TeraByte Unlimited products - standard and non-standard uses

I use IFW as a means to take the place of RollbackRX and ShadowDefender. I test software for funzies, and it's great to have something reliable that I can use to restore and image I know is good and clean very quickly. Just some the sake of being completely covered, I used the IFW boot.wim on my bootloader, IFW as a part of my custom uefi WinPE disc and the BIU/IFL/IFW isos on Ventoy.

 

IFW has the ability to create custom bootable versions of its software to use in a pre-installation environment, or PE. Those version allow you to use the software before windows even loads, in the case that it cannot. In my situation, I use multiple versions of a PE. One is an ,iso; a disc image that contains the imaging software that I store on a bootable usb drive. Another such PE is a boot.wim file, which is created by tbwinre, that I've added to the menu of available boot options that appears before Windows starts Tbwinre is the boot disc builder that is a part of the Terabyte bundle. In this way I'm guaranteed access to the restoration software should my computer not boot.

 

stapp,

This as a good basic page...

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/howto/

Now, not basic.

Over the years I've only had a couple of drive failures that required booting from a UFD to restore an image to a new drive. But I've had many, many software issues that were fixed by restoring an image. Rather than booting my imaging app from a UFD, I prefer booting my imaging app from a SSD partition. The boot process is much faster and the restore process runs at the same speed as a UFD restore. And you don't have to find the UFD.

Installed BootIt UEFI (BIU) is used to boot the partition. Let's discuss TBWinRE. Create a TBWinRE UFD. In BIU, copy the UFD partition to Free Space on any SSD in your computer. Now resize the SSD partition to 1100 MiB. That's a good size.

Next, create a Boot Item in BIU. The Boot File field will be \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi. That is the EFI folder on the UFD, not in the EFI System partition. TBWinRE will boot from the BIU Boot Menu.

When the next version of IFW/TBWinRE arrives, you can update the TBWinRE partition with a script. You don't need to make a new UFD.

A nice feature is using BootNow in Windows to boot the TBWinRE partition. You don't have to use the BIU Boot Menu. It is used but you don't see it.

Questions?

 

On both of my sisters laptops I use Image for Windows (3.56) as a boot menu entry named "Restore" that auto loads a small PE, which runs a single batch file that restores their Windows partition from an image that resides on another partition (they still have full disk images on external hard drives).

The script is -

Code:

@echo off
for %%f in (C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S) do if exist %%f:\Windows\System32\ set DESTINATION=%%f:
for %%g in (C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S) do if exist %%g:\Images\ set SOURCE=%%g:
CLS
if exist %SOURCE%\Images\OS-Partition\OS-Partition(diff).TBI goto :differential
imagew64.exe /wait /r /d:?%DESTINATION% /f:%SOURCE%\Images\OS-Partition\OS-Partition(full) /log:0 /o /usemd
exit
:differential
imagew64.exe /wait /r /d:?%DESTINATION% /f:%SOURCE%\Images\OS-Partition\OS-Partition(diff) /log:0 /o /usemd
exit

 

A slightly different way from Gaddster's method to restore an image.

Double click BootNow in Windows and the computer will restart into TBWinRE, the restore will run and the computer will restart into Windows.

 

So do you have something like this partitioning layout?

Spoiler: layout

 

Btw, TeraByte should add a disk/partition layout graphic to PartWork for Windows. Modern partitioning software have one.

 

Where did you hear that?

 

Yes, although I don't have drive letters for those three partitions as they are hidden.

 

Mr.X,

If you plan to install BIU, I'd resize your ESP to 400 MiB before the install. 100 MiB is too small if you want to have several Windows OS. A default BIU install to a blank drive creates a 400 MiB ESP.

