USB Boot Prep Feedback

[Legolash2o]

 

Here is your new USB Boot Preparation tool. Do you guys have any feedback? Requests, etc...?

 

If you would like me to upload it, then just let me know, even though it's not finished but should be done EASILY by tomorrow night. Or even dinner time!

[bphlpt]

How does this compare with the other tools out there that do USB Prep?  Does this do anything the others don't?  Is it missing anything, even if it's something not usually needed?

 

I definitely understand the value and convenience of having the capability built in to Win Toolkit, and am all for of that, but I'm just curious.

 

Cheers and Regards

[StopLooking]

Hi liam , my Request the first thing is adding an option to copy windows iso or folder to flash how can you miss somthing like this :doh: 

we don't need just a Preparation tool we need something make the user comfarable with the WTK :g:

finally last idea is adding support to Old bios , by addin an extra partition to the usb for more detect issue 

plive me this will make thetool go throw the cosmtic . :shy:

[StopLooking]

sorry for my bad idid't notice that you already add the copy future to the usb prep , :doh:

[Eric666]

Hi Liam,

 

Well since you ask.... something that really annoys me is that when creating a bootable UEFI USB, the file system should be FAT32, or it won't work. The consequence is that any install.wim larger than 4 GB needs to be split in SWM files or it won't fit on the USB drive. This was for my Windows 8.1 installation, I used Rufus (from Akeo) to create a UEFI/GPT only bootable and WTK's WIM splitter. 

Funny thing is that I also made a MBR/UEFI installation for my old Win 7 laptop. This was actually working using NTFS and an install.wim larger than 4 GB. I tried to do the same for the Win 8.1 install, but that did not work.

 

Any way to work around that using USB prep? Maybe I'm missing something....

 

Regards, Eric666

[Eric666]

Hi Liam,

 

The other way to go might be to offer automatic splitting during copy process in case of a wim larger than 4 GB (almost inevitable with current amount of updates for W7 or W8.1).

 

Regards, Eric666

[Legolash2o]

But it was mentioned above that Windows 8 does not support SWM files

[StopLooking]

But it was mentioned above that Windows 8 does not support SWM files

 

you did't answer my suggest about the adding extra parttion for old bios :type:

[Legolash2o]

If you had a link about hybrid mbr/gpt, feel free to send post it

[Eric666]

But it was mentioned above that Windows 8 does not support SWM files

 

Well, for me it worked using the FAT32 approach :grin:  I read somewhere in a thread (MSDN) that the size of the first SWM is important in this matter. It should be large enough to contain the license agreement, or the installation fails. So splitting it to 3900 MB chunks worked at least for me. Note that I only used one Windows version (8.1 Core) by first exporting it to a new WIM (so only an index of 1), and afterwards integrating updates using KUC. Note that a working \sources\ei.cfg is needed, as stated in the thread.

 

I just saw that Akeo released a new version of Rufus, which seems to implement the very thing I requested before: UEFI NTFS support and automatic WIM splitting. Definitely something I'm going to try out.

 

Quote from Rufus 2.0.639 release notes:

• Add seamless UEFI boot of NTFS partitions, for Windows ISOs with large files (>4GB)
• Add support for Windows multipart 'install.swm'

 

 

Regards, Eric666

Edited March 4, 2015 by Eric666

[Legolash2o]

Rufus does not work for me. It says it completed fine but just doesn't boot on my UEFI computer but works on my BIOS computer. 

[StopLooking]

Rufus had a good abilty for auto detection for iso type it's automaticly check the os  version of iso and decide which type of boot usb should been added

uefi or bios or the both . :shifty:

[Legolash2o]

But from experience. The 'both' option has never worked for me

[_Akeo_]

But from experience. The 'both' option has never worked for me

 

That's because dual BIOS+UEFI boot is intentionally disabled in Rufus for Windows installations.

The reason why is explained here.

 

If you know what you are doing, you can use the Alt-E cheat mode to enable it.

 

Note that this restriction does not apply for Windows To Go (since, as opposed to installation, you may want to be able to dual boot UEFI and BIOS).

 

Also, since I saw this incorrectly pointed out above, Rufus does not do automatic .wim splitting. The enhancement simply means that Rufus now supports .swm files, if that's what you use on the original ISO, nothing more.

Edited March 31, 2015 by _Akeo_

[mooms]

...

Welcome here Pete, thanks for your wonderful app, and for sharing it for free :prop:

[Eric666]

 

Also, since I saw this incorrectly pointed out above, Rufus does not do automatic .wim splitting. The enhancement simply means that Rufus now supports .swm files, if that's what you use on the original ISO, nothing more.

 

 

Pete,

 

Thanks for correcting my assumption. I just made a succesful installation of Windows 8.1 x64 (GPT/UEFI)  from an NTFS formatted USB thumbdrive, created with Rufus. There was no need for WIM splitting, the install.wim (updated, 5.2 GB) was recognized and all went flawless. Thanks again for this great piece of SW, Pete! My life just became a little bit easier ;-)

 

 

Regards, Eric666

[Andyray]

Great insight good to clarify this about Rufus on Dual boot

[paraglider]

Same for me. I installed 8.1 and 10 onto a gpt formatted intel 750 nvme ssd with a rufus formatted USB stick. All window installs are on the ntfs partition. RUFUS creates a small fat32 partition with a uefi ntfs driver that enables booting from the ntfs drive.

Edited August 8, 2015 by paraglider