All in One System Rescue ISO (Paul Vreeland)

Paul Vreeland has made available his 682MB Rescue ISO for all to use.

The LiveCD part is based on Ubuntu 64-bit and so is not suitable for 32-bit systems. It contains a few useful utilities (all legal to use by businesses), but the most useful part appears to be the Windows utilities that are within the ISO.

You can use the ISO directly in E2B (e.g. name it .iso64 so you don't try to use it on 32-bit systems), or make a .imgPTN64 file from it with the MPI ToolKit for 64-bit MBR and UEFI-booting.
The most useful part comes if you can mount the ISO in Windows (or switch to an .imgPTN image containing the ISO contents) and then you can run AiO-SRT.exe to start the GUI. This means you will often need to download and install the utilities onto the same Windows system that you are trying to fix.

     The AIO System Rescue utility changes the Windows Desktop background and runs a GUI.

See here for a list of utilities. An internet connection seems required for many of the utilities. Some apps require .Net to be downloaded and installed. Many of the buttons just lead to a website where you need to download and install the application onto the system (if it is not too infected!).

He has plans for a Lite version with 100% scripted automated task too (and hopefully a 32-bit LiveCD version?).

P.S. Use the torrent link for a download if possible and don't forget to donate to his site!

Happy Birthday to E2B!

According to the E2B Version History page here, after many Beta versions, E2B v1.00 was finally released to the world on 2013-06-18, so that means that E2B is 3 today - so Happy Birthday E2B!

Yes, believe it or not, the idea for developing Easy2Boot first started on the reboot.pro forum over three years ago! If you are really interested (or suffer from insomnia or are just plain nosey), you can study the progress of the various E2B Betas and how Sambul61, cdob, Scooby, Wonko the Sane, Rootman, DanialCollinet, halikus, libranco, h3xl3y and many others, contributed to it's development here.



Warning: Old joke alert!


A small boy was walking with his parents in London, just as an old man was being released through the main prison gates of Wormwood Scrubs, having just finished an 18 year(!) sentence. The old 'lag' was naturally exuberant and he ran up to the family shouting 'HURRAY, HURRAY, I'M FREE, I'M FREE', to which the small boy replied 'So what mister, I'm four!'.






Family story #1 (true story)!
Many years ago in the early 60's, when they were a young married couple with two small boys, my parents ran two supermarkets, two post-offices, two off-licences, a taxi service and a grocery delivery service. They worked really hard, 18 hours a day, every day. Every day that is, except for Sundays, when they had a well-deserved 'lie-in' in the morning. 

So my younger brother and I knew that hung on my parent's firmly-shut bedroom door every Sunday morning, was a large but invisible sign that said 'Do not disturb - on pain of death!'.

My brother and I generally got on quite well with each other, but early this one particular Sunday morning when our parents were 'resting', we got into an argument in our bedroom, which led to a loud shouting match, and then soon afterwards, to actual fisticuffs!

On hearing this unholy racket, my father was forced to leave my mother in their matrimonial bed and attend to the matter. He stormed into our bedroom and grabbed us both, gripping the back of our small necks tightly in each of his huge hands. My brother and I could tell from his expression that he was not at all pleased at being 'disturbed' and that we were probably going to get a good walloping, very soon!
My father turned to me and asked me angrily 'What do you think you're doing?', and I replied...'fighting'.

He then turned to my younger brother and said to him even more angrily, 'and what do you think you are doing?'
My brother looked up at my father and replied tentatively, 'Helping him?'.

There was a pause... I could hear my mother giggling from their bedroom across the landing. My father's mouth almost broke into a smile and we escaped a spanking that morning - thanks to my little brother!

Family story #2 (true story)!
Our family house has an all-glass and PVC steel conservatory (i.e. no brick walls) and we had just adopted a lovely little black kitten named Jemima, which was currently using a litter tray in the corner of the conservatory to perform her somewhat smelly ablutions.
I turned to my father and said 'Hey Dad, how can we make a cat flap in a glass conservatory?'
He looked up at me, and with a twinkle in his eye replied, 'Easy son, just kick it up the ass!'.
Well, it was funny at the time...

Cracking BIOS passwords (Dell, HP, Fujitsu, Compaq, Insyde, Phoenix, Sony, Samsung)

Many old BIOSes have a preset but secret backdoor password.

But I happened to stumble across this page today.

It describes how to crack the BIOS password on those systems which print a code if you enter the wrong password too many times. It also offers a range of Windows executables (.exe files) for each model which can translate that code into the original BIOS password!

Fujitsu-Siemens BIOS pwd cracker

From the user comments, it appears to work for many systems (I have not tried it 'for real' myself).

This seems like a useful addition to a Techies toolkit (the exe files need .NET and a Windows OS), especially if the customer has forgotten their BIOS password and you need to change the settings.

There is also a simple 'unlocker' web page here which contains the same code but for all types of system (obviously needs internet access and a browser).

Another useful web page (with unlocker script which doesn't seem to work for me?) is here.

Install OpenBSD from Easy2Boot

You can download and install OpenBSD by adding the cd59.iso network install ISO to E2B.

OpenBSD 59 Desktop

However, if you want to use the non-network installer, install59.iso, you will find that OpenBSD installer script/wizard will not be able to find the installation files (which are, of course, hidden inside the ISO).

Add Mepis antiX MX-15 with persistence to E2B

MX-15 ISOs can be booted straight from E2B - just copy the ISOs to the E2B drive (e.g. \_ISO\LINUX folder), make them contiguous (run \MAKE_THIS_DRIVE_CONTIGUOUS.cmd) and boot.

More Frettt's Themes for E2B (en & de)

It seems to be a 'Themes' week!

Frettt has sent me his latest English and German E2B themes which I have uploaded to the Alternate Downloads sites (Themes folder) as a .zip file.

You can view all 16 (8 English + 8 German) on the Gallery page on his site. Here is one of them (German version)...

Add TechUSB and tuxpe to E2B

TechUSB

This Knoppix-based product is sold by RepairTech. It is part of their TechSuite. YouTube video here (TechUSB starts here).

FYI - I have no connection or affiliation with them.

Their TechUSB_Creator.exe utility creates a bootable USB flash drive.

To add this to E2B, simply drag-and-drop the drive letter icon of the TechUSB flash drive onto the MPI_FAT32 desktop shortcut (after installing the MPI Tool Kit) - then make a TechUSB.imgPTN file.

Note: If you want to add personal storage, then increase the default size of the .imgPTN file by at least 200MB.

Laura's E2B themes

If you haven't visited Laura's site for a while (like me!), you will be pleasantly surprised to see she has added even more lovely E2B menu examples.

She has used both grub4dos and GFXBoot Menu themes for both her E2B menus and for the CSM menus inside .imgPTN files. No doubt they took quite a bit of work!

To cycle through the different menu screenshots, just click on one of the screenshots on her site and use the arrow markers.

You can download some of her themes here.

I have also slightly tweaked the T2-MAINMENU theme (the one which does not use GFXBoot) and uploaded it to the 'Themes' folder in the Alternate Download Area.

Laura's T2 MainMenu Theme (slightly-modified)

Note: Some of Laura's GFXBoot menus seem to overflow if you have too many menu items...

Laura has a 'Contact Me' form if you need (free) help and advice on making your own E2B themes, and she can speak English, Spanish and German.

P.S. Laura is working on a PDF which contains the easy2boot.com site information but written in German.

E2B v1.81a Beta available

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

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

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

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

www.easy2boot.com and the new Ezoic page layout

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

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

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

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

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

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

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