Easy2Boot and DOS-based ISOs

I was recently asked to get a DOS-based ISO to work with Easy2Boot. This ISO contained a DOS version of Ghost and an XP .gho image (amongst other things). It was also in Chinese which didn't help!

This was not easy to get working as an ISO because the DOS Autoexec.bat file was written to load a CD-ROM driver and map the 'CD-ROM' to a drive letter. If we boot from an ISO file however, there is no 'CD-ROM' drive with files on it and so the autoexec.bat file will fail.

The ISO file in question had a \boot folder that contained a DOS.IMA floppy image file. It was this file that was run when the ISO (or CD) was booted. To make it work, I extracted the DOS.IMA file and then edited the \boot\autoexec.bat file inside the DOS.IMA file to make the corrections show in green with yellow highlights below:

@ECHO OFF
SET DIRCMD=/O:N
set LglDrv=27 * 26 Z 25 Y 24 X 23 W 22 V 21 U 20 T 19 S 18 R 17 Q 16 P 15
set LglDrv=%LglDrv% O 14 N 13 M 12 L 11 K 10 J 9 I 8 H 7 G 6 F 5 E 4 D 3 C
call setramd.bat %LglDrv%
::LH SHSUCDX /D:?MSCD001
copy command.com %RAMD%:\>nul
set comspec=%RAMD%:\command.com
path=%RAMD%:\;A:\;A:\HD
SET TEMP=%RAMD%:
SET TMP=%RAMD%:
lh doskey>nul
lh mouse>nul
cls
::bcdw FindBootableCDLetter
::if errorlevel 1 goto END
set bcdw_cdrom=B
prompt CD=%bcdw_cdrom%:_RAM=%RAMD%:_$p$g
path=%PATH%;%bcdw_cdrom%:\
%bcdw_cdrom%:
bcdw GetBootImageCommandLine
if errorlevel 1 goto END
call %bcdw_cl%
r
goto END
:END
m

This simply sets the CD-ROM drive letter to B:.  I then overwrote the DOS.IMA file into the original ISO file and copied the ISO file to \_ISO\MAINMENU and ensured the file extension was .isoDOS01.

Here is how I did it in detail (of course your ISO will not be the same, but this will give you a flavour of what to do!):

1. Download and install WinImage 30-day trial version ( £20 full version is here). If you work with disk images I highly recommend WinImage.
2. Download and install UltraISO (there is a trial version here) - this is one of the few ISO editing packages that allowed me to save the 600MB ISO using the trial version. When the trial period expires, you will need to register it for $30 - or use this link to download the full version.
3. Load the ISO using UltraISO and extract the DOS.IMA file to a temporary folder on your hard disk
4. Load the DOS.IMA file in WinImage and extract the autoexec.bat file from the \boot folder
5. Edit the autoexec.bat file using Notepad so that drive B: is the CD-ROM drive letter and save the file.
6. Drag and drop the new autoexec.bat into the WinImage root folder and save the file as DOS.IMA
7. Drag and drop the new DOS.IMA file into the UltraISO \boot folder to replace the existing DOS.IMA
8. Save as a new ISO file
9. Copy the ISO file to the E2B drive as \_ISO\MAINMENU\mynewiso.isoDOS01  (note: the last two characters are the numbers 'zero' and 'one')

You should now find that the new ISO file will create a virtual B: drive in memory and copy the contents of the whole ISO into the new virtual drive (this may take several minutes!). After that it should boot as normal.

Easy2Boot 1.31 released

There are still a few issues with grub4dos 0.4.6a but I have decided to release E2B v1.30 (called 1.30A) due to the enhancements I have added in other areas.

v1.30A/1.31

• Support E2B if on a logical partition of boot device
• grub4dos 0.4.6a USB driver option in Main menu
• .isoPUP file extension supported
• .isoWB file extension supported
• Better error recovery if bad ISO selected in menu
• Allow longer XP ISO filenames (caused error in Setup if ISO filename was very long)
• Allow for new format of latest 'Nightly builds' of XP dpms (the INI file format has been changed in the latest driverpack builds!) - in v1.31
• Convert $HOME$ keyword in .txt files to the folder path 
• Improve Make_E2B_USB_Drive.cmd script
• Some more sample .mnu files added to docs folder (e.g. proxmox.mnu, Puppy_Slacko64_no_partnew.mnu, linuxmint-16-cinnamon-dvd-32bit_Persistent.mnu)

If you switch to grub4dos 0.4.6a, some ISOs may not boot. Grub4dos 0.4.6a supports the Joliet ISO 9660 format, but it has problems with 9660:1999 Joliet format. Also the USB controller detection in 0.4.6a is not fully working and some USB drives may not be detected by the usb --init command on some systems.

