Here comes the first GUI for our little project.

What it can be used for adding to your USB stick/disk:

- multiple Windows XP/2kX sources in the same partition (up to 10). They have to be in the first partition of the disk! Existing folders ~BT and ~LS and TXTSETUP.SIF will be renamed, and SETUPLDR.BIN and SETUPDD.SYS patched against the new names. Checksum checks are also corrected. BTS OEM folders are supported and renamed accordingly.
- BartPE/WinBulder/UBCD4Win/WinFLPC (NOT ramdisk versions) to any primary partition. Multiple BartPE for example, in the SAME partition are NOT supported. Neither is the mix of them on a single partition.
- Vista/Windows 7 setup to different primary partitions. Multiple Vista sources in the SAME partition are NOT supported. Place your second Vista setup in another partition. It can be placed on any primary partition.
- PartedMagic, a friendly Linux distro including GParted- open source partition manager.
- SyLinux bootsector, and optionally a directory, containing (Linux) distro booting off SysLinux. For example you may extract UBCD411.ISO, and point it to this folder. Entire contents will be copied and entry for SysLinux will be added to the boot menu.

Some features:
- detects UBCD4Win and uses multiboot menu for it if folder IMAGES is found. Only default UBCD4Win multiboot options are added. Edit UBCD4Win.lst to add custom ones.
- UBCD4Win boot menu is adjusted to boot from the selected partition. It can be placed on any primary partition.
- if Windows setup folders (~BT and ~LS) and txtsetup.sif coexist in the same partition as BartPE/WinBuilder/UNCD4Win/WinFLPC, SETUPLDR.BIN of the latter is patched not to use txtsetup.sif in root. Checksum checks are also corrected.
- grub4dos is the main bootloader/manager. Without it's advanced features, multiple partitions will not be easily achieved.
Bootsector loading GRLDR is installed in the active partition of the selected disk. Hence the requirement for active partition and MBR.
- detailed log file is created in the folder, where program is executed from. Use it for troubleshooting. Upon next execution if log file is found, it's compressed in MS cab format, removed to BACKUPS folder and renamed with current DATE/TIME stamp.
- upon installing grub4dos bootsector, backup of MBR and bootsector with DATE/TIME stamp are placed in BACKUPS folder. Use it in case something goes wrong.
- if in Windows source folder winnt.sif is found it will be used as answer file. Section UNATTENDED will be temporarily removed, only for the Text part of setup, and before start of GUI mode it will be merged back. PRESETUP.CMD is used for this purpose.
- $OEM$ folders are copied by presetup.cmd
- option to start the prepared USB disk in QEMU for testing purposes. Use carefully at own risk, do not attempt write operations!
- tooltips on almost every element in the GUI
- for multi partition USB stick use the cmd files in "files\tools\MULTIpartitionUSBstick". Works for 32bits Windows only! This is not thoroughly tested option, use at your risk.

Please read the included ReadMe.txt and \Docs\HOW-TOs.txt, it should help you get started. When in doubt hold the mouse over the element, a tooltip should help you with the choice.

If reporting problems, please attach your compressed log file (WinSetupFromUSB.log), windows version and exact steps to reproduce the problem. Thanks

For previous list of changes please look at \Docs\Changelog.txt

Latest - vers. 0.2.3 - 06.July.2009
Download: 0.2.3 mirror

- RMPrepUSB replaced HP USB format tool and PEtoUSB, thanks to Steve6375 from boot-land.net forums making RMPrepUSB package and letting me include and redistribute it.
- Grub4dos bootsector&MBR detection and installation changed.
- added possibility to boot other ISOs, which can boot using grub4dos CD emulation. Here you can find number of examples:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5041

vers. 0.2.2 - 15.June.2009
Download: 0.2.2 mirror

- MkMigrateInf.cmd updated for some systems with strange MountedDevices values. (thanks to cdob)
- added several check if grub4dos bootsector was installed properly, if not- grub4dos MBR is written instead. The problem appears on some Vista/7 systems and NTFS formatted USB sticks.
- fixed touchdrv.exe execution syntax (thanks to Wimb)

vers. 0.2.1 - 09.Apr.2009
Download: 0.2.1 mirror

- fixed an issue with grubinst on some systems where the backup files do not appear in the program directory
- NTFS warning message displayed once only

