Same files on disk - Image file twice as big as before - Same compression setting

I didn't copy from the flash drive but I copied the same files to the 500GB that I did to the external and I installed Grub to the 500GB the same way I did to the flash drive. I did copy the one file from the Boot directory to the root, also. (I tried it twice, so I doubt I messed up both times.)

Yes, it does. Oddly the flash drive shows on the list twice.

No. It's a single NTFS partition with 400+ gig of Drive Images and True Images on it.

 

Can you post a screenshot of what the root directory shows for the external drive?

It's possible that GRUB doesn't like something about the setup and is having a problem with finding the drive. Do you have any other external drives connected when you try and boot it? Have you tried booting it on another computer?

 

Thanks for the suggestions MudCrab. I'll let you know what I discover when I get home.

 

Attached is a screenshot of the root of my 500GB FreeAgent external USB drive.

It does not boot on my new Q6600 with 4GB RAM. The error I get is "NTFS5 No grldr". When I tried it tonight the FreeAgent was the only USB device attached to the computer.

It DOES boot on my old 2.6GHz Pentium 4 with 1.5GB RAM.

On the Pentium 4, from the time I push power until the VistaPE desktop comes up is 10 minutes and 57 seconds, give or take a few seconds. Again, the FreeAgent was the only USB device attached to the computer. (The screen shot was taken before I disconnected the other USB devices.)

I have an identical 500GB FreeAgent external USB drive and I tried getting that one to boot on the new machine, as well. It also failed.

Earlier I rebooted the Q6600 machine with my new flash drive still plugged in and then selected the FreeAgent from the boot menu. It looped over all of my drives looking for grldr and when it found it on the flash drive it booted from it. The flash drive continues to display on the boot menu twice.

 

good things to do before backing up with acronis..

uninstall anything you don't need (personally, i only use the bootable disc to backup/restore, so i never install acronis)

disable system restore
run disk cleanup
download and run ccleaner slim (removes tons of temp files)
defrag

run acronis

 

I suspect that either something in the computer's setup and/or Grub4DOS is having a problem. You may need to try a newer version.

Also, have you checked for any BIOS updates for your computer? Sometimes they release one to address problems like device detection, etc. The flashdrive showing up twice is also strange.

Okay. This means the drive is setup correctly.

That is quite a bit longer than I'd think it should take. How long does the flashdrive take to boot VistaPE? How long does the VistaPE CD take?

This just confirms that Grub4DOS isn't able to find the USB hard drive and so it can't load grldr. It can find it on the flashdrive. Apparently, the drive is booting okay because the MBR is loading and it's looking for grldr.

---

If you have a spare internal drive, it would be interesting to see if VistaPE would boot okay from that.

 

My testing methodology:
1) Push computer power button and timer start button at the same time
2) When desktop appears push timer stop button
3) For consistency let 30 second PE screen and 15 second Shell Sweeper screen time out
4) Each of the VistaPE tests used the same build from WinBuilder which included the Add Driver, LAN driver, SATA driver, and my Yukon LAN drivers

Depending on your point of view 3 (above) may add 45 seconds to the VistaPE times but it is what it takes for an unattended boot.

Computer 1 is my brand new Q6600 running at 2.4GHz with 4GB RAM
Computer 2 is my five year old Pentium 4 running at 2.6GHz with 1.5GB RAM

Times in Min:Sec

Comp 1------------Comp 2--------Boot To
00:38--------------00:23---------Acronis Boot CD
05:05 -------------05:10---------VistaPE Boot CD
02:35 -------------15:05---------VistaPE USB Flash Drive
NTFS5 No grldr-----10:44---------VistaPE External HD (FreeAgent 500GB)
N/A----------------03:39---------VistaPE Internal HD (SATA 500GB)

Notes of note:
a) On Comp 2 the USB Flash Drive initially gave the error "Missing MRB Helper"
b) This in spite of the fact that I used the same USB port where it found the Ext HD and selected the same item on the boot menu
c) Then I loaded my Int Drive with the booting files, used Grub4DOS on it, and timed the boot from it
e) After that I tried to reboot to XP. It automatically booted into VistaPE from the Int Drive [EDIT: I inadvertantly installed Grub4DOS on my Primary drive.]
f) I let it do so and went in and deleted the booting files from Int HD
g) Then I put the flash drive in Comp 2 and rebooted. After it failed to boot to the Int drive it searched for grldr and found it on the flash drive. This was the only way I was able to get a test time for the flash drive on Comp 2.
h) Then I took the flash drive out and rebooted again. After it failed to find grldr anywhere it finally booted back into XP.

