Bootable USB flavor of rescue CDROM?

Matt,

With help from MudCrab and documents created by Mustang (hosted by MudCrab now) to build a BartPE key with the Acronis Plugin that boots fine on my T42p. Works great. Boots in ~90 seconds. Will try moving it to an external HD tonight.

Process was essentially:

Install pe builder.
Get the TI plugin from Mustang as hosted by Mudcrab
Run the TI plugin utility that gets all the TI files from the installation.
Run pe builder and make sure everything you want is enabled
run PEtoUSB to make the key.

Done.

Marc

 

Suuweeet.

A few questions since I'm not familiar with all these tools/context:

Do I get PE Builder from here? http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ (I have never used this before but have heard it referenced many times.)

I missed the part about the TI plugin from Mustang hosted by Mudcrab. What's a "TI plugin," what does it plug in to? Is this the TrueImage/Acronis Media Builder (what I've been referring to as "AMB")? If not, where and where do I get it? I suspect this is Mudcrab's docs somewhere, but I thought I'd ask first before going hunting.

Is "PEtoUSB" part of PE Builder aka "BartPE"?

I apologize profusely for my ignorance and offer thanks in advance for any help.

 

A note to Acronis- I find it disappointing that you have "gone dark." Even if you don't have an answer and/or don't know exactly what is going on, it would be nice to know if you're there. A little note that says "we're not sure of the root cause or possible fixes yet, we're investigating, we'll continue to watch and reply to any questions for which we have definitive answers" could go a long way. In short, I find that no reply is much worse than one that says "I don't know."

Just my unsolicited $.02 when it comes to Internet-community management.

 

Hi Matt,

I've just got about a minute so I'll do the short form here. You can get the PEtoUSB utility free from "cogoding.com" (just google PEtoUSB). It is a separate utility from the pebuiler that you correctly referenced.

see also:

http://www.purviancecs.com/bartpeguide.htm
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=162424

That should do it.

Again, Mudcrab gets major thanks, as does Mustang and all others that have helped.

Marc

 

The TI plugin allows you to run a subset of the main functions of TI from a bootable (BartPE) disk using windows instead of Linux. You will find the plugin download link at Mudcrab's website. PEtoUSB is not included with the download from Bart's Preinstalled Environment ( BartPE ) bootable live windows CD/DVD. Because your are using windows drivers the performance is usually better the Linux rescue environment. I use BartPE for all of my restores with TI.

 

Yes. You can download it from there and also from my site. I have mustang's BartPE Guide hosted here. And his plugins are available here.

mustang's original thread (which contains a lot of useful information) can be found here.

The "plug-in" lets TI use the regular Windows version in a Pre-installation version of Windows XP. This is usually a lot faster than using the Linux version especially if the Linux drivers are not optimized well for you particular system. It is completely different than what Acronis Media Builder creates.

No. PEtoUSB is a separate program. You need BartPE installed in order to use it. PEtoUSB is the program that creates the BartPE bootable flashdrive, but it needs the BartPE files in order to do it.

 

PEtoUSB is also good as a standalone utility for preparing a USB flash drive for booting. To do this just run PEtoUSB and check off "Enable Disk Format" and "Enable LBA (FAT16X) and uncheck "Enable File Copy". This will format the flash drive with a standard partition table and one bootable primary partition in the first entry of the partition table (USB-HDD format) without copying over the BartPE files. When you download PEtoUSB, read the file "Readme.txt" for more details.

Paul and I have both found that if you first make a flash drive bootable using PEtoUSB and then run Acronis bootable media builder on it, the flash drive will usually boot OK. You can try this if you've simply run Acronis Bootable Media Builder and you did not end up with a bootable flash drive. Of course there are some stubborn cases that we haven't figured out yet...

 

Hi Matt (and others following this),

Just to let you know, everything is working fine for me with the BART PE as build by PE Builder / PEtoUSB. I've successfully moved the image of such a T42p-bootable USB key over to my new 400 GB USB HD, and it boots fine. So, now I've got my recovery software and storage location all in one place which was my ultimate goal.

I did run into one interesting glitch based on the drive enclosure and I'm passing it along for the benefit of others here. The new enclosure has no on-off switch but instead relies on sensing a powered-on computer via USB in order to turn itself on.

Sometimes, when I plug it in to my computer which is off, then turn on the computer, despite the drive lights coming on and the sound of it spinning up, the drive does not COMPLETELY wake up fast enough to be detected for inclusion in the boot device list, and is absent from that list. In this case, I power off/on the computer when I'm at the boot device list. As long as I do it quickly the drive stays on and is detected just fine next time around.

I'm still wondering why the AMB-derived keys fail on my T42p system despite all the things I've done, but since I've got BART PE working well / fast, and can move that to my external hard drives (I've actually got 4, one of which is always rotated into my safety deposit box at the bank), I'm done with AMB for good now. It's BART PE all the way...

