[rdsok]

Just some possible suggestions ..


Test for actual media in the attached USB device listed. Checking if the usb device has a CHS or other attributes and only listing the ones that do have them instead of all usb devices would be nice. Reason... when a system has a usb based card reader installed often there isn't any media in all of its slots resulting in many empty devices being listed. I didn't think testing to see if the device was writable would be sufficient since the media may be corrupted or in a non-standard format for some other reason.

The above brings another... If the media is in a noticebly corrupted or non-standard format... force a full format and if possible error check.


Save selected setting to an INI file so we don't have to reselect them later. This probably should be an options menu item so a default setting can be set and still allow the user to alter them for a select build without affecting the prefered setting.


Unless there is a reason not too.. in the Grub4DOS USB boot make the PC Compat boot the default for booting UBCD4Win.

[pcuser]

Version 1.0.15 has been uploaded.

Thanks for the suggestions Randy. UBUSB now defaults to the first available usb drive that has media inserted. The others still show up in the list for now but they're not (shouldn't be) selected by default anymore.

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Save selected setting to an INI file so we don't have to reselect them later.

Excellent idea. Thanks

("File" -> "Save Options To File"). This will create a file called UBUSB.ini the same directory. (A "Save As" will be added later)

UBUSB now looks for this file (UBUSB.ini) when it's launched and uses it's saved settings if it exists.

("File" -> "Load Settings From File") to manually load a profile isn't working yet but should be soon.

UBUSB now creates a log file (UBUSB.log) which should help with identifying issues if things don't go as expected. I'm still working on this so don't expect to see any fireworks yet but please do post your log file if you notice anything buggered or have trouble.

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Unless there is a reason not too.. in the Grub4DOS USB boot make the PC Compat boot the default for booting UBCD4Win.

I agree and would like to change it to this if we don't see any issues booting "PE-Boot (Compatibility Mode)".

grldr has been updated to 10/8/2008 build and syslinux.exe has been updated to 3.72

[dirkgently42]

your default of filesystem at fat32 LBA...for v 1.0.15 -----------I have done fat16 LBA............ is there any advantage if I try fat 32 on my 2GB thumbdrive......prolly not............. fat 32 prolly best for larger drives?


TIA

This post has been edited by dirkgently42: 17 October 2008 - 09:32 PM

[pcuser]

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your default of filesystem at fat32 LBA...for v 1.0.15 -----------I have done fat16 LBA............ is there any advantage if I try fat 32 on my 2GB thumbdrive......prolly not............. fat 32 prolly best for larger drives?

I don't know of any advantage and it seems like Fat16 might even be a little faster? The only reason I changed the default setting is so that users that don't know about the 2GB Fat16 limit don't think that UBUSB shrunk thier 8GB drive

[carfan]

pcuser, on Oct 17 2008, 10:11 PM, said:

Quote

your default of filesystem at fat32 LBA...for v 1.0.15 -----------I have done fat16 LBA............ is there any advantage if I try fat 32 on my 2GB thumbdrive......prolly not............. fat 32 prolly best for larger drives?

I don't know of any advantage and it seems like Fat16 might even be a little faster? The only reason I changed the default setting is so that users that don't know about the 2GB Fat16 limit don't think that UBUSB shrunk thier 8GB drive

I'm just trying out the boot without bios support. Ive download the latest ubusb version. My build is from xpsp2 en and ubcd4win latest version. I have successfully created a muti boot usb drive by choosing the gru4dos selection. Ive tried it on both a pny thumb dirve and a usb hdd. Works great. Ive tried to use the kicker iso option, booting from the cd, and keep getting the error:
"d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c." when selecting the fat 32lba option. Ive just switched to fat 16lba and it works on my 2gig pny thumb drive. However, this wont work because of the 2 gig size limit on my usb hdd's. Any idea what is causing this error?

Thanks
-c

[rdsok]

carfan.... please take the time to actually read the thread... the error and cause is already explained.

[pcuser]

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Ive tried it on both a pny thumb dirve and a usb hdd. Works great. Ive tried to use the kicker iso option, booting from the cd, and keep getting the error:
"d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c." when selecting the fat 32lba option.

Read posts #9, 10 and 11 of this thread. The message also says to "Press a key to continue" which should all it to continue booting.

The only times I've ever seen this message are when using the kicker cd to boot a system that's capable of booting from usb without the kicker. If this is the case but you want to use the kicker method because of speed or compatibility then choose "PE-Boot (Compatibility Mode)" from the boot menu and the message should disappear.

[jmenola]

I would just like to add that I've been using "PE-boot" option without issues for a few days.

Thanks, pcuser for all your efforts.

Add 1 vote for making it the default boot option.

[PaulDG]

Hi, I'm back from my sick bed and other distractions.........

