video on how to make wallpaper backgrounds and how to have a different background for each E2B menu.

He has also made some background templates available for you to download, so you can create a 'semi-transparent' square and merge it with the background bitmap using PhotoShop (though I guess you could use gimp or Paint .Net too) on which the E2B menu can be written, as shown below.

The E2B page which describes how to set up multiple backgrounds is here.

Free Paragon Backup and Recovery 16 (until Nov 2016)

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/brh/download.html

You can build a WinPE Recovery ISO using this too (to get the ISO creation option you need to install MS WAIK WinPE support).

Original source DavesComputerTips.

Change the WinPE console font/size/position/minimize/hide, using the SetConsole utility

When running scripts, etc. using the Windows console terminal window, you often want to change it's appearance. To change the size of the window, we can use a command such as:

mode con: cols=160 lines=60

However, changing the font that is used, especially if running WinPE, is a lot more tricky, especially as we cannot reboot after changing the registry.

Whilst looking for a solution, I found the handy SetConsole utility.

Easy2Boot v1.84a Beta available

Beta v1.84a

• Parrot+persistence sample .mnu file added. 
• New feature: If user presses u key early when booting to E2B, the grub4dos USB 2.0 driver will be automatically loaded. 
• Add 'Download LiveCDs' url + some others to a new \_ISO\docs\Download URLs folder. 
• Change to SDI_CHOCO Sample_MyStartup.cmd so that -y not required and unchecksummed packages are accepted. 
• Add Win7 SDI_CHOCO XML files. 
• Fix SDI_CHOCO.cmd so does not pause if installing Win7. 
• Add E2B_WINHELPER_&DW.zip for Zalman\IODD.

The Download LiveCDs.url points to a convenient web page where you can quickly find many liveCDs.

I have now tested SDI_CHOCO with Win7 and made a few tweaks as well as adding some XML files for Win7.

Note that Chocolatey automatically installs DotNet4 (which takes 10-20 minutes!) on Win7.

It seems Chocolatey now requires the packages to be checksummed and many are not. I have added some configuration lines into the Sample_MyStartup.cmd file which disables this checksum requirement and also added an option so that -y is not required (so just choco teamviewer will work automatically). if you already have a MyStartup.cmd file, you will need to add in these lines.

If you have a IOD2531 or 2541, you can load the E2B_WINHELPER_&DW.RMD file into it, and it will emulate a WINHELPER E2B USB Removable media flash drive (cool!). See my previous blog for details. If anyone owns a Zalman disk caddy, please try this file and let me know if the whole hard disk is write-enabled after it is loaded and what model/firmware you tested it on (the HDD is write-protected on the VE200, which is no good for E2B!).

Using E2B with Zalman\IODD disk drive enclosures (is the IODD 2531 the best USB HDD enclosure for E2B?)

As you know, E2B keeps its menu folders under the \_ISO folder.

The folder name of \_ISO was not a random decision on my part, it was chosen because the drive emulation disk enclosures made by IODD and Zalman both use the \_ISO folder to store payload files.

Keep reading to see how you can use the features of these devices to enhance E2B!

For those of you that don't know, with these HDD enclosures, you can select one or more payload files, and they will be emulated as a USB device.

Zalman ZM-VE200


For instance, if you select Ubuntu.iso, then any system that the HDD enclosure is connected to, will 'see' a USB CD/DVD drive containing the Ubuntu ISO file contents, just as if it were accessing a real CD/DVD drive containing a real CD\DVD (except much faster)!

Now, I recently purchased a Lenovo IdeaPad 300, and decided to try my old Zalman ZM-VE200 out on it. I found that IdeaPad 300 did not respond too well when trying to boot from an ISO loaded as a virtual CD into the Zalman VE200. It looked like the Zalman could not load the ISO quickly enough on power-on, so the IdeaPad BIOS did not detect it (even when using an SSD HDD).

