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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,
I have tried using WinSetupFromUSB to create a multiboot USB stick including Slackware after trying YUMI (which I didn’t realise only supports Live Linux distros). I also put Slax, Xubuntu and Windows XP on the stick. It all seems to go OK, but when I try to boot any of the Linux distros my laptop hangs fairly early on in the boot process, but I was abl to boot into Windows XP set up and get to the partition selection part no problem. When I used YUMI previously, the Slax and Xubuntu distros were fine but Slackware wasn’t supported, and to get WinSetupFromUSB to be able to boot the Slackware distro I had to reformat the USB stick to NTFS because the iso was >4GB – is this the reason why the Linux distros are hanging during boot up?
Thanks,
Alex
NTFS shouldn’t be a problem. How early does it hang? What’s the last lines you see on the screen? Are they the same for each problematic distro?
Refer to the Supported Sources page how to get Slackware going, Slax and Xubuntu shouldn’t need manual intervention. If possible, test the same versions listed there, I’ve checked each source mentioned, on NTFS unless notes say otherwise.
Try on another machine and USB disk as well, if possible.
OK, well I don’t know what went wrong last time, but it now seems to be working. I reformatted the USB stick (using Windows Explorer, not from within WinSetupFromUSB – that might be the only difference) to NTFS again, then used WinSetupFromUSB to add Slackware 14.1, Xubuntu 12.04.3, Slax 7.0.8, Windows XP Pro SP3 and Windows 2000 Pro SP4 (just for good measure) and they all seem to run OK from the stick. I do, though, have a couple of problems:
(1) Windows 2000 blue-screened when I used F3 to exit the installation at the partition selection stage – no biggie, but I guess there might be a problem when I try actually performing the install
(2) I ran the Xubuntu installation first and that was working fine, but then after installing Slackware neither Xubunti nor Slackware will now boot from the HDD – they both hang very early in the boot process (the final line on the screen is “smpboot: Booting Node 0, Processors #1”). Is this a LILO problem? I can boot the HDD installation of Slackware from the install distro on the USB stick (by specifying “hugeboot.s /dev/sda6 rdinit= ro” at the boot prompt). Anyway, I don’t think this is a WinSetupFromUSB problem – any ideas what the problem might be?
Thanks,
Alex
Win2000 may act weirdly, seen similar behaviour before, but usually install goes fine.
As for the boot problem from HDD- most likely lilo or the install script messed it up. Does slackware have an option to use grub(2) instead? Or maybe try repairing boot, or even install Slackware first and then Xubuntu, replacing lilo with grub… Just random ideas.
I don’t know too much about grub, and I would like to try to get to the bottom of this problem (never had any problem like this in the years I have been doing Slackware installs), so before I re-install Xubuntu I have installed Plop to the MBR on the hard drive and tried to boot both the Slackware and the Xubuntu installations – it reports the following:
MBR: is valid
Checking bootsector
Warning:
No valid bootsector signature
Continue boot? [y/n]
If I continue with the boot the screen blanks and the cursor blinks in the top-left corner and that’s it. Both Slackware and Xubuntu are installed on logical partitions, so do you think the boot information is missing from these partitions’ boot records?
Not sure what your partirion layout is. I’d stick with the first partition primary active and /boot. And grub as I am familiar with it, but that’s me. No idea how to help futher.
When using 2GB USB flash drive with WinXP32 prepared under XP64, installing onto NForce2-based system with IDE HDD fails. I’ve tried 3 different WinXP ISO distributives(2 original: EN & RU) – all with the same result. Windows Setup starts, successfully copies files onto destination disk and fails to boot after that with the “ntfs.sys file is missing or corrupt” error.
Overwriting ntfs.sys on destination disk under working XP helps: setup continues up to next failure – ntdll.dll error. Noticeable fact, that Windows Setup doesn’t understand windows on destination HDD as a target for recovery. So, too f*ing much failures to fix by connecting destination HDD to working PC, overwriting troublesome file manually, connect HDD back and discover next failure.
There is no such sh*t when installing all these images from CD – second (GUI) stage at least boots normally.
Does that happen if you delete all partitions on the target disk from XP installer? What about if use another flash drive?
Yep, when delete all of them and re-partition in installer. Well, let us give chance to usb card reader and some 8GB SD card…
Good idea. It may also be worth comparing the checksums on a few of the problematic files, on the USB disk with the source, you might be dealing with a faulty or fake sized disk.
BTW, I wouldn’t be wasting time to manually copy broken files, this shouldn’t be happening at all, and what is interesting is the root cause.
