I have a windows xp on an old acer travelmate 212t. It keeps freezing(sometimes bsod) on desktop startup except when i start safe mode with command prompt but any program i launch that does the Open File dialog or handling files too much will cause windows to freeze too. The solution could be recovery console but i dont have a working cddrive only a floppy ddrive and 2 usb port . I turn to usb booting but that turned out to be not easy. After some googling it turns out i need PloP boot manager to do this since my bios doesn't support usb boot. Now i'm trying to make my usb drive bootable i tested it by copying the boot sector of the dos start up disk made by xp to the usb,then i copied all the files inside the floppy bootdisk into the usb pndrive (including the hidden one),reboot,use PloP to boot the usb..it works. Then i started downloading most of the batch files and program from the internet to make usb bootable with recovery console. Surprise!all of them don't work because of my earlier problem(running program makes windows freeze). I also tried the same method making bootable usb of dos startup disk but instead i used the first floppy in the 6 floppy disk recovery console provided by MS,but that didn't work ,it showed disk error press any.. ,basically it didnt work. Because of the chronological development of usb booting it is very confusing for me to know which one is the correct way to make a bootable usb manually,for example the replacement of hpusbfw to petousb,hex editing the bootsector. EDIT I did a mistake this place is related to BartPE.

Yep, but we are allowed - by special permission - to also talk about Recovery Console.

Now, the main thing is DON'T PANIC
(assume the above to be written in large, friendly letters).

If you already managed, in whatever way, to have a USB stick that:

1. is partitioned
2. boots DOS

you don't need to fiddle anymore with hpusbfw to petousb,hex editing the bootsector.

Can you confirm that you can currently boot the USB stick to DOS?
And that it gets drive letter "C:\"?

If yes, we can start from there.

I presume you do have another PC with access to the internet to follow the present thread and to download files and to add them to the USB stick.

I don't want to put you down, but I doubt that you will be able to fix a "sometimes freezing system" with the Recovery Console, but if you want to try that, let's start working.

The main reference thread is now this, updated and containing links to the most current previous ones (containing alternate methods):
http://reboot.pro/11393/

Once you can boot to DOS, or to NTLDR, we can manage to start the Recovery Console allright - at the most grub4dos may be needed to go from DOS to NT, but that won't be a problem.

jaclaz

I'm glad you didn't scream at me or what any mod would do. Anyway, i managed to get the usb bootable by making a bootable floppy first (ms dos startup disk ,the one with io.sys&msdos.sys). Then i used mkbt.exe to transfer bootsector of bootable floppy to usb .after that i copied all files within bootable floppy including io&msdos. I have a working msdos with ver windows me. Hmm, about the "C:\", i had to use a dos app called ntfs4dos to access c: drive. I think that confirms it. Well,tomorrow i'll be heading to town i could go to a cc.

From what you report, you have a non-partitioned bootable USB stick.

I.E. when you boot to it you are greeted by the A:\> prompt.

Still, if all you plan to do is making a Recovery console booting from it, there should be no problems.


Since you were not shouted at for the posting, you may well be shouted at for writing with acronyms or anyway in an UNunderstandable (by me) way

WHAT THE HECK is a "cc"?
HOW THE HECK you replied to this topic if, whatever a "cc", is you need to go to town and get it in order to go on?

jaclaz

I will search on how to make the partition.
Apologise me for my mistake, the acronym "cc" stands for cybercafe. Once again please apologise me, i'm using a cellphone to post to this forum.

From what you told me, i figured that the usb must be partitioned. I used HP format utility and tried the first method in the link you gave. But that didn't work out as it showed 'INF txtsetup.sif is corrupted or missing'. Since the alternate method is out of my knowledge etc ramdisk,grub & other i tried another tutorial from the net. Which is this [REMOVED] strangely it showed ntldr is missing.

NO prob, that explains everything.



About partitioning/formatting the stick, the current "reference" app is RMPREPUSB:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7739
http://sites.google.com/site/rmprepusb/



Let's start from the beginning, OK?

The plainer, as I see it, is to use the batch by Dean Adams to create a .iso from freely downloadable files and then from it create a bootable stick:
http://reboot.pro/2254/

I removed the links to the "tutorial" you used since it distributes a set of files of doubtful origin/possibly illegally distributed.


jaclaz

Downloaded dean batch file and created both content of recovery console and iso..the only thing that i have no idea now is to make bootable UFD out of it. I saw the xpboot.ima but it was 2048 bytes. mkbt.exe didn't do any good

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0441773/quotes?qt0448742


Now you have a hopefully valid source.