Since the Zalman ZM-VE200 is USB 2.0 and therefore not very fast, and also had this issue, I decided to purchase a new emulation HDD enclosure. My choices were:

Unencrypted - IODD 2531 (SATA3) or Zalman VE300 (SATA2) or Zalman VE350 (SATA3 compatible)
Encrypted     - IODD 2541 (SATA3) or Zalman VE400 (SATA2) or Zalman VE500 (SATA3 compatible)

I have read some Amazon reviews that the Zalman VE350 is a poorer-quality version of the VE300 and the VE500 is a poorer-quality version of the VE400 as they are made by a different manufacturer (not IODD). The Zalman documentation is poor. It does not mention support for VHD, RMD, DSK for instance even though I think they are supported by the Zalmans.

Install Windows for UEFI booting from E2B in MBR mode (using WinNTSetup)

If you have an E2B USB hard disk and you want to install Windows onto a UEFI-system, it can be a bit of a pain the make the .imgPTN file and get it working. Especially if you want to use SDI_CHOCO.

However, you can install Windows from an E2B USB drive using WinNTSetup by JFX. This way you do not need to modify the ISO or create a .imgPTN file or modify the boot.wim files, etc. to perform a UEFI\GPT installation. Also a WinHelper USB Flash drive is not required.

This means you can boot from a Win8/10 Windows Install or WinPE ISO and then use WinNTSetup to install Windows from any ISO on the E2B drive.

• There is no need to UEFI-boot from the E2B USB drive
• No modification of ISOs required
• No .imgPTN file or modification of boot.wim is required
• No WinHelper USB Flash drive required
• You can use SDI_CHOCO XML files

There are many videos on YouTube about WinNTSetup, if you want to see it in action. You can even boot to one of the DLC WinPE ISOs which already contains WinNTSetup, instead of booting from a Windows Install ISO.

Tip: JFX has revised v3.8.7 Beta 4 so that you can run diskpart scripts using CTRL+SHIFT+D (see tools\diskpart folder).

For instructions see the WinNTSetup page on the E2B site here.

A persistent parrot

Kevin asked me how to add persistence for Parrot linux.

Parrot speaks to you when it loads!

Since  this is based on Ubuntu, I simply modified the Ubuntu_2016_Persistence.mnu file.

I have added a copy of Parrot_3.1.1_Persistent.mnu to the Alternate Downloads Area - mnu files - linux folder, if you want it.

Booting USB drives using Virtual Box (VMUB tip)

In case anyone is still living in the Stone Age and is using QEMU to test their bootable USB drives, this is just a short blog to make sure you are aware of DavidB's utility VMUB (Virtual Machine USB Booter) for use with Oracle Virtual Box.

I wrote a previous blog about it here. There is also a YouTube video.

I use VMUB all the time because it is much quicker than using QEMU and it can boot a variety of different Virtual Machines (including MBR 64-bit, UEFI 32-bit and 64-bit booting).

The VMUB utility gives much better results than using a manually created .vmdk file for your USB drive because VMUB also dismounts the USB drive before running VBOX. This eliminates some of the problems that you get when using a simple .vmdk file with VBOX.

VMUB tip (use the CTRL key)

If you are designing and testing a new menu system for E2B (or making a custom CSM menu for .imgPTN files) then here is a handy tip:

E2B v1.83 released

• Bugfix for grub4dos so does not absorb key presses before menu is displayed. 
• Make_E2B_USB_Drive (run as admin).cmd now checks for more versions of bootmgr (whitelist has new additions). 
• Warning message if try to use .imz file extension (you need to convert to .ima). 
• Added sample .mnu files for Remix OS x86 with persistence (thanks Sergio!). 
• Small changes to German language files (thanks Frettt). 
• Add fmt_ntfs.sh script and udefrag utility to docs\linux_utils folder - can now make and maintain an NTFS E2B drive under linux. 
• Update FreeDOS floppy image to allow access to NTFS files under FreeDOS (E2B drive = C: ). 
• Updated SDI 'Snappy' executables.

Available on website or Alternate Download Areas.

E2B v1.83d Beta now available

Version 1.83d is a 'Release Candidate'.

Please let me know if you spot any issues ASAP. I will probably release it as v1.83 release version in a few days.

Are fingerprint sensors really secure?

Many years ago when fingerprint sensors first started to appear on the market, it seemed a really useful security feature.

The company I worked for (RM plc) made PCs, notebooks and tablets for schools. The use of passwords was a common problem in schools. The password needed to be long enough and complex enough to be secure, but also easy to remember. Also, the crafty kids would often watch a teacher type in their password and so learn their admin password. The kids would also forget their passwords, which meant that teachers or the IT admin guys were constantly having to reset their passwords and create new ones for them. Kids would write down their password and other kids could find them and copy their homework, etc. Passwords were a real headache.