Can we get a single option to just make the kicker img and iso, i am not sure if selectng "Don't format and don't modify boot record as well as dont copy bart files" will do this or not but a single check button would make it easy to put in an already made usb key and create the required files.

Paul

[carfan]

pcuser, on Oct 18 2008, 02:37 PM, said:

Quote

Ive tried it on both a pny thumb dirve and a usb hdd. Works great. Ive tried to use the kicker iso option, booting from the cd, and keep getting the error:
"d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\setup.c." when selecting the fat 32lba option.

Read posts #9, 10 and 11 of this thread. The message also says to "Press a key to continue" which should all it to continue booting.

The only times I've ever seen this message are when using the kicker cd to boot a system that's capable of booting from usb without the kicker. If this is the case but you want to use the kicker method because of speed or compatibility then choose "PE-Boot (Compatibility Mode)" from the boot menu and the message should disappear.

The pc should be able to boot from the usb but it doesnt recognize as a boot device. Thats I was using the kicker iso cd.

-c

[pcuser]

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I would just like to add that I've been using "PE-boot" option without issues for a few days.

Thanks, pcuser for all your efforts.

Add 1 vote for making it the default boot option.

Thanks for the report and your vote does count!

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Can we get a single option to just make the kicker img and iso, i am not sure if selectng "Don't format and don't modify boot record as well as dont copy bart files" will do this or not but a single check button would make it easy to put in an already made usb key and create the required files.

If you insert an already made usb drive and select Create CD, don't copy files, don't format, don't partition and don't write boot code, UBUSB is already designed to only create a kicker image and iso for the currently selected usb drive (and of course make the required changes to the mbr so it works with the kicker cd). Your request sounded fair enough though so you can now select "Tools" -> "Create Kicker CD Only" to make it a one step process.

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The pc should be able to boot from the usb but it doesnt recognize as a boot device. Thats I was using the kicker iso cd.

I've ran into this several times now and have figured out that many times when the bios supports usb booting but doesn't boot from your usb drive the first time then tapping the F8 key and bringing up the windows boot menu to stop the boot process then doing CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart the computer will result in booting from usb the second time. I'm used to doing this anyway incase a computer doesn't boot from usb/cd/dvd so I don't have to wait 15 minutes for an infected slow computer to boot up so I can restart it properly.

1.0.16 has been uploaded. It now has a new menu option to create a kicker cd only and I made a few small modifications to the logging function and a few other minor updates.

[PaulDG]

Thanks for the changes.

I have just been playing around with an external 40GB USB HD and decided to let it format it as a Fat32 Drive, because it was over usb it took quite some time to format ( maybe 8 - 10 Minutes ) While this was happening all i got on screen was a white box with a header of "Writing boot code to the MBR"

Before I got it to format I had problems getting it to format, I had to delete the partition and recreate it using the standard disk manager before i tried this i was also presented with the empty white box and the same Header msg as above and at times i got "Not Responding".

Maybe some form of progression bar is called for.

[rdsok]

Just some FYI about the Windows "Not Responding" message you may see happen with some programs...


This is actually not a "real" error message... its a message that actually only means that a program has not comunicated with Windows itself within a certain amount of time. So this is actually normal with process's that take a long time to complete.

So this would seem to sound like increasing this time out period for when Windows claims an app is "timed out" as a good idea... but really that isn't the case this time. In fact... shortening this time is preferable usually because it also allows, in part, Windows to shutdown apps quicker on shutdown.

So in short, if you know an app may have a process that will take time to complete ( as in the format you mentioned or anything that will take a similar amount of time ) ignore any "Not Responding" messages... but if something that shouldn't take long.. then is when you take it as a sign of a possible issue if it continues to happen often.

[spetrie]

I am unable to download UBUSB.zip from link on 1st post. Just get am empty zip file. Anyone else having an issue?

[carfan]

pcuser, on Oct 2 2008, 08:07 PM, said:

1.0.0.13 has been uploaded.

It now leaves kicker.img after creating the iso image. I've also made a plugin for adding your kicker image(s) to your UBCD4Win multiboot menu, you can download it from HERE (extract it to your plugin\multiboot-003 folder).

The plugin is disabled by default because you have to build UBCD4Win atleast once before running UBUSB and creating your kicker.img

Your kicker images go in the "kickers" folder and you'll need to edit kicker_grub4dos.ini if you want to include other images besides the default "kicker.img" (or if you change the name of it). Don't forget to enable the plugin before building UBCD4Win again to include your images!

Thanks for the reports and good suggestions Paul, please keep them coming

If I add the kicker files to the multiboot-003 folder will it therefore make a normal ubcd4win cd act like a kicker cd also?

Thanks

-c