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Customizing USB bootable IFL/TBWinRE

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2016 1:53 am
by Yottabytes
There have been a number of posts asking about muti-booting IFW/Linux with other recovery tools, so I am offering this short guide.

I have found YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator to be the most user-friendly tool to create assemble multiple .iso on a USB drive.
However, it still requires a lot of guess work to choose the right boot loader since Image for Linux is not among the .iso images it lists or recognizes. Also, with it's default settings, YUMi creates a butt-ugly default menu that won't contain the names of IFL or TBWinRE, but rather the names of their boot-loaders.

I assume everyone knows how to create an .iso using the tools in the Image for Windows distribution. However, if you want to add some additional recovery tools to TBWin Recovery Environment, please do so before you create your .ISO. Terabyteunlimited support has some basic guidelines here: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ucf/vi ... f=4&t=2414

So let's start with a simple project to include Parted Magic, a partitioning utility based on Linux, Image for Linux and the TBWin Recovery Environment.
In the picture below I have identified the boot loaders that have worked for me for the three .iso's mentioned, above: (1) Select Parted Magic for Parted Magic. (2) Select Windows Vista 7/8/ Installer for TBWinRE and (3) Select Try Ulisted ISO (via SYSLINUX) for Image for Llinux, then browse your PC and select the .iso so that YUMI can add it to the UBS device of your choice.

[attachment=0]Yumi Installer.png[/attachment]

As I said, the boot disk you create with these selections will not have a very informative menu so you will need to edit the syslinux.cfg at the root of the "Multiboot" folder as well as "unlisted.cfg", "system.cfg" and "menu.lst" and the root of the "Menu" folder to change the name and descriptions of your .iso's.
There are further details here http://hubpages.com/technology/How-To-M ... -USB-Drive as well as good instructions on how to change the boot screen background.

An example is the main boot screen I made, below; http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ucf/do ... iew&id=419

You can see more screen shots here: https://goo.gl/photos/dUUTxpVe28SMRC8r8

Sorry about the jumbled picture postings, I apparently can't turn BBCode on for my postings.
That's all...

Re: Customizing USB bootable IFL/TBWinRE

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 5:04 am
by Kempy
Hi,

please identify if your are on a EFI system or Bios/Bios-CSM.

The best tool I found for booting multiple ISO's (WinPE and Linux) for multi systems (EFI and Bios/Bios-CSM) from the same USB-Stick is called WinSetupFromUSB.

That will boot WinPE based ISO's via BCD/Windows boot manager on EFI and Bios/Bios-CSM systems (there are two BCD's on the USB-Stick; one for EFI and one for Bios/Bios-CSM booting) and Linux ISO's via grub4dos on Bios/Bios-CSM systems (grub4dos is currently not EFI capable).

---------

Another thing I found is how to get IFW as fast as IFL in backup-speed for offline backups when the target drive is connected via USB3.0

You will need to integrate IFW into a winbuilder based ISO (to have access to the windows device manager) and switch on windows write-cache and drives write-cache (both caches are off by default for USB connected drives and on for internal/external drives connected via SATA/eSATA) for the target drive in the windows device manager.
That will speed-up IFW's backup speed.
My test setup, winbuilder W10-x64 based ISO with IFW 3.04, went from 10:23min (internal M.2 SDD to external USB3.0/UASP 2.5" HDD, cache switches off/off, bfb validation) to 3:47min (cache switches on/on, bfb validation).
For comparison, TBWinPE (W10PE-x64 based ISO, IFW3.04 x64), took 11:49min for the same offline backup task.

@Terabyte
Perhaps it is possible to switch on windows write-cache and drives write-cache for USB connected drives by default via windows reg-key in TBWinPE/TBWinRE builds ?, it seems Windows PE can handle that.

G.

Re: Customizing USB bootable IFL/TBWinRE

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 7:33 am
by Brian K
Kempy wrote:
>
> Another thing I found is how to get IFW as fast as IFD in backup-speed for
> offline backups when the target drive is connected via USB3.0
>


Kempy, do you mean IFL instead of IFD?

Re: Customizing USB bootable IFL/TBWinRE

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2016 10:08 pm
by Yottabytes
@Kempy. I'm on Bios/Bios-CSM.

From the YouTube video @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOxybrlqlRY WinSetupFromUSB seems similar to YUMI. Looks like it has a much better USB disk creation user interface but, unfortunately, produces a similarly graphics-challenged user interface on the actual bootdisk :D

For what it's worth, I have found that emergency boot and save image times are quickest with:

A Lexar 1066x or higher compact flash dives with a USB 3.0 reader (They are much faster than garden variety SD or Micro SD cards. I've also tried Sandisk CF but they seem to fail at a higher rate than Lexar)

Re: Customizing USB bootable IFL/TBWinRE

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 3:29 am
by Kempy
Brian K wrote:
> Kempy wrote:
> >
> > Another thing I found is how to get IFW as fast as IFD in backup-speed for
> > offline backups when the target drive is connected via USB3.0
> >
>
>
> Kempy, do you mean IFL instead of IFD?

You are right, IFL, just corrected.

G.