TeraByte Unlimited

Hi everyone...

This is my first post here - so I hope I enter this ok!

Fast background: I've been using Ghost/Ghost Solution Suite for about 20+ years primarily via "stand-alone" cold-boot mode from a USB Flash Drive. This has been mainly on ~ 12 year old multi-boot Windows MBR BIOS computers.

I'm now trying to get ramped up on imaging UEFI computers - and I'm also looking for a possible "replacement" or "backup" imaging software solution for Ghost (though I'm still actively using the current Ghost SS 3.3 RU4 for the time being). I've also had some good recent success so far with the Macrium Reflect (free version) software.

After a lot of research/etc, I "splurged" on the "full" TeraByte Special Bundle within the last week.

My original plan/goal was to use Image For Linux (IFL) in "cold-boot" mode to do imaging and minor partition work - all from the same USB Flash Drive.

However, after hours and hours of work/research/testing/etc, I cannot get the IFL USB drive to successfully boot on my (very) new Dell XPS 15 9500 4K laptop (which is a UEFI laptop/system).

In a nutshell, now matter how I've tried to configure the IFL USB Flash Drive (UFD) media via the IFL MakeDisk.exe utility program, I get the following:

* Initial IFL grub boot menu shows up ok on laptop screen (although in very small characters on this 4K display/screen - but usable/workable).

* Then no matter what I try to do from there - when it attempts to boot into IFL - I get a blank, black screen (which it never gets out of this blank/black screen - over 10 or 15+ minutes or longer I've waited).

I have tried the acpi-off setting via the following TeraByte support article without any successful IFL boots. (I've tried this by actively/dynamically "updating" the grub boot menu as described in the below support article link - as well as "manually" editing the grub.cfg file with the acpi-off info on the IFL USB boot flash drive. Neither method/way seemed to make any difference.)

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=617
Booting to IFL Results in a Black Screen

* The laptop seems (??) like it may have booted ok (behind the scenes, so to speak) - though I can't see anything on the laptop screen. I say this because - after 1 to 2 to 10+ minutes sitting there at a blank/black screen - if I push the laptop "power off" button - it very cleanly and dutifully shuts down the laptop after 10 to 15 seconds or so. Thus, it doesn't seem to be "hanging up" or "locked up" or "frozen" (so to speak).

* I've set the XPS 15 laptop BIOS into AHCI storage mode (instead of RAID mode, though I think the AHCI mode may have more to do with IFL being able to "see" the two internal PCIe SSD drives when and if I can ever get IFL to boot). I did also, by the way, try booting to IFL while in RAID mode as well with no success.

* I've tried creating the IFL USB boot media via the IFL MakeDisk.exe utility program with several different USB Layouts - in particular the "MBR FAT/FAT32 Partition (Int13h Extensions)" and "GPT UEFI System Partition" layouts.

* I've also tried all five of the different "Geometry Calculation Method" options.

* I've (mainly) tried using the IFL_nonet_en_GUI_x64 version 3.41 download. Though I did also try using the "IFL-Create Recovery Boot Disk" to see if it might act any differently after doing an experimental full "Image For Windows" (IFW) install.

I haven't quite "given up" on IFL yet - but I'm getting discouraged at this stage - so I thought I'd break down and ask if anyone might have any other ideas/thoughts on how to get IFL to boot from a USB drive on this laptop (?).

I may try once more to carefully dig back into the XPS 15 BIOS and see if there might be some sort of "buried" system/"security" setting in there that might be "blocking" something with the IFL boot USB drive (?).

I did disable Secure Boot on the laptop a long time ago. I also have Fast Startup disabled as well.

In summary: =)

1) Let me know if anyone may have any other ideas to allow IFL to boot via USB drive on this XPS 15 laptop (?).

2) As a secondary/backup option (??), let me know if "BootIt UEFI" might (?) be worth trying (?).

Based on one very fast preliminary test, I have been able to get a BootIt UEFI USB drive to boot easily and it looks like it has both "Partition work" and "Disk Imaging" directly available on that one USB. From what I've previously researched, it sounds like IFL is generally preferred and "faster"/etc. But let me know if some think BootIt UEFI might be a decent option to consider given the difficulties I'm having with IFL (?). Or may BootIt UEFI have limitations or "slowness"/etc that may make it a "lesser" candidate to consider using actively/frequently (?).

Thank you for anyone's thoughts/ideas/feedback on this! =)

PS I apologize for the length of this post - but thought I'd try to map out what I've tried so far. Thanks again everyone!!

