UEFI-booting

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION about USB drives and Windows Installer ISO files

There are two types of USB drive - Fixed/Local Disk type or the Removable type.

E2B works best with large Removable USB Flash drives.

Most USB Flash drives (aka 'pen drives' or 'thumb drives') are of the Removable type, but some USB Flash drives are of the Fixed Disk type. You can check this using RMPrepUSB. Windows 10 Explorer will display 'USB Drive' for the Removable type and 'Local Disk' for the Fixed Disk type.

If your E2B USB drive is of the Fixed-Disk type, then Windows Install ISOs may not work correctly unless you convert the ISO file to a .imgPTN file or add a 'Helper' USB flash drive or use an IODD 2531 HDD caddy.

E2B is intended to be used with a large USB drive - so use at least a 16GB USB drive. To make a non-contiguous 6GB file contiguous, you will need at least 6GB of free space on your USB drive. If you have a small USB drive, try using Rufus instead of E2B which is not multiboot! E2B will work on smaller drives if you use small ISOs/payloads of less than 3GB in size.

The maximum partition/USB drive size for E2B is 2TB (GPT USB drives are not supported by E2B).

Recommended USB drives

Removable USB Flash drive - I highly recommend the SanDisk Extreme range 64GB/ 128GB USB 3.1 - it is the best and fastest USB drive for E2B that I have found (note: avoid older versions which may be of the Fixed-disk type. Also, avoid 'fast' USB drives such as the Lexar  P20 Flash drive or Kingston HyperX because they are very slow with small files and WindowsToGo!). See here for an interesting comparison between the SanDisk Extreme Pro, Pro 3.1 and Sandisk Extreme. I do not recommend flash drives over 128GiB - there can be BIOS compatibility issues with USB drives >137GB.

External USB HDD (max 2TB), for best compatibility, I recommend a non-UASP USB 3.0 SATA drive enclosure (such as the IT-CEO USB  3. 0 IT-700 - see blog post on enclosures here).  I also highly recommend the IODD 2531 HD D encl osure- see blog post here, this drive can emulate USB CD/DVD drives and can also be used to boot E2B without needing a 'Helper' USB flash drive and you can write-protect the HDD whilst in use.
Beware of some native 4K-sector external USB Hard Disk drives - they do not MBR-boot!

Note that some BIOSes cannot access files on USB drives which are past the 137GB (128GiB) point. Keep the first E2B partition below 137GB. 

• Linux users - please go here. 
• Make E2B USB using Windows (Español) video here

If possible, use Windows to make the E2B USB drive because it will be more compatible on a wider range of systems (2 partitions should be created for best compatibilty).

Write-Protected USB - When booting from an E2B drive, the drive must not be write-protected. However, when connecting it to a Windows\Linux system to run software from the drive, it is useful to write-protect the USB drive to prevent infection from the user's OS. WP USB3 drives are available from Kanguru or Netac.

Quick Setup Guide - For help on what choices to make and how to add payload files.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO WIPE YOUR EXISTING USB DRIVE...

You do NOT need to reformat your existing USB drive, but I highly recommend it if you want to boot from many different types of systems.

To make a multiple-partition USB E2B boot drive or to make an exFAT USB drive - see the 'Make an E2B USB drive us ing RMPrepUSB' page.

If you don't want to re-format it, see Use an existing drive.

Make_E2B.exe

• Make_E2B_USB_Drive.cmd - you can choose a physical USB drive number to partition, use a partition size larger than 137GB, choose FAT32 or NTFS and choose various language/keyboard combinations and menu 'stamps' - see below. Use this if your USB drive is not formatted or it not listed in the drive list box.
• Extract E2B - extract all the files in the download to a new folder on your Desktop
• Update E2B Drive - updates any connected E2B drive to this version of E2B
• Test with QEMU - use this to check that your USB drive boots to the E2B menu correctly - you may even be able to boot to some 32-bit ISOs too!

Bootmgr

Applications that may interfere with Make_E2B.exe

Make a USB drive from the extracted files

 

Expert Instructions (more details)

WARNING: If using a large USB drive (>128GiB), use this method instead and make sure that E2B is in the first partition and the partition is below 137GB in size. 
This is because many  BIOSes (even modern ones!) have problems accessing USB sectors beyond 137GB (internal system hard drives >137GB may be OK, but USB drives >137GB may not work because the BIOS USB driver code in many BIOSes has still not been updated!).

1. Download Easy2Boot (either the basic download, or the DPMS version of E2B with XP 32-bit Mass Storage drivers if you want to install XP to SATA systems).  

2. Insert the USB drive which is to be wiped, into your Windows computer's USB port.  

3. Run the download .exe file which runs the Make_E2B.exe GUI, and click the 'Make_E2B_USB_Drive.cmd' button.

4. Turn off  AV.

Note: Some AntiVirus programs such as Trend Micro may interfere with the copy process. Either disable the AV program, whitelist the autorun.inf file or delete the autorun.inf file from the download first (autorun.inf just displays an E2B icon when the E2B USB drive is displayed in Windows Explorer - it does NOT run any program). Note that a 'PUP' or 'PUA' warning is NOT the same as a virus!

