usb flash drive problem

I have now managed to create the active partition you suggested in #49. The Vista system just ignored it - no surprise there - but trying to boot the old PC from it I've finally got an error message, or rather loads of them.

There is a whole screenful of lines similar to -

Try (hd0,0): FAT32: No GRLDR. After trying umpteen hds it ends with Cannot find GRLDR

Then Windows Boot Manager says Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause etc, etc, then -

File: \Boot\BCD

Status: 0xc000000e

Info: An error occurred while trying to read the boot configuration data

I've attached the Explorer view of the boot partition. I'll come back with the hex dump when I've reattached the drive to the system with DD on it.


EDIT - the files \Boot\grldr and \Boot\BCD both exist

 

Here - though it only mentions the second partition HD-HBU2, not the boot partition ACRONIS BOOT ??

 

I guess you want to see this too -

 

Sorry; work interfered with responding to posts. My PM8 CD was bootable as-received from Symantec. Maybe yours is too?

 

OK, I see why your USB HD won't boot. It does not have a standard MBR, but rather it has Grub4DOS as a boot manager. That's OK, all you need to do is move 1 file to make it boot.

Go into the \Boot folder and drag the file grldr out of the folder to the root of the drive. Grub4DOS looks for this file only at the root level when it boots. When you try booting the drive you should see the Grub4DOS menu next time. From the menu you can then choose VistaPE as the OS to boot.

So assuming this works on your old PC, does Windows see both partitions OK? What does Windows see on your Vista PC?

 

Had a few things to do here as well, but back on the case now.

It's a step closer at least. No response from the Vista machine, but on the old PC it (very quickly) loads the Grub4DOS menu, but after a few seconds, or if you click on VistaPE, the Windows Boot Manager error message appears, exactly as before.

It's purely a case now of winning for winning's sake, at least on the old PC, as it isn't used a great deal. Would be nice though to clear this final hurdle, and not have to retire from the field soundly beaten.

 

That's the spirit!

Boot your old PC from a Vista DVD with the external USB hard disk attached. Go to a command prompt (repair your PC) and find the drive letter of the external USB disk's VistaPE partition by doing:

Code:

C:
dir
D:
dir
etc

until you can identify the drive letter by the file contents listed for the partition. Then type the following command to display the BCD on the VistaPE partition on the external USB hard disk. Substitute the correct drive letter in place of X: in the command:

Code:

bcdedit /store X:\Boot\BCD

Post the correct drive letter and the contents of the BCD back here.

 

No easy way to c & p that so hope not too many typos -

The drive is K:

Windows Boot Manager
identifier {bootmgr}
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {default}
displayorder {default}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
identifier {default}
device ramdisk=[boot]\sources\boot.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f
path \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe
description Windows Setup
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice ramdisk=[boot]\sources\boot.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f
systemroot \windows
detecthal Yes
winpe Yes
quietboot Yes
bootlog Yes
ems Yes

 

btw, this is the hijack to end all hijacks. I can only sincerely apologise to the OP and express the wish that he/she has learned as much as I have from it.

I had no idea it would develop into a full blown excavation of my two comps

 

Earthling:

I've been puzzling over this one for a while now. Your BCD is identical to mine; even the GUID of the boot.wim file. The files listed on your disk look correct. The only thing we haven't looked at is the Grub4DOS menu.lst file; I assume that the entry for booting VistaPE looks like this:

Code:

title VistaPE
chainloader /bootmgr

Correct? (You can open the file with Notepad to view). So I don't see anything obviously wrong.

Then I ran across this post on the 911.cd.net forums. If you jump to the second to last post in the thread (by ktp here) the problem was being caused by a non-contiguous image file. For VistaPE, the image file is \sources\boot.wim and is 231 KB on my build of VistaPE (yours may differ in size). If the file is fragmented on your USB disk then this could cause the symptom you're seeing.

The guys on the 911.cd.net forum recommend starting with a cleanly-formatted disk and then copying the image file onto the disk first (the \sources folder in your case) followed by copying the rest of the files.

But I wonder if you can simply defragment the USB disk to fix? Might be worth a try.

 

Mark:

The VistaPE entry in menu.lst is the same as yours.

I have used both Diskeeper and Auslogics Disk Defrag to check the fragmentation status of files on the boot partition (ACRONIS BOOT) of the external drive. Both report zero fragmentation.

If you feel there are other things you still want to do with your life I would fully understand

 

Earthling:

I really don't see the problem - everything looks correct as far as I can tell. Where's MudCrab when you need him Feel free to jump in here if you can see what's wrong.

I'm assuming here that you are copying files from your VistaPE CD, and that you can successfully boot this PC with the CD. If that's true, about all that I can think of is a file copy error.

