Here you can get help, access FAQ and tutorials, get support, report a bug of make feature request about WinSetupFromUSB by leaving a comment.
Here you can get help, access FAQ and tutorials, get support, report a bug of make feature request about WinSetupFromUSB by leaving a comment.
Hi itaushanov.
I have encountered a couple of problems using the Samsung HDD utility HUtil 2.10 with v1.40 of WinSetUpFromUSB:
(1) I had downloaded the HUtil210.iso (from hddguru.com) to a Win XP folder which had compression enabled. After adding HUtil210.iso to my USB drive it would not boot into it claiming that it could not find the ISO. When I checked in XP I discovered that the ISO had been copied across verbatim so the file was still in compressed format on my USB stick. When I removed the compression (using Windows Explorer) and defragmented the USB drive it then booted. Surely this is a (minor) bug and WinSetUpFromUSB should copy the ISO to the USB stick uncompressed?
(2) Now that I can boot into HUtil 2.10, it won’t actually work! I think there is a problem with the CONFIG.SYS line that loads the qcdrom.sys device driver – it reports no CD ROM drive found (I think). Anyway, the end result seems to be that none of the HDUtil files get copied into the RAM disk. Any chance you could take a look at some point?
Thanks very much,
Alex
I will have to check on that when I have a chance.
OK, thanks very much.
HUtil 2.10 seems to work just fine from Ultimate Boot CD V5.3.7 ISO added using Syslinux/Other ISO option:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
A bit of overkill for sure, 660 MB vs 2.4 MB.
Not sure what the standalone version complains about and don’t really have much time to dive deep into this.
Yes, a bit overkill but if it works that’s the most important thing. I’ll give that a go, thanks.
BTW, I have started using WinSetUpUSB 1.8 with a 64GB memory stick, and each time I want to add an ISO it asks me if I’m sure it’s the right drive because it’s so large – could the next release of the program be a bit more intelligent and identify if the target USB drive is already being used for WInSetUpFromUSB and if so not ask for confirmation each time? Thanks very much 😎
I would just raise the limit to >64 MB in the next version and keep the warnings as data removal is inreversible and would rather stay on the safe side causing a bit of inconvenience for the end user, which in my opinion is better compared to the question “I formatted the wrong disk by accident, how do I get my data back” :).
Sure, but at this stage I’m not formatting the USB stick – I’m just adding further ISOs to it so there’s no potential data loss?
One of the first checks is for grub4dos or fbinst MBR, if not present program will change MBR to grub4dos one. Won’t result in data loss most likely, but may got your main system unbootable if wrong disk is selected.
OK, but I have already used WinSetUpFromUSB to format the USB stick with FBInst, so at this stage there should be no need to chang the MBR either?
But there is need to check. Warning messages are when process starts, so one can answer all prompts and go for a smoke for example.
Won’t be changing this further apart from raising the limit.
Hi again,
Afraid I have found another problem! I have added the ISO for FreeBSD 11.1 (FreeBSD-11.1-RELEASE-amd64-dvd1.iso from http://www.freebsd.org) to my USB stick but it runs into trouble during the boot process:
Mounting from cd9660:/dev/iso9660/11_1_RELEASE_AMD64_DVD failed
If you could take a look at that too I would be very grateful.
Sorry to be bringing you problems… I’m a big fan of WinSetUpFromUSB 😎
Alex
FreeBSD is not supported as far as I recall. The reason is that FreeBSD guys have not included in the boot scripts what’s needed, the way most linux distros did it. There ia nothing I can do. You may try the syslinux option and the source extracted.
OK, that’ a shame. And I very much doubt I will be able to persuade them to include the information, but I will give it a go – what information do you need?
Well, it is what it is. Read this thread:
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/why-freebsd-iso-files-are-not-more-compatible.57687/
This Programm is valuable, it can no doubt make multiplebot usb sticks. Only deficiency is that the winpe10se-iso`s added to the multiboot usb sticks do not Function properly. Some funktions of the winpe10se-iso files do not work, as they should do. Winpe-xp and winpe7se functions properly. Does anyone experince also this problem and know the resaon or solution of this Problem? .