To remove the ' Switch to Grub4dos v0.4.6 (for USB Driver)' menu entry, delete the \_ISO\MAINMENU\ZGRUB_USB_046.mnu file.

Please let me know if you find any issues.
Note: One user found an issue with 'Looking for WINHELPER.USB' being very slow, so I have restored the older code for this and re-released it as v1.31.

Add ProxMox Install ISOs to a USB Easy2Boot drive

ProxMox VE 8.2 ISO

1. Use E2B or agFM to boot to ISO.  Legacy or UEFI64 can be used.

2. At ProxMox boot menu, select GUI or Text mode install and then press 'e' to edit the entry (don't press Enter)

3. Move cursor to just before 'rw' in the menu and type the string

lvm2root=/dev/sdX4

where X is the USB drive letter which proxmox will give the USB drive when it boots.

If legacy booting this will be sda4 because the boot drive is always hd0 when legacy booting.

If UEFI64 booting it may differ from a. To check, press c key and then type ls. If USB drive is listed as hd0 then you need to use /dev/sda4. If USB drive is listed as hd1 then you need to use /dev/sdb4.

You can use a .mnu file if you want to automate it under the E2B menu system. For E2B legacy, modify and use proxmox_v5.4_iso_with_patch.mnu from \_ISO\docs\sample mnu files folder and edit iso name.

For agFM (legacy and UEFI64), you will need to use a .cfg or .grubfm file - see here for details.

You can copy the proxmox commands but insert the lvm2root command - however, different systems will give the USB drive a different drive letter, so it is not a good solution unless you add some code to enumerate existing drives (as done by the .mnu file for legacy grub4dos). I will leave this as an exercise for the geeks!

Other versions

For ProxMox4-7 see end of this article

ProxMox 3

The ProxMox install ISOs don't 'just work' with Easy2Boot. The ISO shows a 'PROXMOX INSTALLER' splash screen and then seems to hang. However, if you press F2 or ESC to get to the linux command prompt, you can easily start the installer as follows:
1. Type
    fdisk -l
to find the USB 4th partition. This will usually be /dev/sdb4 on a single disk system.
2. Next type
    mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt
to mount the 4th partition (this will already contain the ISO file set up by E2B).
3. Finally type
    chroot /mnt sbin/unconfigured.sh
to start the installer (it takes a minute or two to load - be patient).

If you prefer, you can copy the ISO file to the \_ISO\MAINMENU\MNU folder and make a small .mnu file in the same folder to remind you of the commands that are required:

title ProxMox Installer ISO \n Use fdisk -l to find 4th partition\n mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt\n chroot /mnt sbin/unconfigured.sh
set ISO=proxmox-ve_3.2-1933730b-2.iso
/%grub%/qrun.g4b $HOME$/%ISO%
boot

P.S. If the E2B drive is an NTFS drive, the mount command fails (for some reason).

For NTFS E2B USB Drives

1. Create an empty folder on the Windows Desktop

2. Copy your PROXMOX.ISO file to the empty folder (do NOT extract the contents)

3. Drag-and-drop the folder onto the MPI_FAT32 Desktop icon and create a PROXMOX.imgPTN file on your NTFS E2B USB drive that is about double the size of the ISO file - e.g. 1400MB for a 665MB ISO.

4. Boot to E2B and select the PROXMOX.imgptn file to get to the CSM Menu - then Quit.

5.  Edit the \menu.lst file on the E2B USB drive (it should be the large CSM menu.lst and there should be a \e2b folder present also).

Add to the bottom of the menu:

title ProxMox Installer ISO \n Use fdisk -l to find 4th partition\n mount /dev/sdb4 /mnt\n chroot /mnt sbin/unconfigured.sh
partnew (hd0,3) 0 /proxmox.iso
map /proxmox.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)

chainloader (0xff)

Note that the PROXMOX.ISO file inside the .imgPTN file needs to be contiguous - this is why we must choose a much larger size for the .imgPTN file than we need. If you get a 'not contiguous' error from the above menu, use WinContig to defrag the PROXMOX.ISO file on the E2B USB drive. If it is not possible, create a larger .imgPTN file and try again.