Do you still have the original build of VistaPE on one of your PCs (the build used to create the CD that you have been using)? If you do, delete all of the files on the 2 GB partition on your external USB disk and then copy them again but this time from \WinBuilder\Target\VistaPE\ instead of from the CD. After copying the files, drag the \Boot\grldr file to the root of the partition, as before.

Other than that, I'm about out of ideas. Anyone else?

 

Mark,

I've been following this on and off today (I've been on the phone all day). I want to read back through it before I post more (if I think of more).

It seems odd that a "Vista" computer won't boot a flashdrive.

-----------

Earthling,

Did you follow the steps for the VistaPE flashdrive/hard drive as posted in my guide? It was unclear because of MBR and boot sector changes exactly what steps were taken and when.

I have VistaPE booting successfully from a small FAT32 partition at the end of a 500GB internal SATA drive and also on a FAT32 partition at the start of my eSATA/USB2 drive.

I assume that it's been verified that the VistaPE partition is the Active partition. If not, the "(hd0,#)" value will be different.

I have copied my boot.wim file many times and haven't had a problem with any fragmentation (at least none I'm aware of).

I have run into the "winload.exe" error before on my drive and I just can't quite remember what caused it.

 

Re: usb flash drive/hard drive problem

MudCrab:

The last part of the thread, #51 on, and the following relate to trying to get my USB hard drive to boot VistaPE. I have abandoned flash for the time being.

The VistaPE CD I use as a source was created by following your guide and it boots successfully on both computers. I no longer have the original Winbuilder folders from which the CD was created.

Confirmed, see #53. Disk 3, ACRONIS BOOT is the first partition on my external drive


As with the previous attempt to boot from flash, my Vista PC fails to recognise the boot sector on the external drive and simply proceeds to boot from the next device. BIOS boot order is set correctly. If all other boot order options are disabled, leaving only the external drive, I get DISK BOOT FAILURE (#46)

Connecting the external drive to the old PC gets the Grub4DOS menu up, but fails at the timeout or if any option is selected - see #51 onward.

I really wouldn't advocate you spend much more time on this, as I only wanted to be able to boot the Vista PC from either flash or USB drive, and it seems clear that the BIOS just can't hack it. It would be nice to see it working correctly on the old PC, but only for the satisfaction of having cracked it. The PC isn't used regularly.

Huge thanks to both of you anyway, whether you persevere now or not.

LATE EDIT - have just discovered that a new BIOS version became available March 10. I'm trying to find out why it's been issued, as I don't want to flash it if it has no relevance to this problem.

EVEN LATER EDIT - No reason given for BIOS update, so flashed it anyway. No change.

 

kOlo and MudCrab:

After our intensive but ultimately unsuccessful efforts the other day to get my VistaPE to boot from either flash or USB external drive I decided to give it a rest, just to let my head clear. And today, working in the garden it did, when I remembered what MudCrab had said about booting VistaPE from SATA drives.

This evening it took just a few minutes to create a FAT32 primary partition at the end of my eSATA removable drive, set it as Active, issue the elevated bootsect command, copy my VistaPE files to it, and reboot. It worked!

All I have to do now is hit F8 during boot, select the eSATA drive as the boot device, and VistaPE is up and running in no time at all, about a tenth of the time or less than it takes from CD I would say.

I couldn't possibly have done this without the knowledge acquired in the course of this thread, and can't see any reason why anyone with two hard drives shouldn't use the same technique, either with VistaPE or a standard Acronis Rescue CD.

Brilliant

 

Earthling:

Congratulations! It sounds like the problem must have been lack of USB boot support on your PCs.

Having a bootable repair environment on a hard disk is a good solution. I did that on my laptop with the Acronis recovery environments for TI and DD. Starting either one in safe mode only takes about 10 seconds.

Glad that you have a good solution. VistaPE is definitely one of the better recovery environments, especially if you need to work with Vista PCs.

 

Just one final question Mark. I'm left with an Active partition on both my flash drive and on my USB external. Is there a way to set them as not Active?

BTW, I invested in DD along the way, but can't see anything in there about this.

 

If you have Primary partitions on any drive, it's normal for one of them to be Active. You don't need to worry about it.

My congratulations also on getting VistaPE to boot from your eSATA drive. On my computer, booting from an internal or eSATA drive boots BartPE in about 3 seconds and VistaPE slightly longer. Many, many times faster than either USB or CD.

 

Earthling:

Yes. In DD, click on the disk drive and choose "Edit". Then change the view to "As partition table". You will see a green checkmark in the "Boot" column next to the active partition. Clear the checkmark and then choose "Save Sector".

It won't hurt anything to leave the partition as active.

 

I'll just leave it as it is. Thanks.