Guide to Create a multi-boot rescue USB flash drive.
Stumble it!
This guide is a must read for all those people that could be asked to help fix a PC at any moment in your life. This guide helps you create a multi boot rescue USB Flash drive which when booted lets you pick from.
I would like to thank Si for writing such a great guide, it is a real treat for anyone whose willing to create a multi-boot rescue USB file drive.
Useful Tools:
SystemRescueCD
System RescueCD is an amazing Linux live environment which has a large array of rescue tools.
Windows PE 2.0
Windows PE 2.0 is a live Windows environment, comes in handy for portable CHKDSK’ing.
Darik’s Boot and Nuke
Darik’s Boot and Nuke is used for wiping disks.
ntpasswd
ntpasswd is a must have, it recovers Windows systems from forgotten passwords.
Memtest86+
As most of you guys know, Memtest86+ lets you check for broken RAM in your PC.
Let’s discuss the steps that you need to create a multi-boot rescue USB Flash drive.
1- Gather Softwares / Tools mentioned below:
PeToUSB
GRUB4DOS installer grubinst
SystemRescueCD
Windows AIK
After you have downloaded those tools, it’s time to move to step 2 which is preparing the USB drive.
2: Prepare the USB drive
The first thing to do is plug your USB drive into your machine, and start PeToUSB (Run as Administrator under Vista). Tick the boxes:
Enable Disk Format
Quick Format (OK this is optional)
Force Volume Dismount
Now hit Start and wait for the process to finish.
If your drive is larger than 2GB you will encounter an error here. This is because PeToUSB tries to format the drive to FAT, which has a maximum of 2GB. The error is not a problem because the drive has been made bootable regardless. Simply head over to Windows Explorer and format it to FAT32 as normal.
Next, we’re on to grubinst. Again, run this as Administrator if you’re using Vista. Select the Disk option, then pick your flash drive from the list. You will have to make an educated guess as to which one it is as all your disks will be listed. If you’ve only got one flash drive connected it will normally be the bottom one. Leave everything else untouched and hit the install button.
Now, copy the grldr file from your GRUB4DOS folder onto the root of the flash drive. That’s the disk ready to go.
3: Installing SystemRescueCD and the floppy images
DBAN, ntpasswd and Memtest86+ are all included with the SystemRescueCD package. Extract the contents of your SystemRescueCD ISO to a folder on your PC, then copy the following files to the root of your flash drive:
dban.img
initram.igz
memdisk
memtestp.img
ntpass.img
rescuecd
sysrcd.dat
That’s as hard as it gets to install those.
4: Create a Windows PE 2.0 installation and copy it to the flash drive
Follow this guide “Windows PE 2.0“, using the WAIK you already downloaded, up to the point where you have your ISO file ready to burn to CD:
Now you have your ISO, simply extract the following from it onto the root of your flash drive (including subfolders):
boot
EFI
sources
bootmgr
5: Configure GRUB and we’re done
You now need to create a menu.lst file in the root of your flash drive with a text editor (like notepad), and paste in the following text:
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
timeout 60title SystemRescueCD
kernel /rescuecd initrd=initram.igz video=ofonly vga=0 scandelay=5
initrd /initram.igztitle Windows PE
chainloader /bootmgrtitle DBAN
kernel /memdisk
initrd /dban.imgtitle ntpasswd
kernel /memdisk
initrd /ntpass.imgtitle Memtest86
kernel /memdisk
initrd /memtestp.img
You should now be able to reboot, select the flash drive as your boot device in your BIOS, and be ready to go!
hi
great howto
but i need slightly a different approach
i mean that i need to use several iso files (i want to put on pendrive few linux distro’s and some utilities(like SGD, UBCD, etc)
isn’t there a way not to extract files from iso, but just to copy these iso files in some directory onto the pendrive and grub to load headers from each iso file(this way to be able to boot any iso file i need just as it would be a bootable cd in its tray)
thanks in advance
many links in the tutorial are BROKEN !
check those to microsoft.
Too much copy+paste makes u short sighted.
This is a brilliant tutorial.
It is too simple for some people.
But this is absolute nirvana. All these run in RAM making them fast, non-destructive and indestructible. There is more here than just “rescue”. These systems WORK. And they don’t BREAK.
If only more people understood the simplicity. GRUB will boot anything. Except from ISO’s. SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX/PXELINUX will boot anything. Including from USB, ISO and network.
If you understand these programs, you understand theStudy simplicity.
WAIK is a pain because it is such a monster of a download.
And MS changes their links constantly. Deal with it. Search WAIK on their site and you’ll have your link.
Adding/removing programs from the Linux distros is easy enough, but I’d like to see a tutorial on doing it with WinPE.
tzepu: yes, this is easy to do. but the mistake everything one makes is thinking you need to keep things in the iso format. you don’t. you only need the files on the cd.
in any live cd there will be three things: 1. kernel, 2. initrd and 3. a compresed filesystem. #3 is where alll the software you want is kept. #1 and #2 and required for boot.
so you need to get the files off the iso. that’s easy. the time consuming part is learning to use grub and undertanding the boot process generally: for unix-like systems: load kernel, load initrd, boot –> initrd unpacks kernel and runs linuxrc (or /etc/rc if it’s bsd)–> linuxrc runs init and init starts everything going –> eventually the compressed filesystem mentioned above gets uncompressed and voila, you have an os. for windows: leave the windows bootloader alne and let it boot windows. all you have to do is set the primary partition that windows is on (it likes ot be on the 1st one) to ‘active’. when you reboot, windows boots automatically. set the partition inactive (i.e. set another to partition to active) and windows does not boot. this ‘active’ flag is all you need to change. never touch the MBR or windows bootloader. this is so simple but even the grub manual won’t admit it’s this easy. people will make you believe this is more complex than it is.
in sum, you need to do 2 things:
1. get something with a working grub shell, e.g., any linux distro, a super grub boot disk, etc. and learn the following grub commands: find, geometry, root, setup, kernel, initrd and makeactive. once you understand grub- which is not a huge program to learn- you will be able to boot anything.
there are some great pages on GRUB, e.g. the GRUB wiki and the GNU GRUB manual.
2. mount each iso and copy the entire contents to your usb
mounting can be done using the command ‘mount’ with any linux, bsd or other UNIX-like os. in windows, you need to download software to mount an iso on a virtual drive. keywords to search are ‘virtual drives’. many software options. my personal preference is the free ‘virtual clone drive’ from elby.ch, and now slysoft. very small, simple tool that has been around for a relatively long time. bigger apps are daemon tools and alcohol 120%.
most people will not take the time to learn GRUB. they try to figre out how to make menus before they learn the commands. hence things like multi-booting will always be confusing and seemingly complex. grub is a small simple program. learn it and you will be able to run several os’s off a usb stick, entirely in memory (fast!) and just other cool stuff.
disk storage is so cheap. !move your data files to an external drive, have your windows re-install disks handy and start experimenting with your drive. partition. install. re-install. delete. learn about disk geometry. the more you do these things the more comfortable you will get. and the more you will learn.
i have several linux and bsd distros compressed on a single usb stick. they load into ram, never touching the hard disk. and i know how to move programs from one distro to another. it’s easy. but you must learn grub.
correction: kernel loads initrd. i guess the bootloader can decompress it.