vers. 0.2.0 - 06.Apr.2009
Download: 0.2.0 mirror

- boot from USB disk is now required TWICE only, first start of Windows can be performed from the internal disk
- DOSNET.INF parsing redone
- program install and windows source now supported in paths containing spaces
- winnt.sif unattended section is now FULLY supported, including custom directories and drivers paths
- presetup.cmd checks if boot filea are present on the target disk and if not copies them. Useful for 2000 installs
- binifix5.cmd is launched before start of GUI mode, new option intruduced '/norepair', which will not add USB repair entry in boot.ini
- added extra entries in BOOT.INI to test if getting HAL.DLL/NTOSKRNL.EXE not found errors
- Windows setup tag files are copied to USB drive root in order to support some BTS DP base versions
- GParted replaced with PartedMagic, versions above 3.0 are supported
- grub4dos updated to the 0.4.4 Final
- syslinux.exe updated to 3.73
- QEMU updated to the latest 0.9.1 snapshot, which should support Vista
- various other fixes

vers. 0.1.1 - 23.Oct.2008
Download: 0.1.1 mirror

vers. 0.1 - 16.Oct.2008
Download: 0.1 mirror

vers. 0.1 Beta - 08.Sept.2008
Download: 0.1 Beta mirror

vers. 0.1 Alpha - 11.July.2008- initial release
0.1 Alpha


This post has been edited by ilko_t: Sep 14 2009, 01:25 AM

Thanks jaclaz, attached is the MBR_HardDisk1.dat file

Took the first sector of physicaldrive of the usb key...

Here is a screen of my bios:



This post has been edited by Axxoul: Nov 13 2009, 10:39 AM

Really strange, the MBR is allright, it appears like one created with RMPREPUSB.

The stoopid BIOS must be checking for the "Removable" status of the stick, though it's the first time I see something like that.

Which motherboard is it?

You have probably two ways out:

1. find out the manufacturer of the stick, find the Production Tool for it and "flip" the "removable" bit to have the stick seen as fixed (best)
2. try using fbinst:
   http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9460

Try running Chipgenius on the stick:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4661
if your key is one for which a suitable software can be found, it is the easiest (and permanent) solution.

jaclaz

Trying using fbinst right now...

However saw this in boot-land :

"However, ZIP disk would be (fd0) at boot time, and the data partition is (fd0,0), some application can't handle this properly. To solve this, you can use grub4dos's map command to map (fd0) to (hd0)."

Have you heard of this? if yes any idea how to map fd0 to hd0?

The only info i can get on the motherboard at the moment is this :



This post has been edited by Axxoul: Nov 14 2009, 06:38 AM

You joking right?

I usually shout this, NOT "hear" it.

Point is that it greatly depends on how the BIOS handles the thing.

Your stick is actually a partitioned device, i.e. it has a MBR and 63 hidden sector (MBR+62).

What a BIOS may do is to simply "ignore" the first 63 sectors and access the partition bootsector as if it was first sector instead of the 64th, thus "removing" all info about the partition (and "vanifying" the NT boot process using Disk Signature).

There are quite a few reports of these "strange" BIOS behaviour, but, mainly due to posters "abandoning" the game, there is NO real, solid, documented solution, AFAIK.

fbinst can use a workaround to this behaviour, that may (or may completely fail to) work in your specific case.

Maybe reading this seemingly unrelated threads will clear the matter (or completely confuse you ):
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7507
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=5766&st=77

jaclaz

works with flash usb 16 GB?

Of course NO.

Size of the stick in bytes NEEDS to be a prime number, but not a Mersenne one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_prime

Additionally and of course, the formatting has to be carried on with FULL moon, otherwise it won't ever work.