Marc

 

Marc:

I've actually had more success getting the bootable versions of Acronis True Image and Disk Director to work on more PCs than I've had with getting BartPE to work on the same PCs. With BartPE I always seem to have trouble finding and including the correct RAID and/or network drivers in the build. But I'm glad that you have a solution that works well for you.

Have you tried taking one of the bootable BartPE USB keys that you have just made and that boots successfully on your T42p and testing AMB on the key? I would plug the key into the T42P while it's running Windows, delete all of the files on the key and then run AMB. It would be interesting to see if it then works and boots properly.

 

Indeed I have, and they still fail to boot my T42p. The keys AMB builds boot some computers, not others. The problem isn't with the key or the computer, but apparently is an incompatibility between whatever boot methodology AMB uses on the key just not being compatible with my computer (and Matt's, and others...).

For the record, the same key and computer boots fine with PE, with DOS, with SysLinux, and several other flavors in the Linux camp. The ONLY thing I've never had work great on the first try is Acronis via AMB.

Marc

 

Marc:

I'd really like to figure this out, so your experience is another clue. From your description then, if the key was first prepared with PEtoUSB, then I know from examining keys that I've prepared this way that the partition table is set up correctly and the first slot is formatted and made active. So if such a key can boot your machine when you've installed BartPE on it, but fails when you install Acronis AMB on it, then it must be related to the way AMB is setting up the partition boot record.

On keys that I've made, AMB sets up a bootable FAT16 or FAT32 partition beginning in sector 63 and it boots to the program "BOOTWIZ.SYS". Do you know the exact error message that you see when trying to boot the key?

If the bootsector code can't find the bootable partition then you should either see "Invalid partition table" or "Error loading operating system" or "Missing operating system".

If the key starts to boot and jumps correctly to the first primary partition, but then finds a problem then you should see "Non-system disk, press any key..."

If BOOTWIZ.SYS starts correctly then you should see a different error message, probably "Missing Acronis Loader".

It would be helpful to know this further piece of the puzzle if you don't mind doing a couple more experiments...

 

A side thought as I'm browsing these notes:

<inquisitive note that may not help much in the short term>

It seems like it would be quite helpful if we could get people like a PC BIOS programmer/designer, low-level OS/bootstrap programmer, or similar folks to speak specifically about the interactions between a storage device (master boot record and any other relevant stuff) and a system's BIOS firmware. It would be nice to know the exact requirements to make things go--even if they are not the same for every environment/hardware/BIOS/etc. It seems to me that if BartPE, Acronis Media Builder, grub, and other software designers/developers knew about how to handle every situation well, then I (we?) wouldn't have as much inconsistent trouble with these sorts of things. Alternatively, maybe said stakeholders do know these things, and know that there is not one-size-fits-all solution.

I guess I'm on a little mini-rant to figure out why do these system interactions need to be so complex? Is is a lack of standardization for BIOS-bootstrapping requirements across various systems/devices?

It sure would seem helpful to find an authoritative subject-matter expert(s) to help sort out the technical underpinnings of all this.

</inquisitive note that may not help much in the short term>


However...back to the regularly-scheduled program of empirically figuring out how to get this stuff to work, for I suspect we won't get answers to the above (and if we did, they may not solve our immediate problems) any time soon.

-Matt

 

OK, I took a key that works for BART PE or DOS booting on my PC, and reformatted it with the PEtoUSB utility. Next I ran AMB (TI 10.0.4942), and rebooted. It failed, giving me an error: Non-System Disk, press any key.

I know where the Tab is and Ctrl, but I can never find the "any" key to fix it...



I hope this is helpful info that lets TI improve their product.

Sincerely,

Marc

 

Boy, that's the truth!

This isn't quite what you're looking for but these two sites have been very helpful to me:

Dan Goodell
McTavish

 

Aha! Then the MBR on the key is working fine and jumping to the correct partition. That error message indicates that the partition boot record is not set up correctly. Another clue...

 

Mark,

I also think that the MBR is working correctly and that the problem lies with the bootsector code AMB uses. To clearify, the only error codes in the PEtoUSB MBR are Invalid partition table, Error loading operating system, and Missing operating system. The error code in the AMB bootsector is Non-system disk, press any key..., which is the error code that Marc is getting.

I don't know if it will work or not, but I'm going to try and "tweak" the PEtoUSB bootsector to boot the Acronis media.

I think, in another five years or so, these problems will have worked themselves out. Right now, the way that each system BIOS detects and boots USB devices is really just dependent on how it is coded. There doesn't really seem to be a standard.

I have one computer that will boot from a flashdrive as long as there is only one BartPE or AMB setup on the drive. However, if another partition is added, it doesn't even get recognized as a bootable device. The exact same setup on a "real" USB hard disk works fine.

 

Excellent references, thank you.

