Adding MDT ISOs to Easy2Boot (UEFI+MBR)

Boot from a .imgPTN23 file

You can 'switch-in' a partition image which holds the MDT boot files and Deployment folder.

For MBR-booting, the simplest way to add an ISO made by the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit, is to convert the MDT ISO file to a .imgPTN file using the E2B MPI Tool Kit. Just Drag-and-Drop the MDT ISO file (or MDT USB drive letter) onto the MPI_FAT32 Windows Desktop shortcut.

Rename the file to have a .imgPTN23 file extension.

MDT Setup

This should work fine, as long as all the files inside the ISO are less than 4GB in size, and then you can MBR and UEFI-boot from the .imgPTN file. Later versions of MDT support the creation of split wims, so this will work even for MDT with large files.

If UEFI-booting and you have a large WIM file, you could try using the MPI_NTFS shortcut to create an NTFS .imgPTN23 file. Then you can UEFI boot to agFM on the 2nd FAT32 partition (E2B v2 only) and from agFM boot from the WIM file on the first partition or the \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI file on the first partition.

Tip: Instead of using E2B, you could just copy all your ISOs to an IODD Mini #ad. You can still put E2B on it as well! The IODD Mini just looks like a USB DVD once the ISO is selected, so even Secure UEFI boot works.

Alternate method for MBR-booting

If you have files inside the ISO that are larger than 4GB, then use the MPI_NTFS shortcut instead. However, you will only be able to MBR-boot unless you first  UEFI64-boot to agFM (see above).

Below are instructions for direct booting from an MDT ISO (MBR-booting only) and another set of instructions for MBR+UEFI-booting by using two image files...

New Spanish\Espanol YouTube videos uploaded by 'Decomputo - Valledupar'

Many people make YouTube videos showing Easy2Boot, but here is one that shows multiple wallpapers, a modified language file and uses a different text font...

and another just on how to get started...

Add a slideshow to your E2B menu

I have made a quick PowerPoint presentation and converted it to an 'animated GIF' .IMA file for use with E2B. So you can now have PowerPoint slides on your E2B menu!

Try JondoFox Live CD for secure and anonymous browsing

The JonDo Live CD\ISO is now no longer under development but the 2016 version is still available for download.

You may find it easier to use from E2B than Tails, but it does not seem to support persistence or UEFI.

To see what other sites can learn about you when you simply view their site, click here and then click on Start Test.

JonDoFox Live ISO

To use the network (internet) - click the Network Manager icon at the bottom of the display (move mouse to bottom of screen).

To browse securely, you will need to follow the instruction here.

You can also install the JonDoFox browser onto your OS from here.

Add Kali Linux + persistence (UEFI+MBR) to E2B

There is already a .mnu file for booting to a Kali ISO file in MBR mode with persistence.
E2B v1.B4+ also supports the special .isopersistdebian file extension so no .mnu file is required.
There is also a blog tutorial for a full OS install of Kali onto E2B here.

Recommended method: See also the Kali with persistence sample agFM .cfg file in the \e2b folder on the 2nd agFM partition (see here).

How to install Puppy to an HDD using Easy2Boot

You can boot from a Puppy Linux ISO by giving the file a .isopup file extension.

In this way you can boot directly from the ISO to a 'LiveCD' version of Puppy and get to the Desktop.

But if you try to install Puppy to a hard disk, you will get an error because it cannot find the CDROM.

First, if you have a CD drive, ensure it is empty.

To fix this, use these commands in a terminal shell session before you start the Install process:

mkdir /cdrom
mount /dev/sdX4 /cdrom

where X is the letter for your E2B USB drive (in my case it was 'a' because I was using VBOX+VMUB).

The first command will probably fail if you have a CD-ROM drive fitted (make sure it's empty), but you can ignore the error. The second command should cause the USB partition to be mounted as a read-only device.

This mounts the ISO as the cdrom so it can be found by the installer. Do not create a Save file and do not copy the .sfs file from CDROM when requested on shutdown.

Once you have booted from the hard disk, you can create a save file on shutdown.

Create a Restore partition on your UEFI Windows 8\10 PC using CloneZilla (Version 5)

I have updated the Tutorial 142 and changed the functionality so that you can make unattended backups or restores from Windows (Check the .zip download says 'v.5' or later before downloading).

This allows the user to 'remote-in' using TeamViewer and restore a system from Windows (or make a new backup).

The image file IMG is always used.

When a Backup is made, the current IMG image will be erased.

You can also password protect the menu entries and protect any access to the grub2 console.

You can just have the wallpaper show but no menu (unless you press ESC or press a hotkey).

The Tutorial includes a way to change the default grub2 menu heading too (something you usually cannot do without recompiling grub2)!

Create a Restore partition on your UEFI Windows 8\10 PC using CloneZilla

Tutorial 89 on the RMPrepUSB.com website describes how you can add a local Restore image to your PC\Notebook hard disk so that you can take a backup or restore the Windows partition at boot time.

It uses Clonezilla and grub4dos and it is reasonably easy to set up.

