andy_le2k

@mikesw Please explain! So you don't have a BIOS that can boot USB sticks? You want to load DOS from a USB stick? If you can express your problems in a clearer way it would be easier for us to help you. And as jaclaz mentioned, this post is about installing multiple OS from USB - if your issue does not fit in this topic perhaps it's best to start a new post.

Thanks ilko_t! This will give me something to do for the whole day! VMware doesn't like booting from my USB hard drive, can you do this from qemu?

Thanks for the tip cdob, modifype works like a charm and after I used it on setupdd.sys, I can now have multiple Windows 2003! Looks like the project finally is complete, every single Windows OS can be installed from one USB hard drive. I have updated my first post to include instructions for Windows 2003.

Thanks ilko_t for the links, the original sp1 2003 setupldr.bin links are dead so I couldn't play around with them. The cracked version of setupldr.bin works, you can load txtsetup using it but once it loads it will give a "unable to load setupdd.sys errorcode 4" I was thinking that maybe setupdd.sys has checksum checks as well since it's the file that we hex edited the txtsetup won't load it. The reason why I need to have 2003 as an additional source is because I already have one flavor of 2003 using up the unmodified $WIN_NT$ slot which works fine. So if I add another version of 2003 it will need to be $WIN_0x$ and txtset0x.sif I have also edited the first post to include the methods of getting multiple XP, multiple Vista and multiple PE to work.

Never really had a chance to thank wimb for implementing the multiple XP sources in version 9 and 10 of his program, so thanks heaps for taking the cumbersome task of manually doing this out of the way. Here are a few things I've noticed with these latest releases: It can't handle multiple WIN2003 sources, the installation process between XP and 2003 should be very similar but if you use multiboot10 to add 2003 as an additional source, it will give you a ntldr corrupted error! If you were to use a setupldr from an XP source, txtsetup will load but it will error once it starts expanding some files. Here's what I did: I created 2 XP sources so there are 2 XP setupldr's (XAT01 and XAT02). I then created a 2003 source which has XAT03 which i renamed to XAT03.old and copied the XAT01 over as XAT03. I then hex-edited XAT03 and replaced all instances of $win_01$ with $win_03$ and also did the same for txtset01 to txtset03. This loads the txtsetup portion of 2003 fine but it complains about a file note found in txtsetup.sif. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's my personal wishlist for future releases of multiboot: It would be nice to be able to automate the multiple PE process (BartPE + WinFLP + ERD Commander). Some how be able to add multiple Vista installs without multiple partitions. Currently I'm booting into a Vista PE then navigate by cmd prompt to the desired source folder and executing the setup.exe - I also have 2 Vista PE's booting from bootmgr, one for x86 sources and one for x64. So from the grub4dos menu (I have my boot.ini directly load grub4dos) I run the bootmgr which then gives me the option to run x86 PE or x64 PE. That is like 3 layers of menus I go through plus manually navigating to the right source path and launching the setup. It would be better to shorten this somehow. My USB hard drive: USB:\Vista\x86\Setup.exe USB:\Vista\x64\Setup.exe USB:\Vista\Server2008x86\Setup.exe USB:\Vista\Server2008x64\Setup.exe Thanks a lot for reading.

It seems this error only happens if UBCD4WIN is created on a Vista machine, tried rebuilding in XP and it's all good.

Maybe this won't be relevant here, the above method works fine btw. What doesn't work is UBCD4WIN, if any of you guys get a chance, try it out. See if you can build it and make it boot from a usb hard drive. It boots fine for me but when it gets into the PE I get an error "File not found" for the Prelogon program. It works fine though if booted from a CD which is odd. I know this is UBCD4WIN's error but just want to see if you guys can get it to work using the above method.

copy /y %usbdrive%\minint\setupldr.bin %usbdrive%\PELDR makebt\gsar -sBT:x00:x00:x00\:x00:x00:x00txtsetup -rBT:x00:x00:x00\:x00:x00:x00notsetup %usbdrive%\PELDR %usbdrive%\peldr.new -b -f if exist %usbdrive%\peldr.new copy /y %usbdrive%\peldr.new %usbdrive%\PELDR if exist %usbdrive%\peldr.new del %usbdrive%\peldr.new As being used in USB_MultiBoot_8.cmd wimb Wow thanks for that wimb. You ever thought (I know this is a lot to ask) of making your next release able to detect if there is already an xp source or pe already on the drive and have the option to create another co-existing source on the usb? I mean with all that's out there already about multiple sources, all that's left is for you to work your batch magic I would think. Anyways, when trying your gsar command I get this: gsar: command error, multiple search & replace requires the 'o' option

Yeh I thought about multiple partitions especially while I was messing around with the multiple Vista stage. The only thing is that I would hate to plug my usb hard drive into a computer and have 10 additional drives come up, anyway to hide them but setup still pick them up? Also, I tried your method above there and it doesn't work, maybe its my work's workstations but it just goes to blank screen without any loading on the comp or the usb drive.

