Wednesday 19 August 2015

Is your E2B USB drive too slow?

Easy2Boot needs to enumerate all the files in and under the \_ISO\MAINMENU folder when it first boots and also needs to count the files in the \_ISO\WINDOWS folders. Some people find that, on some systems, the wait to display the E2B Main Menu is too long.

Possible causes:

Monday 17 August 2015

Hurry - EaseUS ToDo Home Backup free for 48 hours (normally $29)

I have never used it, but the offer is here. You must provide a valid email address to get the key (it takes 5 minutes or so for the email to arrive).
Late note: My activation did not work and it said it had already been used  :-(  Others seem to be having the same problem so it may be fixed later...

Offer expired! Check HERE for more offers.

There is a ToDo Backup Free version

Add BitDefender Rescue ISO to E2B

BitDefender provide a free bootable ISO for scanning and cleaning viruses from systems (details here). This is a very useful tool to add to your E2B USB drive.

Recent versions of the BitDefender AntiVirus rescue ISO use grub and support UEFI x64 booting.

Monday 10 August 2015

E2B v1.72BetaK available

SteveL found some problems with 1.72BetaJ and the latest grub4dos

  • If 1024x768 bmp used, pressing F8 to reload menu caused screen corruption.
  • If use the code line
    cat --locate=\x02 --replace=\x00 --skip=0x2073 --length=1 /grldr > nul
    in \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg to suppress boot-up messages, it caused payload files to not be detected and thus not added to the Menus.
These issues have been fixed with a new version of \_ISO\e2b\grub\menu.lst.

Friday 7 August 2015

E2B 1.72BetaJ now available

This version has the latest version of grub4dos 0.4.6a 2015-08-07.

Yaya appears to have fixed the .jpg display problem so that we can use standard 95% quality .jpg files (e.g. as created by MSPaint) as background images.


Please try it and let me know if you find any problems,

The latest version of E2B_Editor will allow you to load .jpg files as a wallpaper as well as .bmp files.

If you want to convert your \_ISO\MyBackground.bmp file to a smaller .jpg file, just load and save it using MSPaint (but keep the filename+extension the same - i.e. MyBackground.bmp or MyBackground.bmp.gz).

P.S. Progressive jpg's, as used by some websites, contain both low-res and hi-res images and are not supported. If you re-save them using MSPaint then they should work OK with E2B/grub4dos.

Wednesday 5 August 2015

How to check your CPU cooler using software

Is your heatsink correctly seated onto your CPU? Is the cooling system up to the job?


How would you check that it is correctly fitted and is working correctly?

Many people fall into the trap of measuring the CPU temperature to check that their heatsink and heatsink fan are working correctly. There are many software utilities that will check the internal CPU temperature, such as CPU-Z or RealTemp. For Intel CPUs there is also the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility but this needs to be installed (.Net and drivers) and the system must be restarted.

Intel Extreme  Tuning will run a stress test and show you if thermal throttling is occurring (in my case this happened once 100 deg C was reached).


E2B v1.72BetaH available

1.72h has the latest grub4dos 0.4.6a version which includes support for .jpg wallpaper files, right-aligned menu support and the new setmenu command.

If you want to try using a .jpg file for a background wallpaper, make sure you save it using 100% Best Quality setting or the picture will display with defects (fixed in 1.72BetaK)!


Monday 3 August 2015

Download and add Windows 10 ISOs to Easy2Boot

You can download Windows 10 'Retail' install ISOs from Microsoft and install them using Easy2Boot.

See also this blog post for direct download of many MS ISOs.

1. First go to the MS page and download and run the Download Tool (choose the 32-bit or 64-bit MediaCreationTool.exe, depending on what version of Windows you are currently running).


Sunday 2 August 2015

How to copy your E2B USB drive to another USB drive

If you have your E2B USB drive working nicely and you want to make other bootable E2B USB drives from it, then you can use the MAKE_E2B_USB_DRIVE (run as admin).cmd script.

Why can't I boot Easy2Boot on some old systems?

If you use Easy2Boot on a wide range of different and older systems, you may find that some of them won't boot, even though they look like they should support USB-booting.

This problem is usually caused by the BIOS on the system.

Here is a checklist of things to try: