TeraByte Unlimited

I recently bought and downloaded a BootIt Collection Upgrade and also downloaded an Upgrade to my ''Terabyte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite" from V2 to V3.'

I managed to install the latter and successfully used it to create an IFL boot CD by means of makedisk.exe.

However, I was not able to use makedisk.exe to create a bootable CD for BIBM 1.57. I got the notification that the validation was successful and that the process has completed successfully. However, when I looked at the contents of the CD it only showed the file "CONTENTS.TXT" with a size of 1 KB although the properties of the CD drive show an occupied disk space of 2,86 MB. When booting from that CD I only got a narrow blue bar at the upper edge of the screen (Attachment 1). Pressing ESC then just produced a similarly narrow pattern of bars in three colours at the upper edge (Attachment 2).

What puzzles me about the properties of my CD drive is the indicated file system CDFS. I therefore tried to run makedisk on a UDF-formatted CD but that one did not boot at all. All these problems of formatting or whatever else it is do not appear at all when creating the boot CDs from the Suite.

Why can I create a functioning IFL boot CD but not a functioning BIBM boot CD?

the contents.txt tells you the type of boot disk it is. you won't see any
other files, you just boot from it.


"sigi" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

I recently bought and downloaded a BootIt Collection Upgrade and also
downloaded an Upgrade to my ''Terabyte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite"
from V2 to V3.'

I managed to install the latter and successfully used it to create an IFL
boot CD by means of makedisk.exe.

However, I was not able to use makedisk.exe to create a bootable CD for BIBM
1.57. I got the notification that the validation was successful and that the
process has completed successfully. However, when I looked at the contents
of the CD it only showed the file "CONTENTS.TXT" with a size of 1 KB
although the properties of the CD drive show an occupied disk space of 2,86
MB. When booting from that CD I only got a narrow blue bar at the upper edge
of the screen (Attachment 1). Pressing ESC then just produced a similarly
narrow pattern of bars in three colours at the upper edge (Attachment 2).

What puzzles me about the properties of my CD drive is the indicated file
system CDFS. I therefore tried to run makedisk on a UDF-formatted CD but
that one did not boot at all. All these problems of formatting or whatever
else it is do not appear at all when creating the boot CDs from the Suite.

Why can I create a functioning IFL boot CD but not a functioning BIBM boot
CD?

TeraByte Support wrote:
> the contents.txt tells you the type of boot disk it is. you won't see any
> other files, you just boot from it.
>
>
I have not checked for many versions the contents of the BIBM boot CD. In my recollection at least the BING CD contained contents similar to the extracted zip file. But when checking my two latest BIBM boot CDs their contents and properties were exactly the same as those of Version 1.57.

But whereas the former two booted into the BIBM Boot Menu the latter only shows what is represented in the Attachments to my first posting. The only possible course of action from there is Alt+0 (shutdown computer) or Ctrl+Alt+Del (restart). What is wrong with this BIBM Version 1.57 Boot CD?

Many years ago I got a similar screen when using a BIBM boot CD. If I remember correctly it was caused by the video settings I had selected in makedisk.exe.

I 'd had the same idea and therefore had burnt at least three different video settings (VESA 640x480 - 64 colors; VESA 800x600 - 64 colors and VESA 1024x768 - 256 colors). All of them showed the same picture (cf. Attachment 1 and 2 of my first posting) - with no reaction on keystrokes except those mentioned (restart being the only option).

Since I was able to use makedisk to install IFL from my V2 to V3 Upgrade to my ''Terabyte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite" it came to my mind to try makedisk on another Terabyte product i.e. the BIBM 1.57 trial version. And behold: the CD booted correctly. I made two copies of it: one with VESA 640x480 - 64 colors and a second one with VESA 1024x768 - 256 colors. Both of them booted correctly. So it appears that the BootIt Collection Upgrade I had bought must be buggy.

I tried to download the product several times, one time even with all protection software (apart from the firewall) disabled. All of the downloads produced the same erroneous behaviour when booting the CDs created by them.

What should I do to get my bought software to work?

Both versions use the same graphics modes. Have you tried the Standard VGA 16 color mode?

Have you tried the CDs on a different system? Do you see the same issue if you boot a BIBM USB flash drive? If it's strictly a graphics issue then I'd assume you would.

clear your browsers cache, although typically a .zip will fail if altered.

there is no difference in video modes between trial and full. There is a
lot more stuff on the full that fills up the boot image, may be a bios issue
off by one track, try a UFD as was mentioned or don't include some extra
items like the cdboot files.

power cycle the system may help as well.