ProxMox 4/5/7

The file structure has changed with proxmox 4 and later versions.

Here is one way to get it to work:

1. Copy the .ISO file to \_ISO\LINUX on your E2B drive
2. Boot to the proxmox boot menu
3. Select the first install option in the menu and press e for edit
4. Add the string lvm2root=/dev/sdX4  where X is the drive letter for your USB drive (try sda4 first).
For instance, on a notebook with a single hard disk, add lvm2root=/dev/sdb4
Under a VM where the USB drive is the first drive in the system, use /dev/sda4
Also, on a notebook which had an internal hard drive, /dev/sda4 worked but /dev/sdb4 did not!

Add in lvm2root=/dev/sdX4  in the exact place shown  (the \ character at the end of the line in the screenshot just shows that the line continues)

5. Press F10 to boot.


E2B v1.B3 contains a sample .mnu file which uses this method to modify the grub.cfg file in the ISO so that you dont need to manually edit the menu. See ....

proxmox_v5.4_iso_with_patch.mnu

# MBR-boot from proxmox iso
# This assumes the \boot\grub\grub.cfg menuentry line inside the ISO file ends in 'quiet splash=silent'
# It loads the ISO contents into memory and then patches the grub.cfg menu entry
# You must pick the correct device - sometimes this is sda and sometimes it is as suggested
# Copy this .mnu file and the ISO file to \_ISO\LINUX folder

iftitle [if exist $HOME$/proxmox-ve_5.4-1.iso] ProxMox VE v5.4.1 Installer (patch ISO)\nTip: Try sda or sdb or sdc, etc.
set ISO=$HOME$/proxmox-ve_5.4-1.iso

# set DEV to the drive device number of the USB drive - e.g. a
#don't echo of values on screen
debug off
#make sure all drives are unmapped as this can change the count
#reset hdcount in BIOS to default
map --unhook
map --unmap=0:0xff
root (bd)
#set number of hard disks in system from BIOS location 475h
set /a HDCNT=*0x475 & 0xff > nul
# cannot install to E2B drive!
if %HDCNT%==1 pause --wait=3 ERROR: No internal hard disk detected && configfile (md)0x3000+0xA0
# add 0x60 so drive 1 = a, drive 2 = b
set /A ldisk=%HDCNT%+0x60 > nul
call echo -e sd\%ldisk:~1,4% | set ldisk=
echo %HDCNT% disks in system including USB drive
echo
echo -e      I guess the USB drive will be sda or $[0104]%ldisk%
echo
set /p ldisk=Enter linux device name for USB drive, e.g. sda or sdb (A=abort, ESC=%ldisk%) : 
echo
# must start with sd
if not "%ldisk:~0,2%"=="sd" pause --wait=3 ERROR: Must begin with "sd" && configfile (md)0x3000+0xA0
echo Will use /dev/%ldisk%4 for ISO file

set NOSUG=1
set redir=> nul
echo Loading ISO into memory and patching menuentry...
/%grub%/QRUN.g4b force.isomem %ISO%
root (0xff)
clear
echo
cat --locatei=menuentry --number=1 ()/boot/grub/grub.cfg > nul
set /a st=%?%
cat --skip=%st% --length=570  ()/boot/grub/grub.cfg
echo -e \n.......... NEW PATCHED MENU .............\n
cat --locatei=quiet    --replace=lvm2root=/dev/%ldisk%4\x20 ()/boot/grub/grub.cfg > nul
cat --locatei=lvm2root --replace=lvm2root=/dev/%ldisk%4\x20 ()/boot/grub/grub.cfg > nul
cat --locatei=\x20e\x20 --replace=\x20\x20 ()/boot/grub/grub.cfg > nul
#display menu
cat --skip=%st% --length=570 ()/boot/grub/grub.cfg
pause Press a key to boot...
chainloader (0xff)
boot

Alternative for Proxmox 4\5

Or you can use a .mnu file to automate the process (but you need to check the suggested /dev/sdx device is correct for that system)...