Separately: I see lots of good feedback here; can someone possibly point to what they think is the "best" current procedure for my Thinkpad? (I'm a little behind in keeping up with all the posts.)

 

I recommend creating a BART PE USB key with the Acronis Plugin. See above posts in this thread for details. My T42p is booting this no problem. It gets around the problems us T4x'ers have had with the AMB recovery environment.

Depending on your needs, if you want to take an image of that working bootable USB key, you can then put that image onto an external USB HD, and then you can have your bootable recovery environment and the storage location for the images all on one media. That's what I've done now. Works like a charm.

Marc

 

Marc:

Not to beat a dead horse, but I had another question that might help shed some more light on this problem.

What size is your USB key?

 

I've been using 1 GB keys for BART PE. I've tried (with no success ever) AMB on 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB, and 1 GB keys.

Marc

 

Marc:

Interesting. I think that the issue has something to do with DOS limitations and the disk geometry assigned by the PC's BIOS. One of the issues with larger keys is booting a DOS-based OS from a FAT16 partition that extends beyond the 1024 cylinder boundary. Acronis utilities boot to a DOS-based menu (bootwiz.sys) before launching the Linux-based (full) or DOS-based (safe) versions of the programs.

This means that if the Media Builder components are installed to a partition on a FAT16 key that extends past the 1024 cylinder boundary, then the menu program will not boot on some PCs. My IBM laptop has this limitation. It occurs when the partition is larger than about 256 MB. So 1 GB keys won't boot the AMB menu shell. I've tried this and found that it doesn't work unless I use PartitionMagic or Acronis Disk Director to reduce the partition size to below the 1024 cylinder limit. Then it works.

Smaller keys should boot OK, however. I use a 256 MB key that was first prepared with PEtoUSB and then had AMB run on it and it boots fine on my IBM X41T laptop. The IBM BIOS sees the key as having 16 heads, 32 sectors/head, and 979 cylinders (less than the 1024 cylinder limit), giving a disk (key) size of 512 bytes/sector*979*32*16=256,638,976 bytes, or 256 MB. So this boots DOS OK.

When plugged into other PCs the geometry may be read differently; again this will depend on the PC's BIOS.

So I think that:

1. Large keys will probably have trouble booting to the AMB utilities if FAT16 is used.
2. Getting a key to boot into AMB on a FAT16 partition requires that the BIOS interprets the key's geometry as having less than 1024 cylinders.
3. The key's geometry depends on the PC's BIOS. If you plug the key into different PCs then some will work, some won't. Things that are different are not the same.

I've had no problems whatsoever when using a bootloader on the key to manage booting. By using GRUB installed to the master boot record of the key , I can put the Acronis partition anywhere on the key, even on a 1 GB or 2 GB key, and GRUB will boot it perfectly any time on any PC.

So I think that the answer to this mystery lies with the DOS-based boot method used by Acronis Media Builder. Perhaps they need to consider alternate ways of booting USB keys to make this more independent of PC BIOS considerations.

 

Interesting stuff!

For the record I've tried using the PEtoUSB utility to format a 256MB key then running AMB on it; this small key doesn't boot on my T42p. Also I've tried a 128 MB key with AMB (either with no prior messing around, or after running the HP utility which puts bootable DOS on it), and both keys have been tried as FAT16, FAT32 to no avail.

I've never tried GRUB but probably would have been interested until I got the PE route to work. Now, I'm insufficiently motivated.

Marc

 

Marc:

Yeah; I must be a masochist to keep after this but I'd really like to understand booting from USB flash drives better. There are still many holes in my understanding of the process.

BartPE is a nice recovery environment too except for the time that it didn't correctly recognize the RAID array on one of my PCs and managed to totally corrupt the Master File table on the drives. That was completely unrecoverable, although it was my own fault for installing the wrong RAID drivers, but it made me a little leery of BartPE.

Thank goodness for TrueImage; it restored the whole thing in 10 minutes flat!

 

I quote below an email that I received from Acronis Customer Service asking me about the issue that spawned this thread, a thread which I have repeatedly asked Acronis to read thoroughly. Based upon their response, I doubt they are reading this thread any further; I find this quite disappointing. Is this standard operating procedure by Acronis Customer Service?

I answer the specific questions:

I believe my computer/motherboard supports boot from USB devices, simply because I boot it routinely with http://pendrivelinux.com ...as I have mentioned several times in this thread.

Different scenarios produce different errors, all of which I believe are pretty well documented by myself and others via our posts to this thread. Please come join the party, read the thread carefully, and help us best solve this problem, preferrably with a fix to Acronis Media Builder (AMB) so that we are not forced to use workaround slutions for AMB's apparent problems.

-Matt

 

In http://www.purviancecs.com/bartpeguide.htm , step 5 of "How to Make BartPE Boot from a USB Flash Drive" reads:

Does this mean that I will manually need to figure out how to make the drive bootable, or PeToUSB will make it bootable for me?