Always helpful, Thanks so much ilko_t, currently stuck at work but will try this out as soon as I get home. See the real reason why I need this to work is because I think WinFLP boots into a custom PE and then installs the .WIM image. I tried booting into a normal BartPE and launch the WnFLP setup directly but this won't work, so hopefully being able to boot into more than 1 PE will allow me to install WinFLP directly from usb and completing my ultimate hard drive which will have every single OS and admin tool I could possibly need. Also, I use grub4dos which can chainload the loaders directly without boot sectors so I don't think I will need to run makebs.cmd (it's a great tool don't get me wrong). What is this ram boot method you speak of? I probably won't use it because I need to be sure it is compatible with all systems and some of the PE's are 200MB+.

Hi everybody, Recently I managed to make multiple XP instalations from USB work and I also figured out a way to do multiple Vista installs from the 1 usb hard drive. So now what I want to do is multiple PE's from the usb hard drive. I can get multiple WinPE2 to boot by just copying and editing bcd entries but when I try to get more than 1 BartPE on the usb txtsetup usually gives me errors for missing files. What I've tried so far: attempt 1: hex edited peldr and changed every instance of "minint" to "mini01" 3 instances were changed but when it loads into txtsetup stage it gives errors. attempt 2: renamed the <minint> folder for each flavour of PE, for example - <mini01> - ERD Commander <mini02> - Bart PE <mini03> - UBCD4WIN so each time i want to use one of the flavours I have to log into DOS or any other OS, rename the desired folder to <minint>, reboot and load the PE but that still won't work. ilko_t? jaclaz? cdob? Anybody want to help? Thanks a lot.

If you want to install XP from a usb hdd, please use the usb_multiboot(7).cmd http://www.msfn.org/board/install-XP-USB-t111406.html Unfortunately you can't install XP x64 from a USB HDD because during the install process we need to use a driver (rdummy.sys) which tricks setup in thinking that the usb hdd is a removable disk and this driver has not yet been written for 64bit. Your should be able to use the above mentioned program to install x64 from a normal usb flash drive.

If you want to only have 1 source of Vista on your USB the easiest way is to use the usb_multiboot.cmd program then copy over the [bOOT] [sOURCES] folders and BOOTMGR to the root of the USB. Then edit the grub4dos menu.lst with: title Setup Windows Vista find --set-root /grldr chainloader /BOOTMGR this will work if you only need one version of Vista to be on the usb but more than one will not work. So what if you needed more than one version, say x86 and x64 (well there's a guide out there to combine them into one install.wim) or what if you had one integrated with SP1 and one original? Honestly I have tried many methods - adding new entry to BCD, hex editing, renaming install.wim (works but messy), renaming folders (works but also messy). The best way that I have found so far is to create a Windows PE 2, boot into that with your usb and launch the setup program directly. This actually works very well because when Vista installs it requires to load Windows PE 2 anyways so you already crossed that bridge. What's best is the ability to have the source files in any folder you want just as long as you have install.wim in the same folder as setup.exe. Also WinPE2 can run both x86 and x64 files so u can launch both setups from one PE. I hope this helps.

Did you mean here XPS01 instead of SETUPLDR1 Same for index 2 Thanks for the pickup! Yes this is a mistake and I have edited on the first post. I initially named my setupldr files setupldr1 and setupldr2 but I think ntfs boot sectors needs to be 5 chars that is why the make boot batch file will not accept setupldr1 or setupldr2. I'm glad you finally got it working. It feels really good to be able to accomplish something like this eh? Which is why I'm very thankful to everybody who made this possible.

Thanks very much for your hard work ilko_t!! Very much appreciated it and I'm glad you got it working. (Un)fortunately I have to go out with the misses now but would much rather stay in all night and get this to work for me too. I'll give this a shot when I get home and hopefully I can share some of your success. Thanks again.