# place ISO and this .mnu file in \_ISO\LINUX\MNU folder.
# vga=791 is required or will get Installation aborted error.
# lvm2root must be set the the E2B USB drive partition which is mapped to the ISO

iftitle [if exist $HOME$/proxmox-ve_4.4-eb2d6f1e-2.iso] proxmox 4.4\n You must enter the correct USB name.
set ISO=proxmox-ve_4.4-eb2d6f1e-2.iso

#don't echo of values on screen
debug off
#make sure all drives are unmapped as this can change the count
#reset hdcount in BIOS to default
map --unhook
map --unmap=0:0xff
root (bd)
#set number of hard disks in system from BIOS location 475h
set /a HDCNT=*0x475 & 0xff > nul
# cannot install to E2B drive!
if %HDCNT%==1 pause --wait=3 ERROR: No internal hard disk detected && configfile (md)0x3000+0x50
# add 0x60 so drive 1 = a, drive 2 = b
set /A ldisk=%HDCNT%+0x60 > nul
call echo -e sd\%ldisk:~1,4% | set ldisk=
echo %HDCNT% disks in system including USB drive
echo
echo -e      I guess the USB drive will be $[0104]%ldisk%
echo
set /p ldisk=Enter linux device name for USB drive, e.g. sdb or sdc (A=abort, ESC=%ldisk%) : 
echo
# must start with sd
if not "%ldisk:~0,2%"=="sd" pause --wait=3 ERROR: Must begin with "sd" && configfile (md)0x3000+0x50
pause --wait=3 Will use /dev/%ldisk%4 for ISO file
set NOSUG=1
set redir=> nul
/%grub%/QRUN.g4b $HOME$/%ISO%
kernel /boot/linux26 ro ramdisk_size=16777216 lvm2root=/dev/%ldisk%4 vga=791 rw quiet splash=silent
initrd /boot/initrd.img
boot


Note: proxmox 5.4 seems to be broken. It won't even boot if I dd the ISO to a USB drive.

proxmox 5.4.1 UEFI booting

This seems to not 'just work' for USB drives. Here is a workaround.

1. Make a FAT32 .imgPTN file from the ISO
2. Copy it to the E2B drive and switch-in the .imgPTN file
3. UEFI boot - it will fail and it will land you at the grub rescue prompt
(note VirtualBox will try to boot the MAC EFI boot file and it will hang in VBox - so rename the \System folder to \SystemXX).
4. At the grub rescue prompt, type set to see the variables.
Type ls to determine the USB drive number.

We need to fix the root and prefix variables, so type
set root=hd0,msdos1
set prefix=(hd0,msdos1)/boot/grub
5. Now we need to load the normal module from the $prefix config folder which could not be loaded before and boot, so type
insmod normal
normal

6. At the proxmox boot screen, select the first menu entry 'Install proxmox VE' but press e instead of ENTER so you can edit the menu and add lvm2root=/dev/sdX1  where X will be the USB drive letter (this may depend on how many drives are in the system).

P.S. This doesn't seem to work on ProxMox 6.3.1 !!! :-(  Mass Storage USB drivers appear to be missing from the ProxMox grub2 so it does not even see the USB drive.

Easy2Boot 'discovered' by LinuxVoice magazine

Listen to the podcast  (E2B mentioned at approx. 31:40).
Tip: Turn off AdBlock if you have trouble playing via the audio control.

.isoWB file extension in E2B

I have added .isoWB file extension support to Easy2Boot_v1.30b_TESTONLY.zip.

So there is no need to create and edit a .mnu file for each ISO.

1. Copy the .INI file used by your WinBuilder ISO to the root of the E2B USB drive - this file is found in the same folder as the ISO when made by WinBuilder. e.g. \Win7PESE.ini. The contents of the file are not important, but the file name is critical.

2. Add extra characters to the .ini file to make it over 1000 bytes (1KB) in size (1KB is only required if your E2B USB drive is formatted as NTFS). Any extra characters will do (the contents are erased and re-written by E2B)

3. Copy your WinBuilder PE .ISO file to the desired menu payload folder (2nd level deep)  (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU or \_ISO\WINPE)

4. Rename it as .isoWB (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WBPE.isoWB)

5. Make a subfolder called WB (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WB)

6. Create a text file in the WB folder with the same name as the .isoWB file but with a .WB file extension - e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WB\WBPE.WB)

The contents of the .WB file should contain two lines (the text in red should be changed to match the name of the .INI file used by your WinBuilder ISO):

!BAT
set IniName=Win7PESE.ini

7. (optional) Create a .txt file for the .isoWB file so that the menu entry is not just displayed as the filename, e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WBPE.txt:

title My WinPE ISO\n Boot the ISO using Easy2Boot

Easy2Boot - better support for multiple WinBuilder WinPE ISO files

Most WinBuilder WinPE ISOs have special support for booting directly from ISOs. When the WinPE ISO boots, a WinBuilder script looks on the root of all drives for a special INI file which contains the name and path of the ISO file that it booted from. Once it knows where to find the WinPE ISO, the script then loads that ISO file as a virtual drive. It can then access any file or folder on the virtual drive and in this way gets access to the extra programs and utilities that  are 'inside' the ISO.

