Easy2Boot v1.92b available

E2B v1.92b BETA is now available from OneDrive here.

Changes from v1.91B are (changes from 1.92a in bold):

• Ukrainian language added (thanks 'ruffian')
• small bugfix to XPWINNT.g4b to allow SVR2016 folder to be selected
• new Make_E2B to add Ukrainian lang, 
• check added in Make_E2B_USB_DRIVE.cmd to check Windows find command is working, 
• revised English F1.cfg help file, 
• new RMPartUSB to format the 2nd small hidden partition to prevent Win10 Format pop-up dialogue box
• bugfix for XP DPMS2 sometime getting wrong PCI ID and hence using the wrong driver

An E2B user contacted me to say that XP installs from ISO did not detect his internal hard disk on his HP G62 AMD notebook. I bought a G62 notebook from eBay, found the issue and fixed it.

If anyone in the UK wants a silver HP G62-a17SA, Win 10 Home 64-bit, AMD Athlon II P320 2.10GHz, 320 GB 7,200 rpm HDD, 4GB RAM, HDMI, Enet, webcam, WiFi, DVD R/W, USB 2.0 x 3, good battery, with WPS Office, very nice and clean, very few scuffs (looks almost unused), for £150 ono - let me know!


You can update your current E2B DPMS USB drives using this new Beta version.


The next BETA will include the latest version of grub4dos which hopefully has all the niggly bugs fixed now.

Install Windows 7 from USB using a USB 3.0 port

Windows 7 does not contain USB 3.0 drivers, so when you boot from a USB drive from USB 3.0 port, Windows Setup will not be able to access the USB drive and you will get a 'Missing CD\DVD drive device driver' message box.

However, by combining a Windows 10 boot.wim with Windows 7 install.wim, it is possible to install Windows 7 from a USB drive connected to a modern USB 2.0 or 3.0 port.

I have written a short 'Tutorial #139' describing how to do it.

This method means that all types of USB controllers should work (as Win10 contains USB 3.0 drivers) and you don't have to mess about adding USB drivers to the Windows 7 boot.wim file.

However, you will have to add the USB 3 drivers to the Windows 7 OS once you have booted to Windows 7, but by then you should have web access and can download them (if available). Otherwise, you can always boot to the Win10 boot.wim and use XCOPY to copy the driver folder from your USB drive onto the Win7 hard disk.

You can use the same Win7+Win10 procedure to modify an ISO and add it to E2B, or you can use MakePartImage to convert a working USB Flash drive to a .imgPTN file and add that to E2B.

System Rescue CD 2017-04-12 released

The systemrescuecd-x86-4.9.6.iso has been updated recently.

Description: SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of Linux system utilities such as GParted, fsarchiver, filesystem tools and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It can be used for both Linux and windows computers, and on desktops as well as servers. This rescue system requires no installation as it can be booted from a CD/DVD drive or USB stick, but it can be installed on the hard disk if you wish. The kernel supports all important file systems (ext3/ext4, xfs, btrfs, reiserfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs), as well as network filesystems such as Samba and NFS.

If you add it to E2B it will 'just work'.

If you want to use the persistence feature ('backstore'), refer to my previous blog post here.

StarTech S2510BU3ISO Hard Disk Enclosure with ISO (DVD) Emulation for $20

The StarTech S2510BU3ISO Hard Disk enclosure is similar to the Zalman and IODD enclosures in that it can emulate a USB DVD drive by loading an ISO file.

Note: This product is now discontinued by StarTech and so is unsupported and has bugs (read-on for more details and a workaround for the buggy firmware).

Press the MODE button and the LED changes from HDD to ISO1,
 then press again for ISO2 then again for ISO3 and then back to HDD.

Is the new SanDisk Extreme Pro 3.1 USB Flash drive any good?

See my blog page here to find out.

E2B v1.92a with Ukrainian language now available

'Ruffian' has sent me the language files for the Ukrainian language and this has been added into v1.92a which is available on OneDrive.

