Sometimes a little hack has some real genius in it :

http://www.instructables.com/id/Cassette-MP3-Player/?ALLSTEPS

Wonko

Hello Gents,

I made a small freeware app that allows one to clone a drive (physical or logical) to/from another drive or image.

On top of that the tool can :

-save/restore the MBR or BS,
-delete the layout of the drive, 
-wipe with 0's,
-create a raw image file,
-make a vmdk/vhd from a raw image file to boot your cloned disk in vmware,
-do various operations on the registry around booting,
-format any device to fat16/fat32/ntfs/exfat/udf (includig usb pen),
-read faulty devices (with bad sectors for instance),
-perform speed tests,
-edit the partition table, view the boot sector ,
-create a disk, create a partition,
-extend / shrink a volume.

Tool can be downloaded here or here
There are plenty of other tools (and possibly better) that can do the same.
What I was looking for was a GUI (no command line tool), merging several functionalities at once and free.

Feedback and requests welcome

Regards,
Erwan.

Some are old but just saw them and had me watching all of it.

Poor cat, the guy with helmic, dog poo, air plane, the doctor, the wife and mother in law, the daughter,  guy trying to get change and the last one.

Hello Everyone.......

I am using Dual Boot (WIMBoot + VHDX) of 'Win 10 TP' in my system. And everything is working just perfect except 'Hibernate and Sleep'. I can not compromise with 'Hibernate' features because I rarely shutdown my PC in a Week.

Is there any Way/Trick/Hack/Tweak by which I can enable 'Hibernate' in case of Dual VHD Booting ?

Is it possible to have common 'pagefile.sys' and 'hiberfill.sys' in the root of partition which contains VHDX files ?

/BOOTMGR

/Boot/BCD

/Win 10 TP.vhdx

/Win X TP.vhdx

/install.wim

/BOOTNXT

/pagefile.sys

/hiberfill.sys

Is it possible to implement above configuration ? If 'Yes', then Will it enable 'Hibernate' in Dual VHD Booting ?

Please feel free to suggest me any other alternative (if possible) in order to enable 'Hibernate' in Dual VHD Booting..

Thanks & Regards....

• Install Grub4Dos to your Hard Disk
• RMPrepUSB – Amazing USB Formatting Tool!
• Boot Acronis True Image from USB or Hard Disk
• Free License of DiskGenius – Partition Recovery Software
• Boot Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 directly from Hard Disk

I have just gotten a new laptop, Windows 8.1 64 bit with UEFI boot on a GPT disk. For YEARS now I've backed up and restored my MBR legacy PCs with a personally made Windows PE and Ghost32. This no longer works. What works with the UEFI / GPT and will reliably backup and restore the OS on a 64 bit OS? I tried AOEMI which seems to support it but can't get it to work. As a test I installed a spare disk and then installed Windows 64 using UEFI / GPT and then used AOMEI to back it up. It backs up fine but if I test it by simulating a complete disk failure (or a NEW disk) by blowing off ALL the partitions it will restore and NOT boot and come to the Windows error screen. I've tried to let Win 8.1 repair the disk from the DVD OS install but it fails. Does anyone have a WORKING OS backup utility they can recommend? At this point I am seriously considering just getting another copy of 8.1 and install it in legacy / MBR mode and use it instead of the stock UEFI / GPT mode. It's only a 1tb disk, so there is no issue with legacy boot on it.

Cool WInFE work done by Jeffrey A. Cunningham, Sr Digital Forensic Examiner, US Army (ChiefCham), on imaging a Surface Pro using a bootable UEFI WinFE.  It is certainly neat to see this type of testing and research done on ANY forensic tool where the results can be shared with everyone.

Thanks ChiefCham!

Image a Surface Pro using bootable UEFI WINFE

Cool WInFE work done by Jeffrey A. Cunningham, Sr Digital Forensic Examiner, US Army (ChiefCham), on imaging a Surface Pro using a bootable UEFI WinFE.  It is certainly neat to see this type of testing and research done on ANY forensic tool where the results can be shared with everyone.

Thanks ChiefCham!