Yep, all of them were deleted in installer. Let us give chance to USB card reader with some 8GB Sd card…
2 questions:
1. Can I remove an ISO that has been added, or do I have to clear my flash drive and start over with all ISO’s that I want included going forward?
2. The Supported Sources page shows “Acronis True Image, Disc Director boot media.” I have added an ISO of Acronic True Image Home 2014, but when I boot from my flash drive, it only shows my Windows installers. Is this newer version of Acronic True Image software not supported, or could this issue have something to do with my computer only reading my flash drive as a UEFI bootable device?
1) Possible to remove sources, currently only manually. Will write a tutorial soon, keep an eye on the tutorials page
2) Probably they switched to WinPE based environment, will take a look and let you know in a new comment. What is the exact version you are playing with?
You should also try to boot in BIOS mode, Acronis might not be supporting UEFI boot. If you post more details about your computer I might be able to help you, in case google search is not that friendly.
Thanks. The first computer I tested is set to Secure Boot only from UEFI. I tested the flash drive from my laptop which only has BIOS and it was able to boot to Acronis TIH 2014 or the Windows installations.
Hi, I am trying to install Windows 2000, currently I don’t have any other OS. I need to use the SATA/RAID/SCSI driver, but when I click the button, I see green text that says “Auto-detect SCSI/RAID/SATA Drivers for XP [chenall & SSi] 2013-07-03” The last time I tried to install Windows 2000, this was not a problem, but the installation wouldn’t work because of a corrupt driver, later I found that everything on my system was corrupted, so I formated it. Anyway, I am trying to install it again, but it keeps hanging on that green text. What should I do?
If it hangs when that menu entry is selected, I’d check RAM, motherboard etc. for issues. Very unlikely, but that grub4dos version might be incompatible with the particular motherboard.
If you add a few linux distros, say knoppix and ubuntu, do they start and work fine?
I got it working, but there is one problem. Once I get through the “Setup is starting Windows 2000” message, I see an error saying “The file iastor7.sys is corrupted.” I formated the USB and put this on it again, and I got the same outcome. I am getting the Windows 2000 files from my Windows 2000 disc, but I have used that disc before without any problems.
I am not sure which of the included iastor drivers are 2000 compatible. Did you try the same option + firadisk?
Can you switch to IDE mode in BIOS and once Windows is installed, go back to AHCI? There are many guides how to do it.
In addition you could provide floppy image with proper drivers, there is an advanced option for the purpose.
When I switch to IDE mode, it shows red text that says “No matching PCI IDS in driverpack”.
In IDE mode there is no need to use the DPMS option, it’s only for SATA/AHCI/RAID drivers, the ones stock Windows does not include.
Hi,
I have been using WinSetupFromUSB to install a number of Linux distros on my laptop without problem. However, one particular distro does not seem to work: Vector Linux 7.0 (VL7.0-STD-GOLD-LIVE.iso)
The boot process starts promisingly enough, but then stops with the error “could not find VL7.0-STD-GOLD-LIVE data directory”.
Would you be able to take a look at this? I downloaded the ISO from http://vectorlinux.com/downloads
Thanks very much,
Alex
Using the second boot option- “mount hard drive partitions”, works fine here, testing VL7.0-STD-GOLD-LIVE.iso.
If that option is not selected, it seems init scripts do not mount all partitions, thus contents of the ISO file are not accessible.
No idea what went wrong with your comments, had to delete the other 3 in order the first to show up.
Thanks very much – yes second option works for me too. Strange that the first option doesn’t. Anyway, managed to install VL to a partition on my hard drive, and that’s all I wanted to do 😎
Yes, very weird about my replies not showing up – thanks for sorting that too.
One other questions if I may: I also use the tool to install Win2000 and WinXP. These are vanilla install CDs, so I have to set the SATA BIOS option to IDE emulation. I know that there is a way to tailor the Windows install CDs to incorporate the appropriate SATA drivers (slipstreaming) but I’ve never tried it as it seemed a bit of palaver. Is it easier using WinSetupFromUSB, ie is it a simple case of copying the driver files to the appropriate directory on the USB drive, or is there more to it? Perhaps at some point you could add a section to the FAQ on incorporating storage device drivers into the copy of the Windows install CD used by WinSetupFromUSB?
Thanks,
Alex
All options except the second have “nohd” parameter, which apparently instructs init script not to mount any partitions on hard drives, among which is the USB disk, hence the contents are no longer accessible. You could press TAB at any of the boot menus and remove the “nohd” part.