Defraggler may also interfere with the script (see above for a list of known 'problem' software).

5. Enter the USB drive number (e.g. 4) and then choose F=FAT32, or choose N=NTFS if you want to add files larger than 4GB to the E2B drive. 

    NTFS is recommended for UEFI-booting using .imgPTN files.

If you want to support UEFI booting, instead of copying over ISO files, you will need to create FAT32 .imgPTN partition image files from the ISO files. You can UEFI-boot from .imgPTN files, even if the E2B USB drive partition is formatted as NTFS, so there is very little disadvantage in using NTFS and many advantages.

If you have a small USB Flash drive (1-16GB) and all your files are less than 4GB in size, I suggest you use FAT32 which is easier to defrag (especially under linux). Also, E2B will enumerate files on a FAT32 E2B drive twice as fast as a NTFS formatted drive, so the Main menu will load twice as fast from a FAT32 volume.

Even if you are booting a linux distro ISO file that does not support NTFS, it should still boot from an E2B NTFS drive.

6. Make_E2B_USB_Drive.cmd will ask you to specify a language, keyboard and other options and will create a \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file for you.

If you don't want to use a MyE2B.cfg file, type S to skip that section for default USA settings.

         ^{Add an E2B animated icon, QR code (E2B site URL) and/or E2B Boiler Plate}

^{Tip: If you add the QR Code stamp to the E2B menu, you can use your mobile phone to go straight to the 'list of tested ISOs' page on the E2B website!}

The script may also prompt you to make, change or delete the CONTIG.ISO file.

7. Finished! - The E2B drive is now ready for use. You can test the E2B menu by running \QEMU_MENU_TEST (run as admin).cmd from the USB drive.

To boot on a real system from a USB drive, you will typically need to press a Function key (e.g. F8 or F12) to get a BIOS Selection Menu pop-up - see here for more details.

Now go to Add Payload Files to see how to add your own payload files.

Tips: 

• If it fails to format the USB drive as NTFS, run it again and select FAT32 - then re-run the script again to format it as NTFS.
• You can run \_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\Make_MyE2B.cfg.cmd if you just want to change the MyE2B.cfg file settings (e.g. keyboard type or language) or change the QR and Boiler Plate options.
• E2B will work from an exFAT USB drive, however SWITCH_E2B.exe will not work - see this page if you want to make an exFAT USB E2B drive.

Updating E2B

Or  - extract E2B to an empty folder and then run .\UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.CMD.

See this page for more details.

If you wish, you can add all the ISOs and .mnu and .txt files, etc. into the extracted folder too, so that when you run UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.CMD, any new or updated files will be copied across to your E2B USB drive (but no files will be deleted from the USB drive). 

If you run the MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE (run as admin).cmd file from an E2B USB drive, then a new E2B USB drive will be made and all your payload files, etc. will be copied across to the new USB drive as well.

If you have more than one E2B USB drive and you want to update them all, just connect as many E2B USB drives as possible to the Windows computer (e.g. use a multi-port USB hub) and double-click on \_ISO\docs\make_E2B_USB_Drive\Update_all_E2B_drives.cmd.

More things to do...

Looking for things to do with your new E2B USB drive? Look here.

If you are very short of space, you can delete the \_ISO\CONTIG.ISO file if it exists (but you will have to remember to defrag all your ISOs).

Problems using MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE.cmd?

Some AntiVirus products may block the \AutoRun.inf file from being copied to the USB drive (or may warn of a possible virus) - this file is not essential. You can either disable your AV or just not have a nice E2B icon displayed in Explorer. There is no virus and the E2B autorun.inf file does not run any program.

Some products which may interfere with process of making or using an E2B USB drive are:

• Bit Defender Client Security
• Defraggler
• Genie Timeline Backup Pro
• Lexar JumpDrive Secure USB device
• Panda USB vaccine
• RealPlayer Cloud
• Trend Micro OfficeScan and some other versions of Trend Anti Virus.
• USB Drive Letter Manager (USBDLM)
•  

Trouble when Installing Windows Vista\7\8\10 ISOs?

 

 

 

 

Note: Check if your USB Flash drive is of the 'Removable' or 'Fixed' type (as listed by Windows Explorer or RMPrepUSB). 

If the USB Flash Drive or USB HDD drive is listed as a 'Local Disk' or 'Fixed Disk' then you will either need to 

A) also make a USB E2B Helper Removable Flash drive for some functions (e.g. Windows Vista/7/8 install ISOs) 

- OR - 

B) you will need to use MakePartImage to create .imgPTN bootable files from your Vista/7/8 Windows PE ISOs.