Image a Surface Pro using bootable UEFI WINFE

• Download WinBuilder from this page
• Extract the zipped file to a folder, choose a short path like c:\winbuilder
• Run Winbuilder.exe
• Type "AUTO" on the main window to create a Win7PE boot disk

• Open a console window
• Change to the directory where you have "WinBuilder.exe"
• Type: java -jar winbuilder.exe
• Type "AUTO" to launch the boot disk build

install ?

install

install win7pe

• Easier for those who have no sight. We noted that the previous winbuilder was quite difficult for visually impaired users
• Consistency. We support Windows, MacOSX, Linux and a web interface. If we only had a GUI like before we'd be spending our time trying to make a user interface that would look good on all these platforms
• Expansion. With our new plugin system it is easy to write new commands by yourself or by other developers. Using only a traditional GUI would be difficult (and messy) to make this kind of thing possible

• require one hour (at minimum) to build a boot disk
• ask full administrative permissions over your machine
• only run on windows
• force you to use a compatible source
• fail four or five times until you get something

Hi,

im trying to integrate multiple network drivers for different hardware into my win7pe image. I tried to integrate them via the "add drivers" option of PEnetwork and also with the "driver integration" of win7pese. Unfortunately it is not possible to integrate all the drivers at the same time. If i integrate an intel nic driver "Network_Driver_DGHKG_WN_18.7.0.0_A05.EXE" for "Intel I2xx/825xx 10/100/1000 Ethernet" it is not possible to operate other network hardware properly. I'm always getting the error, that "there is still another driver loaded and windows needs to be rebootet". So in fact windows loads the "wrong" driver first and after that finds the "right" driver and loads it, but fails to start the device properly.

Is there any proper way to integrate multiple drivers into pe or dynamically load those drivers at system boot?

Thanks for your help

i am doing some tests with NTlite and to save my install and check that tool , i used Disk2vhd .

i used it to backup a 60 Go ssd with win7

it created me a 7.20 GB (7,742,602,240 bytes) file in few minutes , i found that so incredible that i created a 60 Go vhd using disk management console and made a copy of my partition with a backup tool in this 60 Go vhd

i used 7z 9.34 to compress it uzing 7z-lzma2 setting , after 90 minutes or so , the resulting file is 13.0 GB (13,991,225,093 bytes)...

i am asking if any grub4dos can handle these vhds ? and the vhdx format ? and if it can read the boot partition of 100 Mo that windows wants to format ?

as far as i know ,  i think it can not load in ram this vhd , but may be it will....

that could be nice to map the file and add a parameter for "free space" :

with an example pc has 16 Go of ram so it loads at boots the file of 7.20 Go and take 2.80 of ram for free space so hard-disk will be 29 Go + 2.8 = 32 Go for windows and not 60 Go 

that could be great ;'] , may be scsi-windows drivers like firadisk should be updated too ...

at least that would help to have and save a lot of programs instead of shrinking them a lot for the vhd file to be loadable in ram

 mini PCs based on Intel's Atom SoC "APM-D01"

"APM-D01"

http://techreport.com/news/27228/this-mini-bay-trail-pc-is-the-size-of-a-thumb-drive

http://www.techspot.com/news/58480-bay-trail-powered-pc-no-bigger-than-usb.html

http://www.overclock.net/t/1519453/techreport-this-mini-bay-trail-pc-is-the-size-of-a-thumb-drive

 

The "APM-D01" measures only 3.9" x 1.5" x 0.38" (100 x 38 x 9.6 mm) and weighs just 1.6 oz (46 g), but its internals wouldn't look out of place inside a much larger tablet. The micro machine is available with a choice of quad-core Atom Z3735F or Z3735G processors from the Bay Trail generation. Both chips are clocked at 1.33GHz with a 1.83GHz burst frequency. The "F" is limited to 1GB of RAM at 5.3GB/s, while the "G" can address 2GB of memory at 10.6GB/s.

In addition to being available with different CPU-and-memory combos, the device comes with 16GB or 32GB of internal flash storage. Otherwise, all the versions have identical specs: one HDMI output (male), one Micro SD slot, dual Micro USB 2.0 ports, and both 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0. I see what looks like a full-sized USB port on one edge, but it's not mentioned on the official product page. That page does, however, indicate that the system can run Android, Windows 8.1, and Linux.

Quad-core Bay Trail chips have enough pep for light desktop work, HTPC duties, and even casual gaming, so having one squeezed into something roughly the size of a Chromecast is pretty appealing. Similar ARM-based Android sticks do exist, of course, but they can't run Windows.

Unfortunately, getting your hands on one of these might prove problematic. Although the device is listed on Alibaba, it's only available in 500-unit quanties. At least the "US $1-70/piece" price range suggests the sticker should be low if these things eventually turn up stateside. Thanks to CNX Software for the tip.

Since some time, Google attempts to retrieve a date in the web pages to show whether the page is old or not.
But when I make a search with, for instance, "ImDisk Toolkit", which has been updated some days ago, Google displays the date of initial release in 2013, likely because this is the first date it sees in the page. Some people might think that the software was never updated.
Moreover, I think the date of the last update is more important than the date of a release that is no longer available since a long time.

I don't know if this can be changed easily, but I think it would be nice to have the date of last release in first.

• vmount program - 32 and 64 bit versions by erwan.l [1]
• Sleep 32/64 bit from this thread: http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=52.0%C2%A0%5B2%5D
• Last but not least - YUMI by pendrivelinux.com [4]
• altmbr.bin from SYSLINUX package [5]
• Scripts made by me with the help of guys from this forum to make it all work together.

HELLO!

This tutorial is for those of you who always wanted a truly multiboot USB disk. This will show you how to create a disk with 2 partitions - one for storage and one for booting various installers or bootable distributions. The second partition will be hidden and therefore will not show up in Windows when you plug your disk in (this is done to ensure nothing messes with those boot files). You will be able to stuff as many installers for anything as your disk allows (no limitations like 'only 1 Windows installer' and such).
 

GOALS

• To have many different bootable distributions on a single disk.
• Among those should be Windows 7 installer AND Windows 8 installer
• Only one partition should be auto-mounted in Windows (and preferably other OSs) - the first one (storage for files). This is to prevent accidental alteration of bootable partitions or files on them. It should be of type NTFS.
• All of these features should be available from a single menu shown at the time of booting the machine from the USB disk in question.

NOTE:
If you also have SanDisk Extreme USB stick (or other similar with removable bit set to 0), this will also work for you since it is detected as disk. I am not sure whether or not this will work for simple removable=1 USB sticks (canonical USB flash drives or USB sticks).
 

Performing this tutorial will erase all data and all partitions on your disk. Back everything up before proceeding.

You perform this tutorial at YOUR OWN RISK. I am not responsible for what happens to your hardware or data. To decrease the likelihood of bad things happening, make sure to read all the instructions carefully.

Still with me? Let's get GOING!

SOFTWARE
 

First of all: you need a PC with Windows 7/8 and administrative access to it (Vista may work, not sure). This is where the tutorial will be performed.
 
To perform all that we will need this software package. [0] (from now on, references will be marked with []). To download it, you may need to register (not sure why).

The software package includes:

• YUMI by pendrivelinux.com [1].
• altmbr.bin from SYSLINUX package which allows to boot partition by number [2].
• Multiple scripts and one executable (including vmount program - 32 and 64 bit versions by erwan.l and sleep 32/64 bit from this thread: http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=52.0) to make this all work together [3].

Additionally, you need to download the following:

• WinSetupFromUSB (later WSFUSB). This one is crucial for this scheme to work. Use .exe version if you don't have 7zip installed. This tutorial is written at the time when version 1.4 was the latest. [4]

Optionally (the software I recommend which will make the process easier and more flexible but is not required):

• Gparted live .iso for partitioning and setting partition flags (analogues include Parted Magic which decided to go paid recently or Partition Wizard which is smaller but keep in mind that it is not Gparted and you have to have some experience in order to operate it). [5]
• Notepad++. Notepad++ is a superior text editor for Windows with many plugins [6].

And of course a few Windows installer .isos as well as few bootable Linux distributions.Those could be anything that YUMI and SYSLINUX support (you'll be able to check that out later in this tutorial).

When you download all this, you are ready for next steps.
 

CONCEPT

 
Here, the scheme of operation will be briefly discussed.

ACTION

• [ Configuring software ]
  1.1. Extract the software package [0] to some folder (all software required is listed above, look there if you haven't already).
  1.2. Extract WinSetupFromUSB into the same folder (so that it's beside YUMI.exe and all other stuff). Double click it and extract to the same folder.
  1.3. Now take the folder with WinSetupFromUSB and drag it over onto the drag_here file. Like this (folder structure should be like this too):
  
  If you did everything right, a window will be shown saying that the process was completed:
  

  WinSetupFromUSB was set up successfully, you can delete that folder.
  Now it's time to run 'start_admin.cmd'.
  Press any key to continue...
  

