Need help w/Win 7 & last few versions of BIBM

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Ambertus
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:06 am

Need help w/Win 7 & last few versions of BIBM

Post by Ambertus »

I don't believe BIBM is at fault here, but the timing fits. Starting around v1.57, I've never been able to successfully install BIBM on my main 64-bit Win 7 Pro system.

Until recently, a big part of the problem was good ol' Pilot Error. When running makedisk.exe and writing directly to USB, I was using the write option that was highlighted (NOT the raw default), and that failed every time. Once I looked carefully and saw that raw was the proper choice, I was able to create the bootable USB media again. Hooray!

But when I try to boot from it, the system pauses a bit, then it ignores or bypasses the BIBM system and just boots Windows instead. I've been a happy BIBM user for a very long time, so I was reasonably sure I knew what I was doing, having succeeded countless times in the past. What should I try next, please?

Thanks!
CyberSimian
Posts: 137
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 12:13 pm

Re: Need help w/Win 7 & last few versions of BIBM

Post by CyberSimian »

Ambertus wrote:
> when I try to boot from it, the system pauses a bit, then it ignores or
> bypasses the BIBM system and just boots Windows instead.

With some BIOSes, it is possible to define the boot device order such that an external USB device is first. Then, if a bootable USB device is available when you power-on the system, the system boots from the USB device. If there is no bootable USB device available, the system boots from the internal hard disk or SSD. My Lenovo 700-15ISK laptop and Dell XPS420 tower system are like this.

But there are other BIOSes that do not allow you to define a USB device as the first bootable device. With these, you have to use the BIOS's own "boot menu" to select the boot device when you power-on the system. My Lenovo 500-15ISK laptop and Asus Z270E motherboard are like this.

So it looks as though the system that you are trying to boot has a BIOS in the second category. You need to investigate your BIOS to find where its boot menu is located, and how you access it. Example: with the Asus motherboard, I have to press DEL within a 5-second window after power-on in order to enter the BIOS, and then press F8 to access the boot menu. Your BIOS probably uses different keys.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK
Ambertus
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:06 am

Re: Need help w/Win 7 & last few versions of BIBM

Post by Ambertus »

Thank you most sincerely for your reply!

My BIOS allows you to press F8 early enough in the boot process to specify exactly which device to boot from, and this always works fine. I've used this method to install BIBM on this same machine successfully from a USB flash drive for many years, so that's not the problem.

It looks more like a BIBM boot loader issue. I'm using the standard BIBM, but if, say, it didn't create a standard bootable disk but a UEFI bootable one, that might explain what I'm seeing, but I doubt that is what's happening. I just don't know what's going on.

But thanks for your reply anyway!
TeraByte Support(PP)
Posts: 1644
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 12:51 am

Re: Need help w/Win 7 & last few versions of BIBM

Post by TeraByte Support(PP) »

Usually, either the "Partition - MBR FAT/FAT32 Partition" or "Partition - MBR FAT/FAT32 Partition (Int13h Extensions)" option is used. Have you tried both of those?

The "raw" option isn't available when creating BIU (UEFI) boot media so it shouldn't be coming out as UEFI. However, you can certainly look at the contents of the drive and see if it has an EFI folder.

What size flash drive are you using?

Have you tried booting the flash drive on another system?
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Need help w/Win 7 & last few versions of BIBM

Post by TeraByte Support »

On 9/15/2019 11:23 AM, Ambertus wrote:
> It looks more like a BIBM boot loader issue.

No, it's the BIOS not booting the device. Once it boots the device,
you'd get the various BootIt messages. You can try different geometry
options and different partitioning options to find out what it likes,
but I don't recall anything changing in that area for a very long time.

Some BIOSes have an option for booting USB removable vs USB Optical and
USB hard drive. Ensure you have it setup to boot the mode you're
creating in, non-partitioned and raw would be "removable" and
partitioned would be "hard drive".





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