"sigi" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

I 'd had the same idea and therefore had burnt at least three different
video settings (VESA 640x480 - 64 colors; VESA 800x600 - 64 colors and VESA
1024x768 - 256 colors). All of them showed the same picture (cf. Attachment
1 and 2 of my first posting) - with no reaction on keystrokes except those
mentioned (restart being the only option).

Since I was able to use makedisk to install IFL from my V2 to V3 Upgrade to
my ''Terabyte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite" it came to my mind to
try makedisk on another Terabyte product i.e. the BIBM 1.57 trial version.
And behold: the CD booted correctly. I made two copies of it: one with VESA
640x480 - 64 colors and a second one with VESA 1024x768 - 256 colors. Both
of them booted correctly. So it appears that the BootIt Collection Upgrade I
had bought must be buggy.

I tried to download the product several times, one time even with all
protection software (apart from the firewall) disabled. All of the downloads
produced the same erroneous behaviour when booting the CDs created by them.

What should I do to get my bought software to work?

After the last two TeraByte Support postings I have tested several further downloads and makedisk settings with the following result:

The problem with my CDs containing my bought BIBM Collection 1.57 is not a graphics issue and is not due to the prevailing conditions (protection software, browser cache etc.) during software download. Neither the makedisk video setting " Standard VGA 16 color mode" nor clearing the browser cache and switching off my "Microsoft Security Essentials" and other protection software before downloading the product did change anything in the behaviour of the resulting boot CD. Even the size and geometry of the horizontal bars in Attachments 1 and 2 of my first posting were exactly the same for all video settings.

The only measure that invariably produced a bootable CD was to renounce Scripting Support. The trial versions do not have it and therefore the CDs were bootable irrespective of the video setting chosen. The CDs created from the bought BIBM Collection with makedisk option "Scripting Support" unchecked were also bootable irrespective of the video setting chosen. So this appears to be a consequence of (as TeraByte Support wrote in his last posting) "a lot more stuff on the full that fills up the boot image".

I would appreciate TeraByte Support's helping me to realize a quick solution with my BIBM Collection 1.57 before a fix to Version 1.57 of bootit_collection_en.zip becomes available:

1. Perhaps a "bios issue off by one track" is the culprit and you could indicate to me a simple way how to deal with it

or

2. I install BIBM 1.57 from my bootit_collection_en boot CD created with "Scripting Support" unchecked, and you tell me how to subsequently incorporate Scripting into the existing installation.

Can you provide details of the system having the issue? You didn't say if you tried booting the CDs on a different system.

Using a USB flash drive is a simple workaround if the system supports booting from them. This was asked several times, but you didn't say if you tried it.

You can copy the scripting files into the BIBM install to manually add scripting support. You can do this from Windows via drive letter if the partition is accessible that way. Otherwise, you can copy them by mounting the partition with TBOSDT and copying the files (could also use the tbexplo.tbs script).

From the Collection zip, the locations of the files you want to copy into the root folder of the BIBM partition are:
bibm\tbosdt.exe
common\tbexplo.tbs
common\setwindl.tbs
common\restoreg.tbs
common\chgdtype.tbs

TeraByte Support(PP) wrote:
> Can you provide details of the system having the issue? You didn't say if
> you tried booting the CDs on a different system.

I tried it on a MEDION AKOYA Notebook, the subject of my thread viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1997#p10330. The result was the same as on my desktop computer which I am discussing here (CD not bootable unless "Scripting Support" is unchecked).

> Using a USB flash drive is a simple workaround if the system supports
> booting from them. This was asked several times, but you didn't say if you
> tried it.

Thank you for having reminded me of that one. In the meantime I successfully created a "BIBM Collection" UFD with "Scripting Support" enabled. I will address the procedure I followed and ensuing questions further down.

> You can copy the scripting files into the BIBM install to manually add
> scripting support. You can do this from Windows via drive letter if the
> partition is accessible that way.

Do you mean by BIBM install the EMBRM partition? In order to see what the procedure would look like, I filled the EMBRM in the MBR Details in BIBM Work with Partitions in order to see it as a drive letter in Windows as target for the files to be copied. However, since it was formatted 223/DFh I did not see it at first. So I changed its format to FAT32. Is there any drawback in formatting the EMBRM that way or can I leave it at that?




Creating the BIBM Collection UFD and ensuing questions
====================================================
** I enabled Scripting Support
** I chose "No Partition – FAT / FAT32 Volume"

From my available BIOS boot options
** USB - FDD
** USB - ZIP
** USB - CDROM
** USB - HDD
I chose the second one (USB – ZIP) because the first did not boot and the last two I did not try.


Questions
-------------
1. What are USB - CDROM and USB – HDD and how could I use them? Are they just external USB (CDROM and Hard Disk) drives?
2. Is there a better (or best) combination of the four USB / SD options and the four BIOS Boot otptions than the one I chose and what would be its advantage(s)?