This is great because it means you can just add the INI file to the root of your E2B USB drive and when you boot from a WinBuilder WinPE ISO, it will get the name of the ISO from inside that INI file.

The problem is, what if you have more than one WinBuilder WinPE ISO on your E2B drive? When they boot, they all will look for the same INI file (e.g. \Win7PESE.ini) but they each require their ISO file name and path to be inside it.

I have solved this problem with a new .mnu file which will be in the release version of E2B v1.30.

The new .mnu file will write the name and path of the ISO file into the INI file before booting the WinPE ISO.

If you want to test it now, you can download a sample of the new .mnu file from the easy2boot website Download page - WinBuilder_PE_Multiple_ISOs.zip (click on the 'alternate download' icon).



P.S. You will be able to do a similar thing using the new .isoWB file extension (Easy2Boot_v1.30b_TESTONLY.zip and release version). So there is no need to create and edit a .mnu file for each ISO.

1. Copy the .INI file used by your WinBuilder ISO to the root of the E2B USB drive - this file is found in the same folder as the ISO when made by WinBuilder. e.g. \Win7PESE.ini. The contents of the file are not important, but the file name is critical.

2. Add extra characters to the .ini file to make it over 1000 bytes (1KB) in size (only required if your E2B USB drive is formatted as NTFS). Any extra characters will do (contents are erased by E2B later)

3. Copy your WinBuilder PE .ISO file to the desired menu folder (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU or \_ISO\WINPE)

4. Rename it as .isoWB (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WBPE.isoWB)

5. Make a subfolder called WB (e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WB)

6. Create a text file in the WB folder with the same name as the .isoWB file but with a .WB file extension - e.g. \_ISO\MAINMENU\WB\WBPE.WB)

The contents of the .WB file should contain two lines (the text in red should be changed to match the name of the .INI file used by your WinBuilder ISO):

!BAT

set IniName=Win7PESE.ini

7. (optional) Create a .txt file for the .isoWB file so that the menu entry is not just displayed as the filename, e.g.

title My WinPE ISO\n Boot the ISO using Easy2Boot

Easy2Boot Introduction - en France!

I came across this site and these articles at http://www.lecadelo.fr

• Easy2Boot, une trousse à outils de poche
• Easy2Boot, les images disque
• Easy2Boot, personnalisation du menu
• Easy2Boot, 10 fonds d'écran
• Easy2Boot, quelques astuces

Bulk duplication of USB drive images

Let us suppose that you have a 32GB Corsair Voyager GT multiboot USB Flash drive (e.g. containing Easy2Boot) which contains all of your boot files and utilities and now your 12 colleagues each want to have the same files on their USB Flash drives.

Now you obviously cannot just do an 'image copy' from one USB stick to another because they will be of slightly different makes, models and sizes. A 32GB Patriot XT USB stick may be up to 500MB smaller than a 32GB Corsair Voyager flash drive for instance. Here is what RMPrepUSB - Drive Info reports for these two 32GB drives:

"Corsair Voyager GT 3.0" (32,054,968,320 bytes)
Reported size 32,054,968,320 bytes (29.8535GiB)  Last LBA 62,607,359

"Patriot Memory" (32,019,316,736 bytes)
Reported size 32,019,316,736 bytes (29.8203GiB)  Last LBA 62,537,727

So if you tried to copy an image of the Corsair Voyager onto the Patriot XT stick, you would get an error. Even if you ignored the error, the last 300MB on the partition would not exist and the user would get a problem if he/she tried to fill up the drive.

What you may not realise is that even if all the USB sticks were of the same make, model and revision, they can vary in reported size! This is because the manufacturer will map out any bad 'pages' of memory if they fail during factory testing.

How to bulk duplicate USB drives

Step 1. Find the smallest USB drive that you will need to copy the image to - use RMPrepUSB - Drive Info to do this. e.g.

                               Reported size 32,019,316,736 bytes (29.8203GiB)  Last LBA 62,537,727

If you don't know the smallest size, then guess 'under' - e.g. if 16GB is the smallest size anyone has, choose 15250MiB (16,000,000,000 / 1024*1024).

Flash drive manufacturers always advertise drive capacity in GB not GiB. 

1GB = 1000x1000x1000 = 1000000000 bytes.

1Gib = 1024x1024x1024 = 1073741824 bytes.

1MB = 1000x1000 = 1000000 bytes

1MiB = 1024x1024 = 1048576 bytes

so:

32GB = 30517MiB   32GiB = 34359738368 bytes

16GB = 15258MiB   16GiB = 17179869184 bytes

So a '32GB drive' is 32 thousand million bytes or 29.8023GiB. That is why Windows reports it as 29.8GB (it really means 29.8GiB!).

Note that a 32GB drive will have 32GiB of memory inside it. This leaves up to 2.359 GB of 'spare' memory which the manufacturer can use for bad memory management, page swapping, etc. and still have a 32GB drive available for the user.

Step 2. Prepare your USB drive using the 'smallest' partition size - let us assume 15250MiB if the smallest drive is going to be 16GB. We can use RMPrepUSB and put 15258 in the Size field (use 30517 for 32GB drives).

If you don't want to prepare a new drive. Use Easeus Partition Master to shrink the partition so that it ends at  15258MiB.

Step 3. Use RMPrepUSB - Drive Info to check that the partition ends at the correct place.

This example shows the End of the last partition at 32,019,316,736 bytes which is 19MB larger than the smallest possible 32GB drive, so it is slightly too large and needs to be reduced by 19MB:

P1   Start=63 (32,256 bytes) End=62,537,727 (32,019,316,224 bytes)

P2   Start=62,537,728 (32,019,316,736 bytes) End=62,537,790 (32,019,348,480 bytes)

Step 4. Now make an image of all partitions using:

RMPrepUSB - Drive->File

• Name = myimage.bin
• Drive Sector Start = 0
• Length = PALL
• File Start Byte Position = 0

This will only capture up to the end of the last partition and not the whole drive.

5. Now download and install PassMark's ImageUSB utility (free). You can now plug in all your USB drives to all your USB ports and write the image to all of them at the same time.

ImageUSB is a free utility which lets you write an image concurrently to multiple USB Flash Drives. Capable of creating exact bit-level copies of USB Flash Drive (UFDs), ImageUSB is an extremely effective tool for the mass duplication of UFDs. ImageUSB also supports writing of an ISO file byte by byte directly to an USB drive

Note: ImageUSB cannot be used for image capture because it saves all physical sectors of a USB drive and so can only reliably write the image that is created by it to identically sized or larger flash drives.

Tip 1: Use a powered USB 3.0 hub - these are generally much faster than USB 2.0 hubs

Tip 2: If you just want to write to one USB Flash drive at a time, you can use the RMPrepUSB - File->Drive button instead of using ImageUSB.

6. If, for instance, you put a 32GB image on a 64GB USB Flash drive, you can expand the partition using Easeus Partition Master. This should not affect it's bootability but check it boots afterwards just to be sure!

Note: A 'free for home use' Easeus Partition Master version is also available.

P.S. Although you can duplicate most USB boot drives in this way, you cannot duplicate HitMan Pro USB Flash drives unless the 'target' USB drive has EXACTLY the same reported size as the original drive (check using RMPrepUSB - Drive Info) and you make an image of the whole drive and not just the drive partitions. HitMan Pro writes code to the very end of the drive.

Not enough room to defragment files? Try Refresher.cmd

Easy2Boot and many grub4dos bootable USB drives require that the ISO files are contiguous (i.e. the ISO file occupies sequential clusters on the drive).

If your Flash drive is almost full, you may find that you cannot defragment a large ISO that you have just copied over to it. This is because there is not enough free space left on the drive.

By the way: If there is enough free space on an NTFS drive and you still cannot make a very large file contiguous, see my previous blog post here.

For instance, if you have a 16GB USB Flash drive with 3GB of free space, you cannot defragment and make contiguous a file that is larger than 3GB.