If you get RMPREPUSB, you will be able to easily make the USB stick bootable with grub4dos.
You want to choose:

• XP/BartPE bootable
• either FAT16, 32 or NTFS (depending on size, if a small stick FAT16, if biggish FAT32 - NTFS not advised as "generic" USB stick
• Boot as HDD (C: 2Ptns)

Check that the stick boots.

Then we will copy to it the files in one of the possible ways.

jaclaz

I really didn't figured out the grub4dos thing. Instead i am trying your batch file would that be ok? http://reboot.pro/2362/page__p__18878

Yes/No.
Have you now the USB stick partitioned and booting?
Have you used RMPREPUSB ?
If you used it, you should have also have installed with it grub4dos - it's just a single button to be pressed.

Mind you there is NO *need* to install grub4dos, it was intended as a "better" approach to troubleshooting (if needed) the bootability problem.

As well, the batch you linked to isn't needed, there are simpler ways - though less "elegant" ( i.e. renaming the loader) or using a hex editor - to have a stick ONLY boot to a RC.

Until you somehow confirm that your stick is partitioned and actually boots to *something* I cannot guess what you are doing and thus cannot advice you of a possible next step.

BUT, you can quickly overview this thread:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20983
and then follow to the letter the "complete" howto" by wanderer:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...20983&st=39
with the ONLY exception of using RMPREPUSB (without installing grub4dos) instead of the HP USB utility (again this is NOT strictly *needed*, it only gives more probabilities to have the stick bootable to NTLDR, if the HP USB utility workls for you, then it's OK)

jaclaz

Yes i've partitioned the usb stick with rmprepusb and is booting. I clicked the install grub but when it came to copying 'grldr' it says 'activex cannot create object'. I thought just copying 'grldr' to e:\ using cmd would be fine. It did boot anyway. It showed the grub menu.

Good.

Then you can go to the mentioned post:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...20983&st=39
and start from point #11:


Replace #13:

with:


Verify that in the menu.lst on the stick there is an entry like this:

and if not, add it.

(or do not rename SETUPLDR.BIN and edit the menu.lst entry to load /setupldr.bin instead of /cmldr)



Report.

jaclaz

Not to be rude but can you remove the comments from the menu.lst . I cant make it up from here i'm starting to think that 'at 0x' is a code too..

You mean like this?



This is still more than what barely needed, you can have just:

(you don't need the default and fallback)

or even only this:

(this latter way you will have to access the RC through the "blue background setup" menu)

jaclaz

I tried all of the menu.lst you showed. including the most basic menu.lst. But it showed 'booting ntldr from drive 0x80...' It restarted it didn't even showed a blue screen.

Hmm.

Let's check what you have (or you should have):
When booted from an internal hard disk, the PC you are working on should assign a non-C:\ drive letter to the USB stick partition, let's assume the USB stick gets drive letter F:\ (or change accordingly).
If you open a command prompt, and run in it

you should have:


The \CMDCONS\ directory should contain ALL files that are in the \I386\ directory of the .iso AND a file WINNT.SIF with the contents:


jaclaz

Same thing happened even with ntdetect.com

Can you please confirm that you are in the condition I listed above?

These files:

1. cmldr
2. grldr
3. menu.lst
4. NTDETECT.COM

in ROOT of the stick and the \cmdcons\ directory with the mentioned files?

Just to be clear, you should copy the \I386\ directory from the .iso to the stick and then rename it to \CMDCONS\.

Let's go a step forward (actually backwards to step #2 of the mentioned tutorial.

Add to the ROOT of the stick:

• NTLDR

And a boot.ini with said contents:

Either add in menu.lst an entry like:


Or press "c" to access grub4dos command line and type at it:

[ENTER]

[ENTER]

You should be able to see the two choices in boot.ini, both should throw an error when chosen, but at least we know whether NTLDR is started correctly.

jaclaz

Yes All of them are present. I did what you told and the boot.ini menu option did appeared but when i press enter on the recovery console ,it just restarted.

As predicted.

What happens if you "press ENTER" on the OTHER entry?

Have you tested the .iso in a VM (just to check that it was built successfully)?
Maybe there is a problem in the "source" you copy to \cmdcons\

jaclaz

I've forgotten about this because i have another problem now. May i create a another thread?

Sure , you don't pay a fee for creating new threads.

It is actually highly advised, when you have a problem to:

• search for a similar thread
• if you find one and it has a solution for your problem, good
• if you find one and it has NOT a solution BUT is EXACTLY about your problem, post to it
• if you cannot find any of the above two, start a new thread, possibly in the appropriate forum and with a meaningful title.

There may be a penalty for threads started and left unfinalized after a given time, though.

jaclaz