So fingerprint scanners seemed to present an ideal solution and as everyone's fingerprint is unique - so it is foolproof, right?

Windows command line TAB auto-completion tip

I came across this tip yesterday. You can specify a file using wildcards and then use TAB auto-completion in a Windows command shell.

For instance:

If you are working at the Windows cmd shell and want to edit a .txt file (for instance), type

notepad *.txt

You can now press the TAB key until you see the file you want.

This works with more complex wildcards to such as  p*.t* and with network shares too.

RMPrepUSB v2.1.732 now available

I have updated RMPrepUSB to use the new version of mke2fs. It now asks you to specify  ext2, ext3 or ext4 format when you use the Create Ext2/3/4 FS button.

This makes it more convenient to create ext3 or ext4 files. I will remove the mke2fs files from Easy2Boot as there is no need for them now.

For persistence files with E2B, I recommend ext3 because ext2 files can become easily corrupted. I suggest you avoid ext4 because grub4dos may not be fully compatible with ext4 and I don't think there is much advantage over ext3 (but I might be wrong!).

Download here.

E2B v1.83c Beta available

v1.83c - changes from 1.83a in bold

• bugfix grub4dos 0.4.6a so does not absorb key presses before menu is displayed. 
• Make_E2B_USB_Drive (run as admin).cmd now checks for more versions of bootmgr (whitelist has new additions). 
• Warning message if try to use .imz file extension (need to convert to .ima).
• Add \_ISO\docs\E2B Utilities\Format_as_ext3_or_ext4 folder for re-formatting ext2 persistence files as ext3 or ext4 under Windows. (removed from 1.83 release version)
• Add sample .mnu files for Remix OS x86 with persistence (thanks Sergio!). 
• Small changes to German language files (thanks Frettt). 
• Add fmt_ntfs.sh script and udefrag utility to docs\linux_utils folder - can now make and maintain an NTFS E2B drive under linux.

Note that I have discovered (thanks to a post by Shiv Manas on Google+) that the udefrag linux utility will make files on an E2B USB drive contiguous (provided you have enough free space on the drive). This means that linux users can make and maintain an NTFS E2B USB drive. See ReadMe file in the linux_utils folder for more details.

E2B v1.83a Beta available

v1.83a 

• bugfix grub4dos 0.4.6a so does not absorb key presses before menu is displayed. 
• Make_E2B_USB_Drive (run as admin).cmd now checks for more versions of bootmgr (whitelist has new additions). 
• Warning message if try to use .imz file extension (need to convert to .ima).

Available from Alternate Download Areas as usual.

Anyone tried the SDI_CHOCO feature yet?

Convenient way to run MS-DOS utilities directly from an NTFS E2B drive

If you have several different DOS utilities (to flash a BIOS perhaps or run a DOS-based diagnostic) which are provided as .exe or .com files, then you may have trouble adding it to an NTFS E2B USB drive.

Usually, you would have to make a DOS-bootable floppy disk image or perhaps make a bootable USB flash drive and then 'capture' the flash drive as a FAT32 .imgPTN file using the MPI Tool Kit (MakePartImage). Actually, E2B will try to boot to IO.sys or Kernel.sys, so you do not have to 'SYS' the floppy image, just ensure that the correct boot files are present inside the image file.

Today, I found some DOS floppy disk images which contained NTFS drivers on a Russian site (www.bootdisk.com seems to not provide free downloads any more). This means that all you have to do, is copy your DOS utilities to a new folder on your NTFS E2B USB drive, boot to the floppy disk image and then run the DOS utility straight from the NTFS E2B drive.

Note: The FreeDOS floppy image included with E2B v1.83+ now includes a DOS NTFS driver, so you can access an NTFS E2B USB drive as drive C:. Because FreeDOS is used and not MS-DOS 8.0 however, long filenames are not displayed correctly and so it is not quite as good as the DOS4NTFS.IMZ image.

Add a 'factory' recovery partition using Aomei One Key Recovery

Whilst looking at the Aomei Backupper utility (horrible name!) in a previous blog, I saw the free Aomei One Key Recovery product on the Aomei website and decided to try it today.