However, that tutorial was for MBR\Legacy Windows systems.

Mike A asked me for a new CloneZilla-based Tutorial for UEFI-based Windows systems using GPT partitions.

Super Boot CD

JG pointed me to this large 4.8GB 'Hiren's type' ISO which includes 32-bit and 64-bit UEFI boot support as well as containing HBCD MiniXP, Strelec Mini-WinPE 10 and SVUIT Mini-WinPE7, memtest, Windows memory diagnostic, KonBoot, chntpwd, MHDD, Windows Recovery .wim files, some MAC apps and Windows AV apps and linux pmagic. It also uses rEFInd for UEFI boot menus.

You can boot it directly as an .ISO file (use E2B v1.95 and used a file name of SBCD 3.6.1.isolinux), although many menu entries (e.g. mini Windows) do not work correctly. So I converted it to a FAT32 .imgPTN file using the E2B MPI Tool Kit MPI_FAT32 Desktop shortcut. This seems to work well and allows UEFI-booting too.

Mini Win10 (Strelec)

The download link provided on the Facebook page seems very slow though, so you will have to be patient!

Note: The HBCDMenu and DLC1Menu shortcuts on the Mini Win7 Desktop do not work due to missing \DLC1 and \SVUIT folders in the SBCD ISO file.

E2B v1.96a Beta available

Just a couple of small changes (no bugfixes):

v1.96a

• QRUN.g4b now checks for dynamic/differencing VHDs - only fixed VHDs will boot.
• Improved GIFtoIMA.cmd script to calculate size of the .IMA file required.

VHDs can be Fixed, Dynamic or Differencing type. E2B can only directly boot the Fixed type of VHD or VHDX file. You can tell by the size which type it is - a 15GB Fixed VHD file will be 15GB in size, the other two types of VHD will usually be a lot less than the 'mounted' size. VHDs created by WinToUSB will work. VHDs created by DiskToVHD will not boot from E2B as they will be Dynamic VHDs.

I have improved the GIFtoIMA.cmd script so that it calculates the required size in KB of the .IMA file needed for animations on the E2B menu. Now you can just press ENTER to accept the suggested size.

Download v1.96a from Alternate Download Areas as usual.

Beware! -  here lies ye Kingdom of Geekland...

Cassini-Huygens (1997-2017)

To mark the end of this remarkable spacecraft, I have made two animations for your E2B menu, which I have taken from the wiki here. Cassini NASA/JET website here.

Cassini-huygens_animation.zip (jpg)

Titan_taken_by_cassini_animation.zip (.bmp)

E2B v1.95 release available

v1.95 Downloads are now available in Alternate Downloads Areas.

I will update the website in a few days.

OneDrive download area
Easy2Boot Download page
E2B Version History

E2B v1.95e available

Download E2B v1.95e from here.

Change History
v1.95a - Czech F1.cfg help added, bugfix for set NOHELPER=1 not working.
v1.95b - XP ISO install issue of 'Selected disk does not exist' fix added, '0K low memory' error fixed for some XP boot issues.
v1.95c - Increase menu memory from 0x50 sectors to 0xA0 sectors for bigger menus, fix bug when using 'set GRUB_USB=045' in MyE2B.cfg, Greek language folder added, Choose a preset wallpaper.mnu file added (also in PimpMyDrive), 0x50 changed to 0xA0 in many Sample mnu files and language files for very large menus.
v1.95d - New \grldr grub4dos 2017-08-28 (change in memory map handling - bugfix), increase size of FASTLOAD cache file for very large menus (bugfix).
v1.95e - Falcon4 sample menu file updated, grldr 2017-08-30, Sample_MyE2B.cfg file updated, small change to ENG English strings.txt file, BIOS beep code references added to \_ISO\docs\Download URLs folder.

I will release this as v1.95 soon. Please update your E2B drives and report if you spot a problem.

I have also added a few more 800x600 wallpapers to the Alternate Download - Themes Areas:

Add PassMark's MemTest86 v7.4 to E2B

The MemTest86 ISO will MBR-boot and run the old MemTest86 version v4.

Version 7.4 will only run if it is UEFI-booted.

However, if you make a .imgPTN file from the MemTest86.zip download, you can MBR boot to the CSM menu and then choose the Clover boot option. This will allow you to run v7.4 even on a non-UEFI system.

MemTest86 has signed UEFI boot files and so the .imgPTN file can UEFI-Secure Boot too.

I have created the latest version of this file (2018-03-29) for you.

Note: This is now included in E2B v1.A8 and later versions in the UTILITIES - Memory Test sub-menu.

Run DOS games from E2B

E2B contains a FreeDOS image in the DOS Menu which can boot to FreeDOS and allow you access to the NTFS files on the E2B drive. This allows you to run copy simple DOS programs to the NTFS E2B drive - boot to FreeDOS - and run them directly from the E2B drive (as drive C:).

However, the amount if free memory is limited in this environment due to the NTFS driver, etc.