Even if there was enough free space, the defrag of the ISO file could take a very long time.
If your USB Flash drive has reached this stage, it is best and quickest to reformat it. If you want to keep all the files on it, then you obviously need to make a backup first.

You also stand a better chance of having all files contiguus, if you copy over the large ISOs first, before the rest of the smaller files.

To simplify this process, I wrote a Windows batch file to automate this. Just drag-and-drop your USB drive icon onto the Refresher.cmd file (keep it on your Desktop for convenience) and it will guide you through process of:

1. Backing up all files
2. Formatting the USB volume (choose NTFS or FAT32)
3. Copying back to the USB drive all the large >500MB files first
4. Copying back to the USB drive the rest (<500MB) of the files
5. Copying back the empty folders
6. Comparing the file count in Step 1 with that of the USB drive now.
7. Deleting the backup folder

If a folder is chosen instead of a drive, then instead of formatting the drive volume, the Windows 'rd' command is used to delete the folder and all sub-folders, and then the original files are copied back. In practise, this rarely defragments the files however. You will be far more successful if you reformat the whole drive by choosing the Drive icon as shown above.

To use Refresher.cmd, copy the Refresher.cmd file to your Windows Desktop, then drag-and-drop the drive icon of your USB drive onto the Refresher.cmd Desktop icon (or type Refresh N: from a Windows command prompt console if you need Admin rights). Then just choose either NTFS or FAT32 to reformat the drive when prompted. At this point you can reformat using RMPrepUSB if you wish and just Skip the Windows format. Note that RMPrepUSB partitions and formats, it is not a format-only tool. If you have a multi-partition USB Hard disk, you will have to use the Windows format tool as the contents of only one drive volume letter is backed up by Refresher.cmd.

User input shown in red squares.

WARNING: As this is quite a powerful batch file, please take care when using it. If the contents of the drive being 'Refreshed' are very valuable, make a backup first (you should have one anyway!). The batch file assumes you will press CTRL+C if you see anything wrong. The temporary backup folder will be in the same folder as the Refresher.cmd file, so make sure there is enough room on the hard disk. A new backup folder is made (and deleted) each time.

Note that Windows format will remove the grub4dos boot loader from the Partition Boot Record (PBR). If you find that the USB drive no longer boots after running Refresher.cmd, use RMPrepUSB - grub4dos Install and choose 'No' for a PBR install of grub4dos. This should fix the boot problem. Then test that it boots using QEMU or VBox or test on a real system. To avoid losing the PBR code each time you use Refresher.cmd, install grub4dos to the MBR instead.

Download Refresh.zip

Notes on text 'screengrabbing' and data collection in the grub4dos console

Sometimes you may be asked for debug information using the grub4dos shell/console.

The problem is how do you get all this information to the grub4dos developer if this needs to run on a real system and not a Virtual Machine? Normally, you would take a photograph with your digital camera or cell-phone, download the pictures onto your computer and then upload them or email them to the developer.

However, you can use my grab.g4b batch file to capture the screen instead:

1. Download and extract the contents of the Grab.zip file to the root of your grub4dos drive
2. Boot to grub4dos and get to the grub4dos command console
3. Type graphicsmode 3 to get into text mode
4. Execute any debug commands so that the results are displayed on the screen (80chars x 24 lines)
5. Type /grab.g4b to capture the text into the file grab.txt.
6. If you want to capture another screen to a different file, use /grab.g4b 1  to capture the screen text to the file grab1.txt.
      grab.txt, grab1.txt, grab2.txt...grab8.txt are provided in the download. They must exist before the command is executed.
7. You files can now be sent to the developer.

Capturing memory data

If you are asked to send the results of a cat command - e.g.

cat --hex (md)0x4e+3

This will display quite a lot of data - far more than one screen full. You can redirect the output to an existing file using:

cat --hex (md)0xe4+3 > /myfile.txt

as long as myfile.txt exists and is big enough. Note: If using an NTFS filesystem, the file must be at least 1K or more or the writes won't work.

Unfortunately you cannot use more than 3 sectors as the grub4dos redirection buffer appears to be limited to just 8192 bytes - e.g. cat /file1.txt > file2.txt will only work for the first 8192 bytes.

If you need to collect more than 3 sectors of hex data ouput, you can use the mdcat.g4b batch file included in the download.

/mdcat.gb4 0x4e

The results will be in /mdcat.txt - use NotePad++ to open it (not Windows NotePad).