Well of course this is really nothing new to those that have used BartsPE or probably UBCD4WIN, but I've seen many people having issues making it work. Here is a simple How To and some tools I use to make this work properly and of course the bigger your Pen or Flash Drive is the more plugins you can add. Here we go.

I used 256MB Flash Drive.

1.) Follow the installation instructions for UBCD4WIN you see here:

2.) Do the UBCD4WIN drivers and Plug-ins to your PEBuilder folder as you normally would. Due to size restraints you do NOT want to use the BTS Drivers, only the 1.7 standard version.

3.) Download and format your Pen or Flash Drive with this tool - here

The key here is to format your drive to FAT - this tool should auto detect your hardware USB Pen or Flash Drive (This is not for USB external Hard Drives).

4.) BartsPE Builder has the files needed to create the iso image for USB Pen and Flash drives in the root of Pebuilder (pe2usb.bin, pe2usb.cmd, pebuilder.txt) - The text file gives you directions on how to do this (READ it!!!) it has its own format option but for some reason if your device is not formatted to FAT it doesn't work when you use the pe2usb tool alone (This is why the HP formatter is needed ahead of time, at least in my experience).

5.) Create a folder in the root of Pebuilder called srsp1 and download this and extract to this folder (I've done all the hard work for you)... Get Here

6.) Now what I've done on mine was put Ghost 8.2, Firefox 1.5.0.1, 7Zip and other smaller programs (You have to toy with this).

7.) Build BartsPE or UBCD4WIN as you normally would disabling most of the plug-ins before hand (Remember Size Does Matter) - YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUILD ISO - it creates the BartPE folder that is needed by pe2usb for building it's ISO on the Pen/Flash drive.

8.) Run this from a command prompt pe2usb -f <flash drive letter:> without brackets from the root of Pebuilder.

9.) Check for errors especially if you run out of space just keep working and only add what you really need and what fits.

I was able to have everything I needed on my 256MB drive and bootable and other than the ramdisk building (Depends on amount of RAM) this thing flies, much faster than using CD.

You can do as I did and have multiple folders with Pebuilder on your system - I use 3 different ones for building plug-ins, one for Pen/Flash Drive only and UBCD4WIN.

Well I hope I shed some light on this for those that couldn't get it to work properly I hope this helps and I hope I wasn't to vague but let me say it does away with the old CD and you also have to use ONLY on SYSTEMS that allow you to boot to USB Devices (This is found in BIOS). I've tested on Dell systems and servers - (Added my own Perc 4 drivers - servers only)...

So maybe with a bit of work the next step would be to create UBUSB4WIN - for multiple sized pen drives etc. omitting or adding tools to fill the different sized drives.. Don't all series someday have a spin off. Have fun.

Cellar Dweller,
I have a question.

I read the pe2usb.txt file and it says you have to use Server 2003. Is this true? Why can't you use XP?

XP doesn't come with the file that is needed for this... but you can extract the Win2003 SP1 files to a directory and then get the file needed from that.

I got on Bart's site and found the answer as to why it has to be the Server disk.

Thanks Cellar Dweller! The instructions worked great! I now have a bootable Flash Drive!

I posted the files for you so you don't have to have Windows 2003. That is one of the links I had in my post. I used XP SP2 as the OS. Sorry I know I was kind of vague and was afraid I might have missed a few items.

I extracted and posted the needed files from Windows 2003 and is listed as 5.) within my instructions, but I'm glad I could help.

It's actually pretty cool to get it working. I read on Barts that many were having issues getting it working and the only thing I could figure is for whatever reason the Flash Drive needs to be formatted as FAT and nothing else, it reported errors with other formats. Once you use the HP Format Tool you can then use the format switch with the Barts Tool peusb or just have it only change the files by omitting the -f switch.

It's funny how amazed those at work were when I booted a PC with the Flash Drive though, it's quite fun trying to get it just right and fitting the max that you can on a 256 version...

I missed that you had a link to the extracted files first time around. I was pretty pumped that I got it working! I may be thought of as a geek but I was pretty thrilled. I may not use it much as a bootable device, but it's nice to know I can if I need to. I almost always have my flash drive with me, as it's on my key ring.

Do you know how I can speed it up? I cut most of the plug-ins out and it's still pretty slow. I added Ghost to it and can run ghost from my thumb drive. That thrilled me, too!

I thought your instructions were spot on. I missed where you had linked to the extracted files, but because you had pointed to the pe2usb.txt file, and it said to extract those files, I got it working.

Now, just to speed it up...

Well it depends on the amount of RAM you have on the system. Example at work we have servers with tons of Gig of RAM, I'm talking like 4-16 Gig of RAM (Yes you read that right Gig). The more RAM there is the longer it takes to create the RAM drive. On a basic Dell system it booted much faster than the CD version of the same items, actually about twice as fast.

As far as speeding it up, hmmm?

I think it comes down to the fact also whether your computer is 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 USB and whether your Thumb drive is as well.