I'm guessing that the faster time with the Acronis Boot CD for Comp 2 for the Acronis Boot CD has more to do with the time to boot through the BIOS than anything else?

I'm thinking that the slow times for Comp 2 for the Ext HD and USB drives may have to do with having my Yukon LAN drivers in the build??

Now, kind Sir, could you please tell me how to eradicate what Grub4DOS did to my MBR on my second Int HD on Comp 2 so it doesn't search for grldr every time I boot.

One clarification of your message this morning. Are you suggesting I download the latest version of Grub4DOS?... that, that may solve my problem with Comp 1 not booting from Ext HD?

Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a moderator change the title of this thread (which was valid for three messages) to "Solutions to all possible problems booting to VistaPE" so others would more likely benefit from the great tips you and k0lo have provided, here.

 

I have had no luck finding a newer version of Grub4DOS than the one in Winbuilder. All of those I have found and downloaded appear to be older. They don't even show the size of the hard drive in the drop down list making it impossible to tell which one you are selecting.

 

You just need to download the latest version of Grub4DOS, unzip it and copy the grldr file to your drive. I think this is the correct download page. Just get one of the latest 4.3 or 4.4 builds and try it. It's possible you may need to install the new MBR code too, but I'd try the grldr file first.

To repair the MBR of your internal drive, boot to the XP CD, enter the Recovery Console and run the fixmbr command at the prompt. (I didn't actually mean for you to test it on your main drive.)

 

That is one of the ones that I had downloaded. The reason I didn't think it was the right one was because it did not have a grubinst_gui.exe in it. It does have a grldr, so I will try just overwrite that. Thanks for the clarification.

Errrr... I have two internal drives on my old machine and I thought I put Grub4DOS on the secondary drive. Since your message implied I may not have I just double checked in Disk Director and now realize that I am a moron. After slapping myself silly, I will dig out my XP CD and fix the MBR on my main drive.

In a way it was a good accident though because otherwise I wouldn't have gotten a test from my Flash Drive on my old machine.

What do you make of the difference in boot times on the Flash Drive?
Comp 1------------Comp 2--------Boot To
02:35 -------------15:05---------VistaPE USB Flash Drive

And the fact that the old machine doesn't boot to the flash drive when I select "USB flash drive" drive from the boot menu even though it will boot to the External USB HD when I select that menu item and have the HD plugged into the same USB port?

 

The computer may be using USB 1 access for the USB device. I have several computers that do that even though they're fairly new. The ones that boot in "high-speed" mode boot faster from the flashdrive than the CD. The ones that boot in USB 1 mode take longer than the CD.

Older computers often have a hard time booting from flashdrives. Also, it seems that those that detect the flashdrive as a USB device instead of by name have even more problems.

One of my computers will boot a flashdrive just fine as long as there's only one partition. Put more than one and it won't even see it as a boot device. The BIOS is looking for something very specific.

 

Things are looking up! The Vista DVD with no SP1 that my friend sent me arrived in the mail yesterday. I used it to create a new build.

I did need to do that but then I was able to see my old computer from my new computer both in the file manager and in True Image. I don't necessarily like the fact that I have to map a drive every time I boot to VistaPE but at least I can see the files.

You may want to consider adding the information in the quotes above to your excellent documentation because they are a succinct summary of the solutions to the networking problems I had last weekend.