  1.4. Just like it says, press any key to close the window. Do not run start_admin.cmd yet. Go over to the next step to define partition structure.

        
• [ Partitioning ]
  2.1. Decide on the partition structure: yours should include at least 1 storage partition and at least 1 boot partition. Boot partition has to be of type FAT32 (FAT32 has a restriction of biggest file - 4GB and a biggest volume - 32GB which is 32768MB. If you plan to use bigger files or volumes, you can't use NTFS but you can try exFAT as experiment - I did not try it) and storage can be anything but I recommend NTFS. Mine looks like this:
  
  Storage partition is 32GB NTFS and Boot partition is 15GB FAT32 (it does not have a letter like G: because it has hidden flag already set, you'll learn about that later on). If you are using big disk, it might be a good idea to put boot partition first as some BIOSes have trouble reading beyond certain bounds. 
  2.2. Disk Management way is described here but you can use any other software you like to apply the partition structure (like Gparted[5] mentioned earlier or Bootice which can be launched from WinSetupFromUSB). Open Disk Management in Windows. This can either be done through searching in start (type in Disk Management) or in Windows Command Prompt: diskmgmt.
  2.3. Apply the desired partition structure. Right-click any partition to manage it. Right-click the unallocated space left after partition deletion to create new partition. Always choose to assign drive letter and you can freely format it right in the same wizard:
  
  2.4. Before exiting Disk Management, note the number of your boot partition and number of your disk in the system. This is how they look like in Disk Management:
  
  Here, the disk number is 2 and boot partition number is 1.
  2.5. When you've finished applying partition scheme, it's time to make this drive actually bootable.
      
• [ Adding base boot environment (YUMI) ]
  3.1. Go to the folder from step 1. Start YUMI.exe.
  3.2. Check Show All Drives box and select your boot partition from the dropdown list. You may optionally choose to format it as well. 
  3.3. Now, it's time to add some Linux-based distribution(s). I have chosen Partition Wizard as an example (you may choose any other distribution as well as add more than one, link to Partition Wizard is given in SOFTWARE section). It is recommended to add all Linux-based distributions at this point, because it will be harder do do later on after the disk is finalized.
  3.4. Select Browse and choose your .iso image. The screen will look like this:
  
  3.5. Click Create and follow the on-screen instructions. When it asks if you want to add more, you can choose yes and repeat the procedure (do not choose formatting option when repeating the procedure, obviously) to add another distribution.
  3.6. At this point, the disk is bootable. Disconnect the disk and reconnect it again (this is needed for Windows to detect the partition as active properly).
  3.7. Go to folder from step 1 and run "start_admin.cmd" as Administrator. This is crucial for its operation, right-click it and select Run as Administrator:
  
  3.8. It is going to ask you for disk number and bootable partition number. Re-open Disk Management and find those numbers like you did in step 2.4. Specify the respective numbers and press Enter.
  [ATTENTION] Again, I am not responsible for what happens to your disks (including those not mentioned in this tutorial) if you fail to specify the right disk and partition numbers in this step or in any other place.
  3.9. At the end, it's going to ask you if you want the executables compressed before being put on your USB drive. Size is rarely an issue so I recommend entering "n" here.
     
• [ Adding Windows-based installers (WinSetupFromUSB) ]
  4.1. Back in the same folder, go inside WSFUSB folder (not WinSetupFromUSB* folder) and run WinSetupFromUSB.exe appropriate for your system architecture.
  4.2. Choose your partition in the topmost dropdown menu. Make sure to do it carefully.
  4.3. Check the box next to Windows 7/8 installer and click the button on the right to select your Windows installer .iso.
  4.5. Select the Advanced options box. Make sure that Don't check for and install grub4dos MBR and Launch Q-Dir before Setup.
  4.6. Double-check your settings and make sure they look almost 100% identical (except disk and .iso path) to this example:
  
  4.7. Optionally, you may select Custom menu names for Vista/7/8/Server Source so that you are able to see custom names when selecting Windows distributions at boot time.
  4.8. When you are ready, press GO button. If you selected the box from 4.7., it's going to ask for the names. After that, wait for the operation to complete.
  4.9. Repeat the steps for each Windows distribution you want to add.
     