I'm not sure what mine was I used at work? It's actually works drive, not mine, but I do think it was 2.0 and the computer I used it on was also 2.0 USB. I can say this though it was only a 256MB flash drive and once it builds it's RAM disk on boot up it flies once in the PE environment.

Not sure where you need the speed (Boot up or PE Windows Environment?)

I'm fairly new here as well and there may be a way to have the RAM drive be a specific size all the time instead of it using a fraction of the amount of RAM total in the system but then it makes your CD or Flash drive less versatile to all systems as it can currently be, this would have to be something answered by the UBCD4WIN crew or Bart on that. You could also eliminate the drivers and this would also speed it up but then you also make your CD or Flash drive less than what it can be. The more drivers you add and the more plug-ins you use the slower you will get. The key is to have it ULTIMATE - Patience is what I tell all the guys at work that complain about how long it takes to boot with EVERYTHING added to the CD or FLASH because you get paid HOURLY... Waiting also gives you more rewards as far as troubleshooting tools and a complete experience.

My biggest reward was getting it working where many have failed and having a nice routine to practically make it work every time and hopefully on many other types of Thumb or Flash drives and help those who have tried and couldn't get it working with just the regular documentation. I love nothing more than making what I do for a living that much easier...

I've got a problem booting from my flash drive after I followed the steps above. I've got a new Dell Dimension 9100 and when my PC boots, I select USB Device. After a second or two, on the screen it says The only way I can get it to do anything is to press the number 1, and then it goes to Loading RAMDISK image..., goes to the Loading Ultimate Boot CD for Windows for a split second and after that it's just a blank screen. Any ideas?

Hello,

I have a problem too, running it from my Dell Dimension 3100
I formatted my 1GB Kingston DataTraveller using the HP tool, built the image, then rebooted my computer and, then, I got the following message (I translated it from French into English, so it might be slightly different on an english system) :

"Windows couldn't start because an error when starting from a virtual disk RAMDISK.
"Windows couldn't open the virtual disk RAMDISK image.
"The file BARTPE.ISO couldn't be loaded.
"The error code is 16.
"The installation program can't continue.
"Press any key to quit."

Any suggestion welcome and highly appreciated

Regards,

J.-Luc

Did you use the Server 2003 files like the pe2usb.txt file suggests? When XP loads, it "reloads" the USB layer and disconnects the USB bus, thereby disconnecting your flash drive. The Server 2003 doesn't do that and will let you finish booting.

Yes, of course. I thoroughly read both that file and this howto.
However, I must add that the tool from HP doesn't work on my computer - it states the usb device is write protected, which is false -, so I had to use a compaq for this - and it worked fine.
Could there be a problem with Dell computers ?

J.-Luc

To All:

I've seen all those errors you guys have pointed out and I might add that some Pen/Flash drives may not work period and there is a compatible list on Barts site.

What you need to do is Build with Barts first but DO NOT choose to create ISO image. The reason you build first is that peusb needs the BartPE folder to work.

Second you have to create the srsp1 folder and you have to make sure those two files are in there. If you are removing some of the plugins make sure you do NOT remove some of the ones that are required to load the environment etc.

I've seen all the errors mentioned only when I tried formatting my Pen Drive to something other than FAT. It must be FAT. For those getting to the point of it building the RAMDISK means your system obviously can boot to the Pen/Flash drive. You may have to format Pen/Flash drive again with HP Tool or a tool you know that works with your version of Pen/Flash - I've never seen the HP one NOT work, but that doesn't mean it won't.

Once you reformat then do the command peusb -f <Drive Letter:> minus the brackets and replace Drive Letter with the actual drive letter of your Pen/Drive. If this does not work still you could format again with Tool but do not use the -f switch.

That is a Format Switch so it's like your double formatting but for me it worked that way. I have seen where doing the double format thing DIDN'T work on one of the Pen/Flash drives we had at work but worked fine without the switch on another. The one I used NEEDED the format switch or it would not work. It's just a matter of toying with things.

If you still have issues you could skip adding any of the UBCD4WIN items and use the default Barts with say only the UBCD4WIN drivers. It's all a matter of testing. It took me a day to get it right... I wouldn't call it an Ultimate USB drive only because it was a 256MB and minus a ton of goodies.

Some Pen/Flash drives are protected and many have tiny switches to make them write protected - you have to look for it and some have software you need to use to UNLOCK them. I'm NO Pen/Flash drive expert so that's out of my league.

I hope any of this helps, but and as I mentioned earlier check Barts for that list of compatible drives but that also doesn't really mean the one you have isn't. I tried to make it as easy of a description as possible to create and with the peusb.txt file combonation it does work... I've done 4 at work and rdd got his working.

I tested my items on the newest Dell laptops and Dell workstations (Optiplex), not completely sure of models. I could not get it working on IBM laptops or workstations (No selection for USB boot in bios) it also works on Dell 2800, 2850 servers...

Sorry if I can't help you but it was all for fun and something to toy with...