[Ricardo NYC]

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Can you produce a working usb drive using FAT16?

I will try FAT 16, but before I need search google.com to learn what is FAT 16 LBA and CHS

Sorry... I tried all options:
FAT 16 LBA and CHS
FAT 32 LBA and CHS
syslinux, grub4dos and standard

Bios:
Boot from mass storage
Forced FDD, HD...
Nothing happening

[pcuser]

@Ricardo NYC, I just uploaded a new version (1.0.0.9) that should hopefully fix the "Disk error, Press any key" issue.

The issue only existed on usb flash drives and not on usb hard drives. The problem was that when we boot from USB we boot as USB-HDD but when we format drives of "Removable" type, Windows wants to format it that way so an additional byte needs to be set in the bootsector after formatting to satisfy the bios making it think that it's a usb hard drive. UBUSB was already doing this but I needed to add a 2 second delay between formatting the drive and writing the additional byte.

Please let me know if this solves your problem.

[pcuser]

I just uploaded 1.0.0.10 with some nice new features.

It now supports usb drives up to 2TB in size and 2 new cmd buttons have been added, "TestUSB" and "TestISO" so you can now test boot your usb drive in Qemu and then test boot the iso image for your kicker cd in Qemu before burning it to cd.

I did notice a couple of small issues when booting with Qemu. If the usb drive's NTFS formatted then Qemu doesn't seem to want to boot it and fails with "A disk read error occurred" but it still boots on a real computer and the other issue is that the RocketDock icons and GeoShell bar don't appear when booted to UBCD4Win via Qemu.

[cdob]

pcuser, on Sep 28 2008, 12:41 AM, said:

I just uploaded 1.0.0.10 with some nice new features.

Congratulations.
Given a 4 GB USB flash drive:
that's the first application creating a bootable version. XP MBR and ntldr boot code used.

"TestUSB" and "TestISO" does work too.

BTW: There is a updated chainboot copy cmd
http://www.911cd.net...&...st&p=149797

[pcuser]

Thank you cdob, I'll update it for the next version.

[PaulDG]

This has worked for me and its the first time a kicker has done its job, but at first the old Fuji i was using as a test would not boot - untill i changed to a different set of usb ports( both onboard ).

I don't fully understand how this works so here is a couple of questions to help me.

1) Is the real usb device's info cloned into the fake or is the fakes info cloned into the real device?

2) Do i assume correctly that each kicker / real usb device pair are unique, IE: different kicker images for a stick and a hard disk ?

3) Is any of the actual data on the real device used by this proccess? IE: can i update the bartpe stuff without redoing the kicker image?

4) the kicker seems to start the loading of ubcd4win itself, is there a way of just kicking to a menu system on a usb device so i can use the tools that i have in my multiboot section(aoss and kaspersky)?

Thanks for any info and for the tool.
Paul

[cdob]

PaulDG, on Oct 1 2008, 11:00 AM, said:

This has worked for me and its the first time a kicker has done its job, but at first the old Fuji i was using as a test would not boot - untill i changed to a different set of usb ports( both onboard ).

Thanks for report.

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1) Is the real usb device's info cloned into the fake or is the fakes info cloned into the real device?

Disk signature is set to UBCD at real device. Device info is cloned to fake image.

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2) Do i assume correctly that each kicker / real usb device pair are unique, IE: different kicker images for a stick and a hard disk ?

Yes, by design pair are unique. Use different kicker images for a stick and a hard disk.

However it maybe possible to prepare stick and hard disk first.
Kicker image my match both stick and hard disk.
That's not supported. This may cause confusion too. That's not recommended.

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IE: can i update the bartpe stuff without redoing the kicker image?

Yes and no. Kicker image contain early boot definitions. If you change early boot environment, create a new kicker image.
Contrary if you change application slightly, IE add new virus scan definitions, you may keep kicker image.

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is there a way of just kicking to a menu system on a usb device so i can use the tools that i have in my multiboot section(aoss and kaspersky)?

No, that's not possible.

[PaulDG]

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

Is there a way to add the kicker.img file into a ubcd4win multiboot menu? Maybe i could include several different versions to support my stick and HD devices.

Thanks
Paul

[pcuser]

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Is there a way to add the kicker.img file into a ubcd4win multiboot menu? Maybe i could include several different versions to support my stick and HD devices.

UBCD4Win uses BCDW for multiboot and the kicker cd needs Grub4dos. You can make a cd that has multiple images by creating a custom menu.lst and manually creating the iso.

menu.lst

title USB Boot Without Bios Support (1GB Flash)
map --read-only /1GBFlash.img (hd0)
map --hook
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title USB Boot Without Bios Support (30GB Hard Drive)
map --read-only /30GBHDD.img (hd0)
map --hook
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Add menu.lst, grldr and your image files to C:\iso_root then run this command.

mkisofs.exe -R -b grldr -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -o NoUSB.iso C:\iso_root

[pcuser]

I made a few improvements to the program and uploaded 1.0.0.11

I added support for windows recovery console when using Grib4dos as the bootloader.