• [ Finalization ]
  5.1. At this point we have 2 bootable structures: one for Linux (starts from MBR) and one for Windows (starts from bootmgr on your boot partition). We need to link them up. Open your bootable partition in Windows explorer.
  5.2. Open file <drive root>\multiboot\syslinux.cfg. It contains information about the menu which is displayed when booting from your drive. More info about it can be found here: menu.c32 - syslinux.cfg syntax, chain.c32 chainloader command. For now, we need to make a menu entry which will allow us to boot our Windows installers. Add the following lines at the bottom (or in between other menu entries) to create a new menu entry:
  

  MENU LABEL Windows Installers/Recoveries >>>
  MENU INDENT 1 KERNEL chain.c32
  APPEND fs ntldr=/bootmgr
  

  Preferably, add an empty newline before and after this code. Adjust the menu entry label if you wish. Save and close the file.
  5.3. [OPTIONAL FROM HERE] Open WinSetupFromUSB again. We will delete the stale Back to Main Menu(Grub4dos) menu entry from Windows installers menu. Select Bootice tool.
  5.4. Go to BCD Edit. Select other BCD File and locate <drive root>\boot\bcd file on your boot partition:5.5. Press Easy mode to edit the BCD (boot configuration data) file:NOTE: If you only have 1 installer, it's going to be loaded right after you press the menu entry you added to syslinux.cfg withouth showing any menu at all.
  Also, you may want to press Set as default on any menu item you want to make default.Click Close and exit Bootice tool. Exit WinSetupFromUSB as well.
     
• [ Cleanup (OPTIONAL)]
  6.1. Now we need to delete stale files. You can skip this section if you do not care about this sort of things. Open your bootable partition in Windows explorer. Also, open the first partition on your drive (they may be one and the same).
  6.2. The following files and folders are needed for this disk to function (if the folder is listed, all its content needs to be preserved):
  

  \boot
  \efi
  \multiboot
  \WINSETUP
  \bootmgr
  

  6.3. The following files and folders can be safely deleted:
  

  \.disk
  \default
  \grldr
  \menu.lst
  \plpbt.bin
  \shifthd.bat
  \usbdrive.tag
  

  Remove them at will. Additionally, Windows may create its stupid System Volume Information - you can remove that too if you're lucky.
  Also, this is the point where you may rename your boot partition from MULTIBOOT to any other name (I prefer simply Boot). You can do that just like with any folder through Windows explorer.
      

• [ Hiding the boot partition (OPTIONAL)]
  7.1. Now you may want to hide your boot partition to prevent accidental alteration of any files on it. This means that it will not be visible on most systems by default when inserting your disk, but you will still be able to boot from it. Open WinSetupFromUSB again.
  7.2. Open Bootice tool and select Physical Disk tab if it's not selected already. Choose your disk (carefully) in the dropdown menu.
  7.3. Click Parts Manage button. Partition list will be shown.
  7.4. Find your partition in the list and press Hide button. A window confirming success will pop up. The whole thing will look like this:
  
  That's it. Your partition is no longer auto-mounted (will not have a drive letter) on most systems and files needed to boot the drive will not be altered accidentally.

Also, I prefer to keep vmount program ([3] in SOFTWARE section) to be able to quickly mount hidden partition under Windows if I need to.
  

That's pretty much it, if you notice any misconception or error, feel free to post it here. Also, questions and feedback are welcome.

 
CREDITS

 
Wonko, erwan.l, ilko, Steve - members of reboot.pro community who helped me tremendously in this thread. This is where the journey ended
Bob who initially hinted about ImDisk driver in this room.
Mario who educated about the BCD files, their purpose and means to edit them in this original question. This is where the journey started.

Run Windows 7 (and other NT 6.x versions of Windows) from Grub4Dos's RamDisk

UPDATED 18.04.2013
Covers installing Windows 7 to VHD, installing and configuring Grub4Dos, installing FiRaDisk driver.
Finally, describes loading VHD image into RAM and booting it.

New, refined videoguide... including x64 instructions and some corrections...

Combined with an updated guide here

http://tech.outcult.com/tutorials/winram/01/

it's now sort of interactive 

Download guide files here.

WinRAM 18.04.13

Category: Miscellaneous

Last Updated Apr 18 2013 09:09 PM

I need to setup a password protection before using the Win7PE build by WinBuilder [080], I tried to use this script used this version replaced the embedded one: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19736&st=0, however, it will got bluescreen after I type password in the PreLogon screen.

I tend to use ExplorerShell but no matter cmd.exe or winpeshl.exe inside the PreLogon.ini, I would get BSOD..