Comp 1-1 is my Q6600 with the WAIK build with the LAN, SATA, and my Yukon drivers installed and Acronis
Comp 1-2- is my Q6600 with the non-SP1 build with only Acronis

Comp 1-1----------Comp 1-2--------------Boot To
05:05 -------------02:57-----------------VistaPE Boot CD
02:35 -------------02:30-----------------VistaPE USB Flash Drive
NTFS5 No grldr-----Missing MBR helper-----VistaPE External HD (FreeAgent 500GB)

As you can see I have one problem left to solve. I still can't get the new machine to boot to the Ext USB drive. However, the message has changed now to the same one I get when I try to boot to the flash drive on my Pentium 4. I did try it with the old grldr and again after I overwrote it with the one from the build you linked to 4.3. I get the same results either way.

I Googled that message and one guy suggested reformatting the drive. I could do that if that might help but I have a lot of images on the drive so it will take a lot of time to copy them over to another drive and then copy them back. Therefore, I don't want to do that if there is little chance that will solve the problem.

Do you think that might improve the chances of the new machine booting from the External USB hard drive?

 

O.K. then I guess I will just boot from the CD on my old machine since that works fastest. Thanks for the info.

 

Glad it worked.

Networking has never come easily in any PE environment. PE has limited resources and many people have worked very hard to make networking work as well as it does. Mapping a drive is a very small price to pay. As for adding to my Guides, I don't want to give beginners the idea that networking is easily within their grasp.

 

Speaking of working hard. As a result of this I have done some research on Nightman and I now find the fact that the English in some parts of the program is less than perfect to be rather endearing.

Here's this guy from this challenging country producing VistaPE which so many find extremely useful basically as a labor of love. You have to admire that!

I'm actually concerned that there is no sign of him since February. I hope he is all right.

 

I have tried a newer (I think) version of grldr.

I have flashed my ASUS P5E motherboard BIOS from the shipped version of 0607 to the latest version of 0702.

I still get "Missing MBR helper" when booting from my external USB hard drive.

I tried every option on the Boot menu just in case something weird was going on with the detection but none of the other ones booted to anything but Vista.

Is it to be expected that even with a new motherboard and a new external drive (less than a year old) that I would not be able to boot from it? Of course, I could live without it but it will be more convenient and I'm hopeful it will be faster.

Is it possible that reformatting the drive may help?

 

Well, I don't know if it is possible but I know it didn't work. I tried it and it still gives the Missing MBR Helper error message. I had a brief moment of celebration the first time I tried it after reformatting. It worked but then I realized I had left my Flash Drive in the machine and it was booting from that.

 

If I am reading the info here
http://www.purviancecs.com/acronis.htm
"Troubleshooting: Why won't my Flashdrive or USB Hard Disk boot?"
correctly. Those images won't help me because I already have a working USB Flash which hasn't done me any good. Is that a correct interpretation?

 

You're correct. Those images are for booting the TI media from a USB device. When you setup VistaPE, you're using Grub4DOS.

Do you have another USB hard drive you could try?

 

I already tried my other FreeAgent. Is that sufficient to answer your question?

I do have an older Maxtor (80GB) external drive. If you think that is worth a shot. It wouldn't really solve the issue though because the FreeAgent is the one where I will be storing the images, so that is the one I want to boot. Do you want me to try it for debugging purposes?

 

Since you can boot from flashdrives, I wanted to see if you could boot from a different USB hard drive. It's possible that the FreeAgent is the problem. If it were me, I would try both the other FreeAgent and the old Maxtor and see if either or both of them work.

The fact that the FreeAgent boots on your other computer makes me think it may be a specific problem between the FreeAgent and the computer and not a "general" USB hard drive booting problem.

 

I already tried the other FreeAgent and it doesn't work, either. I just realized that the power supply for my Old Maxtor is at work so I won't be able to try that until tomorrow night.

Thanks for all of your help on this.

Which sounds to me like an unsolvable problem, if that is the case?

 

So the answer is that my old 80GB Maxtor One Step external USB drive boots right up into VistaPE on my new Q6600.

So what the heck is wrong with my FreeAgents and why are they torturing me like this?