Two new buttons now appear in the sector editor, "Save to File" and "Load From File".

"Save to File" saves the current sector to a file in the same directory that the program's running from. The name of the file depends on the sector that's currently being edited. If you're editing sector 0 then the filename will be sector0.bin, if you're editing sector 63 then the filename will be sector63.bin, etc...

"Load From File" will only load a file name that matches the current sector being edited. This should hopefully eliminate the possibility of loading the wrong file to the wrong sector by accident.

[PaulDG]

When is this sector editing required? I think there needs to be a little more documentation or examples.

Also could you include a version number in the program, i can't tell if ive got the new one or not.

Sorry if i have missed something.

Paul

[pcuser]

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When is this sector editing required?

It's not required. I made it mostly to help me while developing and kept it included because many advanced users will find it usefull as well.

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I think there needs to be a little more documentation or examples.

I agree but I haven't got that far yet.

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Also could you include a version number in the program

Yes, I was getting ready to announce a new version but I'll add that first.

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i can't tell if ive got the new one or not.

Either hold your mouse over the program while in windows explorer or right-click over it and choose properties then version.

[pcuser]

1.0.0.12 has been uploaded.

There's now a sub-directory called "special-files". From the README.txt file:

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If you encounter a 0x7B BSOD when booting on some computers then place these Win2k3-SP1 files in the "special-files" folder and they will be used instead of the default ones included in your source files.

NTDETECT.COM
SETUPLDR.BIN
RAMDISK.SYS/RAMDISK.SY_

The version number is now printed next to the main caption (thanks to PaulDG for the suggestion).

[PaulDG]

Looking good.

Along the lines of one of my earlier questions, you could add a folder that we could place our menu.lst files and maybe other images into so that it gets incorparated into the build.

Also is there a way to include a method to reuse a current img file, so i dont have to generate a new cd all the time, the main use for usb for me is to cut down on crateing a cd every time i update my antivirus and malware programs. being able to re-use current kicker.img files would help alot. obviously it would only apply to devices that are compatable.

Also: Although you warned about the lack of error checking on Z drive, i managed to fall foul of this because i mapped it to a network share and forgot to remove it, the actual error i got was an unable to format drive that left me thinking it was refering to the usb stick that could not be formated, only when i realised it was talking about the 40mb fake drive did the penny drop.

That leads me to ask if that drive had been formatable (not locked by the network share) would the format have been successful.............

Paul

This post has been edited by PaulDG: 01 October 2008 - 10:47 PM

[pcuser]

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Along the lines of one of my earlier questions, you could add a folder that we could place our menu.lst files and maybe other images into so that it gets incorparated into the build.

I've added Grub4dos support to the default UBCD4Win multiboot plugins (Syslinux support was added prior to the 3.20 release). I planned on including this in the next UBCD4Win release but since you asked... You can download it from HERE. Download it to your plugin folder and replace your existing Multiboot-003 folder. Look at the format of the *_grub4dos.ini files and then look at how they're called from the multiboot plugin's main inf file and you'll see how to add your own images. I think this is a more modular design because you'll end up with a menu.lst that already includes all of your enabled multiboot plugins then you can edit menu.lst and add any customizations later. Do you agree?

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Also is there a way to include a method to reuse a current img file, so i dont have to generate a new cd all the time, the main use for usb for me is to cut down on crateing a cd every time i update my antivirus and malware programs. being able to re-use current kicker.img files would help alot. obviously it would only apply to devices that are compatable.

Your kicker cd only has to match the MBR of your USB drive so the only time you should have to make a new cd is if you change between Fat16 and Fat32. You can modify the contents of the drive and even switch between Syslinux, Standard and Grub4dos bootloaders without having to create a new cd, as long as you don't switch between Fat16 and Fat32.

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Also: Although you warned about the lack of error checking on Z drive, i managed to fall foul of this because i mapped it to a network share and forgot to remove it, the actual error i got was an unable to format drive that left me thinking it was refering to the usb stick that could not be formated, only when i realised it was talking about the 40mb fake drive did the penny drop.

That leads me to ask if that drive had been formatable (not locked by the network share) would the format have been successful.............

OUCH!!! When you see "WARNING..." (especially when beta testing software), please pay attention to what it says Paul! It would've formatted Z: if it could.

I'll get this fixed ASAP, thanks for bringing it up.