How did you add those, using which option?
Winpe10se build can vary a lot, how did build yours? Did you download premade ISO? Where from? What exactly does not work? What errors do you get? A lot of questions to answer before anyone could help.
As you can probably guess, all these are not stock ISOs and you need to be as detailed as possible.
Hi,
I’m sorry if I comment my issue again. I cant seem to find my previous post. How can I edit the virtual drive letter where the ISO is mounted? The recovery DVD I use specify drive O for loading the image. The usb always allocate drive G for this one, thus error occur on recovering the drive. By the way, the 1.8 also with windows server 2016
Program picks the first available drive letter and thisbchanges depending on the number of disks attached. Hardcoding this drive letter is not currently possible.
You may however try to use the advanced option to launch Q-dir file explorer first and mount again your ISO as drive O, by using imdisk options for example or native mount if supported.
Hi
Thanks for the reply. I am just curious about usbdrive.tag file? What is the purpose of this and can you give an example code?
Another thing, is it possible if I format the usb as winpe bootable media then create the multiboot usb? I will not tick fbinst so that it wont format the drive. If so, what file will I manually launch in winpe? I just thought of this because it is easier to assign the drive letter in winpe. This would have not been an issue but some of our recovery dvd have an encrypted config.ini in the bin folder. I have tried editing the config.ini to manually to edit drive o to drive g and this works. I cannot simply copy the config file from the unencrypted one mainly because every pc has its own disk size and OS.
This is just a great app. I have managed to make it work from installing windows 2003 OS standard all the way to server 2016.
Additional info, i say it is encrypted because config file is composed of hexadecimal codes. It can be opened thru notepad. For the unencrypted one, it could be easily opened and edited thru notepad as well.
Usbdrive.tag is used by grub4dos to determine which one is the USB drive.
Boot process in BIOS mode is a as follows:
Bios->grub4dos MBR on the boot drive(USB)->grub4dos (grldr) and then whichever grub4dos menu option is selected.
Not sure what you mean by winpe bootable. That could mean number of things.
If you don’t use fbinst format option, then MBR will be checked and replaced by grub4dos MBR code which searches for grldr and chainloads it. In case of auto format with fbinst that MBR code is fbinst one, which is also set to chainload grldr.
Grub4dos can boot just about any other bootloader, be it bootmgr or whichever.
What file winpe will launch depends entirely in what’s in it. Grub4dos only chainloads bootmgr, which reads bcd store and starts whatever it saya, in stock PE/windows setup that would be boot.wim. Now what you have in boot.wim is entirely another story.
I would still advise you to try Q-dir route first. Besides, there are number of ways to make your PE start a script before anything else is executed.
Hi there,
I have used q dir, and this tool helped me in tweaking the imagex source drive. I let the boot image run since it has a preconfigured volume letter and size allocation, thus saving me on assigning the multiboot in a different letter drive, then after the automated recovery of the machine, it prompts the syntax that causes the error. I can alt tab thru the windows and run command prompt from q-dir. Since imagex is ran thru command prompt, I copied the syntax and modified the source drive. Thanks for the pointers 🙂
Once Q-dir is launched, one could do just about anything. That’s the reason I have added that option a while ago.
Glad to help
I have run into a small problem with my WinSetUpFromUSB flash drive. I was attempting to install Windows XP on my laptop from the flash drive to another flash drive (ie I wanted to try to get my laptop to run XP from a flash drive rather than from a hard drive). The first part of the install seemed to go OK, but then when the laptop rebooted it turned out that the XP install proces had overwritten the MBR of the WinSetUpFromUSB flash drive. Is there an easy way to restore its MBR (eg. reinstall GRUB)?
Depends how you formatted. Did you use the auto-format option? If yes- then you can’t easily as far as I recall.
If no- just add another small source and MBR ahould be fixed to grub4dos one.
If installing XP to another USB disk you need to select the advanced option “Prepare Windows 2000/XP/2003 to be installed on USB”, unless you taken other steps to make the XP source USB boot friendly. Also need to remove/disable all internal disks. XP installator often gets confused which disk to use for boot and place MBR and boot files on. For that order fixed/removable type disk also matter, even if both are USB.
It’s OK – I used grubinst (in the grub4dos folder) to reinstall the GRUB MBR 😎
Hi again,
OK, I have run into a new problem. I am trying to use WinSetUpFromUSB to install Win XP on a Fit-PC ultra-small form factor PC (w/ an AMD GX3 Geode LX CPU). It is not proving easy. I have finally worked out how to get it to boot from USB, but it appears that GRUB (grub4dos) is not compatible – it causes the machine to drop to the BIOS debugger. I’ve also used Puppy Linux 6.0 to install GRUB to the MBR of the hard drive and the same thing happens. The machine does actually boot with Plop in the MBR (but then the USB keyboard and mouse don’t work), or the syslinux mbr.bin from Lubumntu 18.04, so I have concluded that the problem is with GRUB. Any ideas? As GRUB appears to be incompatible, I have tried installing XP from a partition I created on the hard drive, but the DOS boot USB stick I created using Rufus Boot doesn’t include smartdrv.exe – any idea where I can get hold of that?
I’ve never had a machine give me more nightmares!
Have you tried newer/older grub4dos? Use fbinsttool to replace grldr in the hidden FB area, or format the disk with RMprepUSB, add the XP source and replace grldr in root of the USB disk.
OK, well I have downloaded all 4 versions of grub4dos from sourceforge.net but I’m not entirely sure how to employt them. Is there a simple way to install them to a PBS (on a logical drive)? If so, I can quite easily test which (if any) of the versions work with this machine.
Latest grub4dos can be found here:
http://grub4dos.chenall.net/
Check my previous comment what needs to be replaced.
Alex,
Smartdrive.exe is NOT part of Windoze XP. It’s part of MS-DOS. I copied it to my website for you, and you can download it from here:
http://www.chateaumezcal.com/software/smartdrv.exe
Thanks very much, I have downloaded it. Much appreciated.
Hi, I tried to run windows 10 x64 and windows 7 x64 setup from USB flash drive created with WinsetupfromUSB v1.8.
Only windows 7 x64 setup can boot properly.
Whereas, Windows 10 x64 when bootup complete only showup ‘Could not mount the virtual disk’, ‘Cannot continue, press OK to reboot.’ dialog. Don’t know why?
Windows 10 x64 disc image used (en_windows_10_consumer_editions_version_1803_updated_march_2018_x64_dvd_12063379.iso)
Windows 7 SP1 x64 disc image used (7601.17514.101119-1850_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRMCULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso)
Can someone explain?
Forget to say that boot with UEFI or without UEFI, no change. Thanks
That message means that the USB disk is not available to Windows at that time, hence the Setup assistant can’t find the USB disk and the ISO file on it to mount it as a virtual drive amd to start the Setup from it.
Try using USB 2.0 port if there is such.
Check BIOS/UEFI settings for any related setting.
Try USB 2.0 stick/disk.
Try integrating the appropriate chipset/USB 3.0 drivers in the source, there plenty of guides on i-net.
Try using the advanced option which adds drivers, may or may not work, depening if driver requires reboot or not.
Oh, the laptop has USB 2.0 only, this is usb 2.0 stick format on FAT32 to make it bootable on UEFI and non-UEFI. Try on other computer gave the same result.