If you are from Ukraine Ви можете, як це, так? ;-)

Ukrainian Menu

Add Fedora with persistence to E2B

Updated 2021-04-12 for Fedora 33

Linux ISOs + persistence

To set up most linux ISOs with persistence, find a suitable .mnu file in the
\_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files folder on the E2B USB drive and read the instructions at the top of the file.

You will need to change the  name of the ISO in the title line and a line below the title line.

You will need to create a ext2\3\4 persistence file (ext3 recommended as ext2 files are easily corrupted) using RMPrepUSB.

See here for instructions.

Fedora + persistence

However, Fedora is different!

The sample menu provided in the E2B \_ISO\docs\Sample Mnu Files folder for Fedora+persistence only works if you have a FAT32 E2B USB drive - Fedora does not like NTFS volumes when 'flat-file' booting.

Here is a way to add Fedora+persistence to an NTFS E2B USB drive (MBR and UEFI).

E2B v1.91A and B released

I did not notice that the latest grub4dos causes E2B to display a 'WARNING: gub4dos 0.4.5' message to appear as soon as E2B starts to load.

v1.91A fixes this issue.

P.S. There are also usb driver bugs in v1.91 new grub4dos, so please use v1.91B which has the old grub4dos!

It is available on the OneDrive Alternate Download Area and soon on the E2B website.

Unfortunately, Google Drive seems to have taken a dislike of E2B v1.91 and 1.91A. As soon as I upload it, it blocks it (marks it with a flag icon). I am not sure why! Even if I zip it up with a password-encrypted zip file, Google Drive still blocks it. Grrrr.

P.S. If you are on the Developer's Insider Preview programme for Win10, note that recent developer versions of Win 10 actually break RMPartUSB and Rufus (format fails)!

If you have tried v1.91A and had no problems - please tick the 'funny' Reactions box below.

Easy2Boot v1.91 released

E2B v1.91 is available now from the Alternate Download Areas.

E2B v1.91 will be available from www.easy2boot.com in a few days.

Note: due to bugs in the new grub4dos in 1.91 - please use v1.91B which uses the older (unbuggy) version of grub4dos!

Changes from v1.90

• Fix 'WARNING: WinBuilder ISOs must have .iso file extension' message being shown even when not a WinBuilder ISO
• Latest grub4dos version (\grldr 2017-02-04 )
• Sample .mnu files added for 'blacklist' example (see previous blog post)
• Latest version of RMPartUSB
• Latest version of Make_E2B.exe
• New SCROLL LOCK feature (auto-suggest is turned on if SCROLL LOCK is on)
• New TSUG variable to control auto-suggest feature better
• Default delay for auto-suggest now 6 sec
• Reduce Main Menu messages if redir set
• Can now use redir + TSUG variables so get reduced enumeration message but still get auto-suggest prompt
• New \_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\CheckForUpdate.cmd added to show latest stable version and latest Beta version
• Warn user if \sources folder is present on the E2B drive (causes error when using Windows install from ISO) 
• Hold down SHIFT key before boot to automatically load grub4dos fast rd/wr USB 2.0 driver

Let me know ASAP if you spot a problem.

Add Clear Linux to your E2B USB drive

Clear Linux is provided as a UEFI-bootable only image.

Clear Linux OS for Intel Architecture is focused on the Cloud. Our aim was not to make yet another general-purpose Linux distribution; sometimes lean-and-fast is better than big-and-universal.

There is a Live version and an Installer version (see here) provided as compressed xxxx.img.xz download files.

Inside each xxxx.img.xz file is a larger .img file (e.g. clear-1440-installer.img). You will need to extract this .img file (e.g. using 7Zip).

Inside this .img file (which is usually dd'd onto a USB drive), we have two images for two primary partitions (as shown by 7Zip)...

Here is how to add these to your E2B drive so we can UEFI-boot (MBR-booting is not supported).