The website has a lot of 'Chinglish' sales talk and very little information about how it works. Here are the main points for you techies!...

E2B v.1.82 is now released

v1.82 2016-08-13

• New grub4dos 0.4.6a 'E2B.cfg missing' bug fix + others. 
• SDI_CHOCO (automated driver and apps install for Win 7/8/10) added. 
• Support for WSUS Offline update in SDI_CHOCO added. 
• New Win8/10 SDI_CHOCO XML files (+ some older XML files re-named). 
• Fix for Windows Setup refusing to install to internal hard disk if using E2B HDD+WINHELPER flash drive combination, with some systems. 
• Install from XP ISO hang/reset grub4dos bugfix. 
• Small tweak to \_ISO\e2b\grub\menu.lst to remove extra screen clear. 
• Improve LOADISO.cmd routine when searching for virtual Win7/8/10 ImDisk DVD drives. 
• Added two new bootmgr versions to 'whitelist' for VHD booting.
• Update script now lists the files that are updated by robocopy

Download E2B v1.82, unpack to a new folder and then use the \UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.cmd script to update your E2B drive.

Read more: http://www.easy2boot.com/download/e2b-version-history/

Note: I just noticed that the new version of grub4dos has a small bug. It soaks up key presses, so if you press Ctrl+U whilst the Main menu is loading, E2B does not go straight to the Utilities menu. You have to wait for the Main menu to display before you press Ctrl+U. Hopefully this will be fixed by the developers in the next version of grub4dos. P.S. Fixed in v1.83.

Which free Disk Backup software to use?

I was interested in finding a free offline disk backup and restore utility that I could boot from E2B and quickly make a full 'bare-metal' disk backup or restore of any (Windows) system.

I found a good article on a Raymond.cc blog post here, which tested 20 different backup utilities, but many were not free.

I decided to quickly test some of these using a Windows 10, Lenovo IdeaPad 300 notebook containing an SSD internal drive (13GB of files) and booting from an E2B SSD in an Inateck FE2007 USB 3.0 drive caddy. Well, I didn't want to spend days using spinny-things and slow USB 2.0 drives, did I?

My results tallied fairly well with the Raymond-site results (see the nice tables of free software further down this page).

My results (booting from E2B) were:

YouTube video on SDI_CHOCO feature in Easy2Boot v1.82

There is a live demo near the end of the video.

Full automated Windows 10 install + a few drivers + Teamviewer in 12 minutes.

Simple to set up the E2B drive.

Once you have added the Driverpacks to your E2B drive, you can use E2B+SDI_CHOCO to install any version of Windows 7/8/10 Install ISOs. Just add the Windows ISOs and choose one of the ***SDI_CHOCO.XML files.

'INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE' error from Windows 10 - and you won't believe the cause (I didn't)!

In the last few weeks, my Asus Z87 Haswell PC has started to display the dreaded 'Inaccessible boot device' BSOD error on start-up (it was the more friendly Windows 10 graphical version with QR code).

Now the PC was actually starting to boot. I would get the spinning circle of white dots and I could see the HDD LED blinking. Then the HDD LED would stop flashing, and after displaying 30 seconds or so of more spinning dots, I would get this blue screen error.

The thing was, if I rebooted the PC a few times, it did eventually manage to boot, so I continued to use the PC for a few weeks and just put up with this issue. I tried the Windows Troubleshooter and the Repair option and also ran BCDBoot manually, but it didn't fix it.

A few days ago, I fitted a new 2TB Hitachi SATA HDD drive to my system for extra storage, so I decided to investigate this issue further (also I was now getting the BSOD error more often!).

Since I had just connected a new SATA HDD, the first thing I did was to disconnect it, but I kept getting the same BSOD.

Next I disconnected all the SATA HDDs (2) and the single SATA DVD drive, I just left the first Samsung 500GB SATA SSD boot drive connected.

The result was a perfect boot into Windows 10. I tested this several times, switching the system off and on again - all perfect!

So, the problem was due to one of the SATA drives that I had disconnected. I re-connected them back one-by-one until the problem re-appeared.

And you'll never believe the cause!

And the culprit was (drum-roll....)