The partition can be resized to 400 MiB after the BIU install if that's more convenient.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/threads/terabyte-product-release-thread.305838/page-83#post-3209341

 

A warning about installing Win11 24H2. I did this over the weekend (using an Insider Preview ISO) and to my horror all my non Hidden partitions were Bitlocked. I then made the mistake of deleting the Bitlocked Win11 24H2 partition, thinking I could undelete it later.
I booted to my usual Win11 and decrypted all the Bitlocked partitions but the 24H2 partition couldn't be seen.
In BIU, the previous 24H2 partition was represented by 80 or so invalid partitions. Undelete wasn't available. Fortunately I was able to edit the End LBA of the first invalid partition and 24H2 returned. The other 80 invalid partitions were then deleted, one at a time. 24H2 was then able to be decrypted and deleted.

I learned to make the next 24H2 UFD with the Rufus setting of "Disable Bitlocker". I tried again and also used the Hidden setting for all partitions apart from those essential to 24H2. The Hidden setting wasn't really necessary as Bitlocker wasn't an issue.

 

This made me sweat...

 

I know I just forgot to hide those partitions in the preview disk layout. That layout above it's just for demonstration I really haven't done any re-partitioning on my drive though.

Brian, I guess you have those TBWinRE, TBWinPE and IFL partitions to test every TB new product release, I mean you might choose any of those three and do backup/restore operations to an additional drive because any of them (IFW or IFL) do the same thing, correct?

 

Mr.X, yes for testing. I only need one for restores and I use IFL because it's the fastest in my computer.

TBWinRE and IFL can be set up to do automated restores. The setup is easier in TBWinRE. You just need to add one script to the TBWinRE build.

 

Wow you have an amazing setup.

Is it possible to boot into any of them manually without running any automated script or without installing BootIt for the time being?

I want to click on something in my normal running Windows 10 and the machine automatically restarts and boots into any of those.

Where did you put you PartWork for Windows (I think I'm going to start naming it as PFW just like they did with IFW, only initials)?

 

Oh, man. Now ima need a cipher just to read these threads!

 

In the BIOS there is only a single Windows Boot Manager. So you can't boot other Windows OS from the BIOS.
I haven't tried creating a BCD menu to enable Microsoft multi-booting so my multi-booting is done through BIU. BIU stores booting files for each OS (Windows and Linux) in the ESP. In BIU there is a Boot Menu for each OS and you can choose which partitions to hide in each Boot Item.

I installed PFW in my main Win11 OS but it can be installed in each Win OS if desired.

The OS are completely independent so what you do in one doesn't appear in the others.

 

You can do that with BIU and BootNow.

 

How to use BootNow UEFI...

Download it from...

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-bootit-uefi/

Unzip and copy bootnowuefi folder to the D:\ drive.
Open "D:\bootnowuefi\win"
Right click bootnowu64.exe and click Create shortcut
You can move the shortcut to the Desktop or any folder.

Right click the shortcut and click Properties
The Target field will say...

D:\bootnowuefi\win\bootnowu64.exe

Let's say we have a BIU Boot Item called TBWinRE.
In the Target field, after D:\bootnowuefi\win\bootnowu64.exe type a space then TBWinRE, so you will have...

D:\bootnowuefi\win\bootnowu64.exe TBWinRE

Click OK

Rename "bootnowu64.exe - Shortcut" to TBWinRE

If you double click TBWinRE your computer will restart into TBWinRE.

You can make multiple shortcuts for your other OS.

 

It's an add on and needs to be downloaded.

 

Using makedisk to create a BIU UFD...

Double click makedisk.exe
PC Platform (UEFI)
BootIt UEFI V2.03
Image for UEFI and Scripting Support
Default Video
1024x768 - 16M colors
Align partitions on 1MiB boundaries
License details
Select the UFD drive letter
Accept USB Layout and Geometry

 

To install BIU should be like this...

OK, YES, YES, YES, OK, Close, OK

 

Brian, I read your private message. I'm studying right now how to install BIU on my current drive with the following layout:


I'm going to follow your steps above.