Windows XP SP3 setup OK (non-UEFI) unmodified ISO MSDN
Hiren Boot CD 10.6 OK (non-UEFI)
Windows 7 SP1 (non-UEFI or UEFI) setup OK unmodified ISO MSDN
Windows 10 version 1803 (non-UEFI or UEFI) ‘Could not mount the virtual disk’, ‘Cannot continue, press OK to reboot.’ unmodified ISO MSDN
Last time used Windows 10 version 1709 (non-UEFI or UEFI) setup OK. unmodified ISO MSDN.
So, what I found is that the newest windows 10 setup has problem, but previous version 1709 is normal. Could someone confirm it?
I ask because I never seen this problem last time I use with previous Windows 10 1709 has no problem, just that the newly release Windows 10 1803 start showing this problem. Thanks.
Will test in a few hours
Now, I have remove the windows 10 1803 from pendrive.
Then add back windows 10 1709 first, after that Windows 10 1803 to the pendrive.
Now 1803 now has no problem so as 1709.
I don’t know if adding 1709 first does correct the 1803 error.
All OK now.Thanks
I have just downloaded 1803 x64 with media creation tool, auto-formatted the USB stick and tried it. All went just fine.
No clue really what has happened on your rig.
It seem that defragmentation is what causing the problem, before I begin testing the pendrive, I do defragmentation using (Auslogic Disk Defragmenter) in order to reduce files fragmentation and consolidate free space.
If I didn’t do defrag, Windows 10 version 1803 (non-UEFI or UEFI) will run fine.
After defrag, Windows 10 version 1803 (non-UEFI or UEFI) will began showing ‘Could not mount the virtual disk’, ‘Cannot continue, press OK to reboot.’.
How can defrag can causing this error to happen? There seem to be no file corrupt.
Thanks.
Do not defragment USB flash drives, unless you do need single file(s) on contiguous space, as required for the Linux ISOs added by the program. In such cases run only against the required files.
There’s is no any speed gain on flash memory doing that, also you are wearing the drive prematurely by introducing a lot more write cycles.
I am curious to know what exactly this defragmentation breaks, interesting case I would never thought of.
Does imdisk mount such defragmented ISO? Install same imdisk version on your OS from the imdiak folder and try one of the broken ISOs.
Do md5 sums match on defragmented and original files?
How large is the USB disk?
Removed current installed imdisk program, then installed the version came provided with winsetupfromusb.
Before defragment, imdisk can mount the iso, sha1 checksum also match with the original source.
After degrament imdisk can’t mount the iso, sha1 checksum also mismatch with the original source.
Performed some read surface test on said pendrive using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free 10.2.2, I found out there one sector seem unreadable at somewhere middle of the pendrive storage, so i think this is root cause. If deframent process write the iso data at the affected sector then the iso data will becoming corrupt rendering unusable.
Pendrive is SanDisk Cruzer Micro 16GB USB 2.0 brought in 2010.
Thanks by the way.
Interesting case, I would have expected defragmenting to fail or freeze when it hits the bad sectors.
Thanks for posting back.
Hello.
There is a desire for developers. Add, please, in the menu.lst options restart and shutdown the computer.
title Restart
reboot
title Shutdown
halt
It is convenient to have these properties in the downloaded .exe file.
Thanks for your work.
Sincerely, Klim.
You can edit menu.lst, and add those entries if you wish. There is no need for WinSetupFromUSB to do it for you.
I have been following the ‘keep it simple’ moto.
What you are asking is another 2 lines in the menu, which might have tens of other lines, and effectively do just the same as pressing ctrl+alt+del or the power button.
Anyone who does need these 2 options can simple add them to menu.lst.
hello…
winsetupfromusb1.8 cannot detect my external ssd im using ADATA enclosure usb 3 with ssd 120 gb. but when i connect the external the program can not detect the drive… any help for this problem. thanks
What operating system are you using? Does the operating system detect the “external SSD”? If not, check your BIOS settings. If it does detect it, does it treat it as a hard drive or a USB drive? If it treats it as a hard drive, try “Advanced Options > Display disk drives on all interfaces, not only USB”. Also see the FAQ #3, #5 and #7.