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USBoot 2 10 Boot from USB

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USBoot 2.10
Freeware
http://www.usboot.org/tiki-index.php
Windows 2000/XP/2003

Make your OS boot from USB drive


USBoot is a package that helps in the preparation of Windows 2000 / XP / 2003
(NT 5.x) for booting from USB-mass storage devices by providing extensive sup-
port for automated installation and configuration of drivers especially of setup
class USB.

Booting Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 (NT 5.x) from USB is a very recent but hot to-
pic, according to that all attempts are still experimental. So don't use a pro-
ductive installation for your first experiments and always create a full backup
of the system to be modified.




Requirements
------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows 2000 SP4 + native support for pagefiles on USB drives
- no support for volume shadows
- no native support for EWF filter

Windows XP SP2 \ - no native support for pagefiles on USB drives
Windows XP SP3 | + support for volume shadows
Windows 2003 SP2 / + native support for EWF filter




Notes
----------------------------------------------------------
The first two phases (I & II) must be executed from within the running installation of Windows that is to be prepared for being started from USB. Usually this installation will reside on an internal harddisk or a virtual disk of some virtual machine.

By default the files of the installation that has been prepared in phases I and II will be transferred to the USB device as the first step of phase III. Alternatively they may also be copied by some other suitable means. However it is strongly recommended to prefer USBoot's internal routines as they will try to preserve some of the installation's characteristics that will get lost during a plain file copy (and even disk imaging tools may not work as expected in certain configurations).





Installation
----------------------------------------------------------------
To use this packet simply unpack the USBoot archive in a new folder on the root
drive of the Windows installation to be activated for USB boot. You shold now
have there your new USBoot folder with three subfolders ('special DriverFiles',
'ewf' & 'extra Drivers').

If you intend to write-protect your USB storage device for some reason, put
'ewf.sys' and 'ewfmgr.exe' of XP embedded SP2 (or newer) in the folder 'ewf').

If addititional drivers (not restricted to USB ones) should be added, simply put
them each in a separate subdirectory of 'extra Drivers', but be aware that not
all drivers (especially for chipsets) were designed to work with each other and
some will need user interaction or special application support during their in-
stallation.

Then step into the folder 'USBoot', open a console window by double clicking
'cmd_here.cmd' and start phase one of the preparation with 'USBoot phase-I'.

USBoot must be activated for each installation of Windows it is used on. After
that the installation will remain valid even if transferred to other volumes or
hardware. Activation is done by a simple challenge -> response cycle. For this
reason you will be presented a challenge code when first executing USBoot in a
phase that needs activation. The matching response code may then be obtained on
'www.usboot.org' after registering with an account. Enter the presented key
(response code) when prompted to.

Select the desired steps ('space' for defaults, 'a' for alternative operations,
'!' for alternative error prone operations, 's' for skipping the actual step)
following the instructions on the screen. Afterwards reboot the system if promp-
ted to and not instructed otherwise.

After reboot start phase two with 'USBoot phase-II'. Some of the listed drivers
may show 'install failed' status. Especially some candidates of class 'SYSTEM'
were not designed to be used together on one system with other ones (therefore
the special option to install all critical except for class 'SYSTEM' which is by
default restricted to generic ones). On completion of this phase reboot the sys-
tem when prompted to to allow any pending installation operations to settle down.

Now it's time to copy the USBoot activated Windows installation to the USB sto-
rage device. This will be the first step of 'USBoot phase-III'. Due to limi-
tations of Windows it is only possible for an running installation to copy all
of its own files by using a feature called 'volume shadow' whose application re-
quires the presence of at least one NTFS volume. As this was introduced with
XP it will not be available on Windows 2000.

Otherwise this step has to be executed from an external installation of Windows.
For example if you have set up your installation inside VMware you may simply
mount the virtual disk as a drive. Alternatively you could use a second instal-
lation of Windows as host for the transfer. From there go to the USBoot folder
and finalize USBoot installation with 'USBoot phase-III'. In both cases you
will be able to let USBoot do the copying.

If you don't use the built in routine to transfer the installation you will
have to skip this first step of phase III.

It is important that all phases have successfully completed before actually try-
ing to boot from USB.

That's all. Just provide the necessary settings in BIOS setup and you should in
general be ready to boot from USB. :-)

In most cases not all steps will be needed to get things working, some just try
to cope with special issues that may cause problems.



EXTRA NOTES
----------------------------------------------------------
For some reason if USB storage devices are seen as "removable" by Windows it
will not allow or support multiple partitions on the drive. To reenable this
USBoot driveguard is by default installed as a filter driver that selectively
makes all USB devices appear as non-removable.

Moreover this component also enables the use of pagefiles on USB drives. Though
there are actually no known issues with it it should be considered a bit experi-
mental as it lacks some support by the underlying drivers.

To have an installation recognize USB drives as non-removable (for example to
only prepare the drive) without actually doing a full USBoot install, you may
start USBoot with "USBoot phase-0". This will simply install the filter driver
(with optional paging support) and

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