I think you should take a look at FAQ #3 😉
I’ve been trying MANY supposed solutions to make a bootable USB that will install Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 from the same USB. This is the FIRST and the SIMPLIEST method I’ve found, and IT WORKS! Thank you very much.
Thanks Alan
I’ve managed finally to prepare SD card with M$ WinXP64 and Win7 distributives together with a GPartED image(kinda “mustdie diskette”). All of them lives together on a single card. Such a useful flash card, and such a great tool you’ve made!
Several weeks ago i couldn’t setup WinXP from USB stick with WinSetupFromUSB. Destination hard disk replacement(!) solved that trouble. Now it works great! The only little questions are how to remove(replace?) a distributive from prepared flashdrive and how to disable distributive name auto-accept option… Anyway, in general it’s almost brilliant!
Glad you figured it out.
What kind of source you need to remove/replace, there are 5 different types, and which exactly auto-accept option you have in mind?
If you mean the boot menu name when preparing the USB disk- there are several advanced options allowing custom names and folders. Have you looked at them?
I would like to have an option to remove Win distributive(in general, any would be great to remove any of them) without the need to rebuild whole stick. It’s not so hard to navigate through *.lst files and remove references and installation files, but wold like to have an option to minimize errors.
The auto-accept feature appears in a dialog saying “Multiple windows distributions detected”. It waits for user input 10 seconds(and discards it anyway), closes that dialog and continues the WinSetupFromUSB task 🙂
The best I could do currently, because of the very limited spare time, is to publish a tutorial how to remove and replace sources.
As for the dialogue box, as far as I remember, you need to type the new name and press OK before the timeout, otherwise the input is ignored, AutoIt limitation.
Can i help with that tutorial?
Maybe translate it in russian when ready?
With pleasure, just ask.
Hi itaushanov,
First of all, I’d like to echo the sentiments of Alan Fox: WinSetupFromUSB really is an excellent little utility. I’ve been using it to run a number of Linux live CD/DVD distros and install them to my hard drive, and on the whole it has proven very successful. I haven’t yet tried any of the options in FAQ #3 to install XP on a machine with a SATA drive in native mode, but I will do when I get a chance. However, I have found a few problems that I thought I’d bring to your atention:
(1) I haven’t been able to boot the FreeBSD 10.0 ISO (FreeBSD-10.0-RELEASE-i386-dvd1.iso) – it comes up with a prompt about error 19 mounting the root file-system from cd9660 (I think). Have you any idea about this?
(2) I have been able to boot the PCLinuxOS 2014.08 iso (pclinuxos-kde-2014.08.iso), but after installing to hard drive the install won’t boot – it says something about waiting for sda5 (I had installed it to another logical partition). Worth noting is that the installer assigns sda to the memory stick and sdb to the hard drive, whereas all the other distros I’ve tried have assigned sda to the hard drive.
(3) Fragmentation of the memory stick is proving problematic: is there any way that the utility could be a bit more intelligent about (a) checking to see if there is a need to defragment the memory stick BEFORE starting the copy processs, and (b) writing ISO files contiguously (is this even possible)?
(4) Would it be possible for the utility to calculate checksums (md5, sha1, etc) for ISO files as it writes them to the memory stick and then include that information (as a comment?) in its entry in menu.lst? I can’t imagine this would add much overhead to the process.
Cheers,
Alex
1) *BSD does not work for now, only a few which I tested did work, because they did not need files outside kernel/initrd. Until *BSD variants start using and supporting isohybrid-ed images, or some other way to boot directly from an ISO file, there is no much I can do to place multiple *BSD on the same USB.
2) This seems to be an issue with PCLinuxOS and might well vary between each configuration and USB/internal disk type and controller.
3) It’s only Linux files which need to be defragmented, and program already does the best possible when using the auto-format option and NTFS to place the unmovable NTFS files in the beginning of the partition, providing contiguous space after them. Regular NTFS format dumps them in the middle of the volume, making defragmentation mission impossible as the disk fills in…
Going further- checking contiguous space etc. is far, far beyond the scope of this program.
There is WinContig included, and if one often adds and removes Linux sources, it should be used to provide enough contiguous free space, something I wouldn’t do programatically, as there are already tools for the purpose included.
4) On large files calculating checksums may take quite a lot of time, might include that as advanced option, but wouldn’t be any soon as spare time is very limited and I can’t even find time to code the planned and important changes due.
Have you seen this sweet little shell extension? Quite handy for this purpose.