Just TRY it!

jaclaz

Hi guys, small contribution:

-I have verified that this is possible to install Win x64 from an USB HDD + 1 Extended Partition & 1 Logical Drive + it works around XP setup "stealing" C:

Tips:

1)
-with diskpart, set the logical partition active
-create a temp primary partition very small and set it active

after that done, WinSetupFromUSB_0-2-3 will detect the logical drive so you can deploy your installation on it

-don't forget to delete the temp primary partition (this one is just needed for WinSetupFromUSB and this could be a problem after because this partition will still your the C: drive letter)

2)
-make sure you just have your USB HDD plugged in your comp and no existing primary partition, start WIndows Setup and when to the partionning page you should see the destination drive first unpartitionned, and second place for your USB drive with a D: assigned to your logical partition

-create your destination partition, C: will be applied to it
-create a partition in an unpartitioned area of your usb hdd so win write boot files inside

Then some small boot fix and that is done, better to have 2 comp on that method but without thats not possible to assign C because setup files are on a primary partition so thats technically not possible to use C: because Windows assigns C to the USB HDD

It seems Windows installs fine from a logical drive and auto assign D: to it, refusing to assign C: to a logical part to our benefit

Verified with a nlited XP x64

Sorry for my crap english guys Im french

This post has been edited by class101: Nov 17 2009, 01:44 PM

Thanks.

But this is not clear (at least to me):



I mean, from reading it it seems like you have two partitions active in the same moment.
Also it is not clear if the thing "made active" is the Extended Partition (i.e. the container inside which one or more Logical Volumes or partitions can be created) or an actual Logical volume or partition.

If you want, PM me in French an explanation of the entire process, and I will try translating it in English (your English seems allright to me , but some terms need to be disambiguated)

jaclaz

ha yeah sorry this is the logical volume I mean to set active

1 Extended Partition + 1 Logical volume
&
1 really small primary partition like 100Mb and active

Forget about the Logical volume made active, I just tested again with a small primary partition made active and this was enough to have winsetupfromusb detecting the USB hdd

To resume how I do it:

1) my usb stick has no partition
2) doing 1Gb extended partition
3) inside a 1Gb logical volume
4) a small 100Mb primary partition inside the unpartitioned space
5) set active the primary partition
6) installing grub though grubinst
7) Copying XP setup on logical volume through your SetupwinfromUSB program
8) moving some boot files from the primary part to logical drive
9) deleting primary partition
At this point the install hdd is ok
10) copying HBCD from Hiren's BootCD 10.0 iso to logical drive
11) adding the code below to menu.lst
At this point the install hdd is ok + hiren boot cd to install the loaders to our futur C:

then I reboot
12) TXT setup
13) to the partitioning options you should see only ONE partition, our USB HDD (logical volume) is shown down with a letter D:
14) create the C: partition to your disk (should be shown first)
15) create a small partition inside the unpartitioned space of your usbhdd (windows will tell you it anyway because it refuses to write boot files to a logical volume)

Then to the reboot, poweroff, reinstall grubinst to the USB HDD, reboot with it and the second step starts
Setup may then warn you it fails at finding HarddiskVolume2, just set instead Harddisk1/Partition2 and its works perfectly

finally copy boot file from the small primary partition you created during setup and install an MBR to the C: with Hiren bootcd.

Hope it helps I made that quickly I need to eat

so yesterday I had done to get the logical volume detected in setupwinfromusb tool without having to create a fake primary part and moving boot files but can't remember yet how I did, will post if I remember

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Nov 18 2009, 08:55 AM

There is a new approach, much easier and without most of the limitations until now:
http://www.msfn.org/board/install-2000-xp-...so-t139737.html

There is a test version of WinSetupFromUSB attached, don't pay attention to BOOT.INI, FIXED/REMOVABLE and STARTUP FILES ONLY fields, they do nothing and will be removed in next release. Should work just fine with USB stick and x64 sources. Second boot, for GUI mode, can be either the USB stick or the internal hard disk.

thank you ilko will look at this method.

I dunno if its coming from winsetupfromusb but on 3x install of WinXP x64 I fall always on the same problems, it seems windows does not install 100% fine

-No windows update I had to rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %systemroot%\inf\au.inf toinstall it
-No Keyboard languages, I had to rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %systemroot%\inf\qmgr.inf
-No start menu advanced settings, I had to rundll32.exe setupapi,InstallHinfSection DefaultInstall 132 %systemroot%\inf\shell.inf
-sound is not working even with the right drivers installed
even more .inf not regged but they are all present on the partition

My XP is nlite (without rips, just SP2 sleapstreamed) but I have already installed from nlited CDs without getting such problem in the past so I think it comes from the winsetupfromusb conversion.

I have carefully checked the TXTSETUP.sif from the original iso with the one from you tool, there is just 3 differences,


setupORG.exe doesnt seems to do the same job than the original one

This post has been edited by class101: Nov 18 2009, 11:38 AM