Here is how to make your own DOS Games payload (.imgPTN file) for E2B:

E2B v1.95d Beta now available

E2B v1.95d has the latest version of grub4dos 0.4.6a 2017-08-28 (\grldr) (available in Alternate Download Areas). It also fixes a small bug with FASTLOAD when using very large menus.

This new version of grub4dos has major changes on the way grub4dos modifies and uses memory.

Please update to v1.95d and report any problems if you find them (go back to v1.95c to check that the problem is with 1.95d).

The changes in grub4dos fixes a previous bug which could cause XP to fail to boot and give a 0K low memory error (see bug report).

E2B popularity is growing!

When someone uses Make_E2B (exe or cmd) to make an E2B USB drive, the script will download LatestE2B.txt from my web server to tell the user if there is a newer version available. A recent hit count for that file shows that on average, Make_E2B is run 1,500 times a day!

The stats also show there are now over 15,000 downloads a day of E2B and E2B+DPMS (the downloads are used to update E2B drives or make an E2B drive using linux as well as make a new drive under Windows) - and that download count does not include downloads from the Alternate Download site.

E2B is free and I mainly rely on ad revenues (sorry about all the ads but feel free to click on them if they interest you) to pay the site fees and also to buy equipment (for instance, I have bought 2 notebooks on eBay recently to investigate and fix compatibility issues found by users). My aim is that E2B should work on as wide a range of different systems as possible.

You can support E2B by making a donation, I will reward you by sending you two URLs for the easy2boot.com and rmprepusb.com sites which use a tidier format and contain hardly any ads at all. For instance, the Forum page on the E2B site is in the alternate 'cleaner' format for easy2boot.com.

cheers
Steve

Easy2Boot v1.95c available

Additional changes from v1.95b are:

1. Increase menu memory from 0x50 sectors to 0xA0 sectors to cater for bigger menus
2. Fix bug when using 'set GRUB_USB=045' in MyE2B.cfg
3. Greek language folder added (but not Greek choice in 'make utility' because it is only Beta status)
4. Choose a preset wallpaper.mnu file added (also added by PimpMyDrive.cmd)

I added more payload files to my 'test' E2B USB flash drive which resulted in over 70 menu entries in the Main menu. I found then that the F10, F9 and F8 Main menu items, which were usually at the very bottom of the Main menu, had disappeared and pressing F8, F9 or F10 had no affect.

It turns out that I had exceeded the allotted amount of memory that E2B uses to hold all the menu items. v1.95c now has double the amount of memory - from 0x50 sectors of memory to 0xA0 sectors of memory (i.e. 40K to 80K). Since the grub4dos numbering system does not work well past menu entry #99, this should now be enough to allow 100 menu entries (0-99) in all menus!

Note that if you have used any sample .MNU files which still contain '(md)0x3000+0x50'  or  '(md)0xa000+0x50'  then you may still experience 'shortened' menus if your menu is very large.

To fix this, change all occurrences of these two strings to use 0xA0 instead of 0x50 (i.e. use (md)0x3000+0xA0 or (md)0xa000+0xA0).

P.S. Tip: If you first make the \menu.lst file hidden on your E2B drive, then when you run the Update_E2B_Drive.cmd option to update your E2B drive, it will automatically hide most of the other files that are in the root of the E2B drive for you too.

Let me know if you see any issues with v1.95c.

Easy2Boot v1.95b (with XP '0K low memory' error fix)

I have had a few reports of problems with XP Install Step 2 giving the following error:

"Windows NT has found only 0K of low memory. 512k of low memory is required to run Windows NT. You may need to upgrade your computer or run a configuration program provided by the manufacturer."

This has been traced to a compatibility issue between recent 2017 grub4dos versions and some chipsets. See here for a bug report.

E2B v1.95b should fix this issue.

Download E2B v1.95b from one of the Alternate Download Areas. Just click on the 'Update_E2B_Drive' button to update your E2B drive.

I have also had a report that some Gandalf WinPE ISOs do not boot and give a 'Not enough memory to create a RAM Disk' error. This only seems to be a problem on certain systems. These systems also fail in the same way when using Rufus to make a Gandalf bootable USB drive, so it seems to be a compatibility issue between the Gandalf WinPE files with a large boot.wim file and certain system BIOSes (i.e. not an E2B issue!). If you have any info on this issue, please let me know.

Beta version of Greek Language available for E2B

I have used Google Translate to make a Greek Language version here.

To test, extract the two files to your \_ISO folder on your E2B USB drive:

\_ISO\STRINGS.txt
\_ISO\F1.CFG

They will automatically be used by E2B. This is for test purposes only - any missing strings will be reported by E2B.

To use the files in non-test mode, make a \_ISO\e2b\grub\GREEK folder and place the 2 files in that folder. Then add a line to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file as follows:

if "%LANG%"=="" set LANG=GREEK

If you have any corrections, please edit the files and send them to me (save as UTF-8 format using Notepad).

I will not add them to E2B until they have been properly vetted by a Greek-speaking techy (as it is all Greek to me!).

UK Porn

This post is not about USB drives or booting but it is about internet porn!