I hope I'm not asking an old question.

I have created USB sticks, with WINPE that boot successfully. No problem there.

I use a program called PE2USB.EXE which creates a bootable USB stick from my WINPE 2003 SP1 source.

I need the USB to ask 'Press Any Key to Boot ...' that a 2003 CDROM will do. At the moment it does not ask, but always boots the USB.

I know it is something to do with the BOOTFIX.BIN. Usually it is removed so the question is not asked, but I eed it to be asked, as I will be leaving the USB stick attached to servers so they can be rebuilt remotely.

I have copied the BOOTFIX.BIN to the root of the USB, it is already present in \MININT, but I never get asked the question.

Can anybody help?

PS. I don't want to use the ramdisk method of booting an .iso of WINPE off the USB either. As at the moment I can have a custom IP address for each USB stick, for each server.

Edited November 9, 200619 yr by j14nsx

My answer would have been to put in the BOOTFIX.BIN too; maybe it's some sort of limitation to the USB stick? Odd... I'd wager that if you built it using the ISO Ramdisk method you could get it to work, but I know you don't want to go down that road.

Not to ask a dumb question, but have you tried googling something like "USB PE Bootfix.bin" or thereabouts? I'd wager you're not the first person who needs something like this...

BOOTFIX.BIN is used for CD-ROM boot (or ram iso image), the CD boot sector calls BOOTFIX.BIN to show that message. but a normal HDD or USB Flash will not.

googling will help

I'tell you how I manage that problem, my way is not necessarily the one you want or the best one.

I use Grub4DOS as a boot manager.

Read this:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=18045&hl=

AND search on the 911cd forums for threads with "Grub4DOS", AND read them.

Basically I boot from the stick into grldr and have a menu.lst similar to the one posted here:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&...st&p=118196

of which the relevant part is:

# This is a basic menu.lst file for GRUB4DOS

# Following is the timeout for the default choice

# By not pressing any key during the timeout, the default will be chosen

timeout 10

# Following is the menu item that will default

default 0

# This reflects the "normal" behaviour of a PC

# i.e. booting the first partition of first harddisk

# By setting it as default with timeout 10 seconds (see above)

# We try to replicate somehow the "Press any key to boot from CD..." message

# of Microsoft Install CDs, this way if no key is pressed, as an example for

# unattended installs, the system will boot "normally" even if CD (or USB stick) is inserted

# of course if the "any" you press is [ENTER] system will boot from this entry

title Boot Hard Disk MBR on (hd0,0)

chainloader (hd0,0)+1

rootnoverify (hd0)

Latest version of Grub4DOS is here:

http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome

jaclaz

I too get around this problem, but I use SysLinux (or IsoLinux for when it's on CDROM)

Same general thought process as Grub4Dos, but tastes vary