First let me say that I know almost nothing about Linux, but I use IFL and, as far as I know, I've never seen a grub menu when booting IFL. I'm dimly aware that grub has something to do with booting Linux, but, again, I've never seen it. Is this grub menu something you have to interact with or does it go away on it's own?

I think the first thing to figure out is why you get a grub menu, but I don't know the answer.

Yes, BootIt UEFI and its disk imaging would probably be a viable alternative, though the Disk Imaging you see in BootIt UEFI (BIU) is really Image for UEFI bundled with BIU. If all you care about is imaging, you would be just as well off just using Image for UEFI on it's own but you are right that it will probably be slower than IFL.

If possible, you're probably better off to get IFL to boot, but I can't offer any further assistance with that.

ComputerOwl ,

Nice post. Well presented.

Does your IFL UFD boot in another computer? Does a Win10 UFD boot in your XPS? Have you tried a different IFL UFD? A small capacity one?

Hi everyone...

I've learned some very interesting/weird/crazy things since my last post...

I think I figured it out - at least found something that seems to specifically "fix" this IFL USB flash drive boot issue on THIS XPS 15 laptop...

I will share that in a moment down below...

First a couple of quick responses to the above comments since my first post on this issue:

@Bob Coleman ---> thank you for your feedback/ideas. By the way, I think IFL displays a very quick "grub" menu when it starts up - but may only appear on the screen for 5 seconds (or less - as I think it may even have an "option" of a 0/zero second delay).

So, it may only appear on the screen for a VERY short time...

FYI very "honest" admission on my part - when I was first testing these IFL boot issues - I did "NOT" notice the IFL grub menu (at all!) the first dozen or so times thru the process - as it would disappear from the screen pretty quickly.

But later on - I "discovered" if I hit a key on the keyboard during the 5 seconds the 3 or 4 small lines at the top left side of the grub menu screen would "stay" visible on the screen - as any keyboard activity would "stop" the countdown boot timer - and then I could look at the grub boot up menu - and I could even "dynamically" "edit" a grub menu line (by typing the letter "e" for "edit" on the line that was selected/highlighted - at least in UEFI mode) as outlined in the above TereByte Support article regarding the acpi-off setting.

Also - for whatever it is worth - in my testing/etc - I discovered if I "test" booted off the same IFL USB flash drive on an "older" MBR PC - the IFL "grub" boot menu became much more of an obvious full screen DOS type character based boot menu.

In other words, the visual appearance of the grub menu was a lot different visually on a MBR PC as compared to on a UEFI PC. Apparently, the IFL USB Flash drive is "smart" enough to tell the difference between MBR mode and UEFI mode - and sort of changes the "appearance" of the IFL grub boot menu accordingly. At least that was my limited experience so far.

Incidentally, the same IFL USB flash drive did end up (eventually) working basically fine/OK on both the old MBR PC and the "new" Dell XPS laptop. (Updated info regarding the XPS laptop coming up momentarily below).

Before I may forget, the eventual "successful" IFL USB boot flash drive was "created" with the IFL_nonet_en_GUI_x64 version 3.41 downloaded files directly from TB - and I used the "MBR FAT/FAT32 Partition (Int13h Extensions)" USB Layout and the "Default - Use Device" Geometry Calculation Method via the IFL MakeDisk.exe utility program.

@Brian K ---> thank you also very much for your feedback/ideas...

By the way, per your suggestion, I did try the "same" IFL USB boot flash drive on one of my "older" MBR PCs and it did work/boot ok/fine on that "old" MBR PC. That was using an 8Gb Kanguru FlashBlu30 USB flash drive (which has a "physical" write protect switch/notch on the side of the flash drive). I have been using these Kanguru FlashBlu flash drives very successfully for several years now - since they should hopefully help "prevent" possible "malware" from "infecting" the USB flash drive - if I'm working on someone's potentially infected computer.

Before I did end up finding out the "problem"/"solution" with the Dell XPS 15 laptop - I did try/test a 4Gb and very old 256Mb flash drive. They initially exhibited the exact same problems as the "original" 8Gb Kanguru flash drive. So, thank you again for your thoughts/ideas/suggestions...

*******

HERE IS what I discovered - that basically allowed the XPS 15 laptop to successfully boot from the IFL USB flash drive:

I ENABLED SECURE BOOT - in my XPS BIOS Boot Configuration menu. Then the IFL USB flash drive immediately worked thereafter!

I still do NOT understand this (at all). But that is EXACTLY what I did. I "ENABLED" Secure Boot in my XPS BIOS - then the IFL USB flash drive fully/successfully booted right up on screen.

EVERYTHING else that I had read before - seemed to indicate pretty clearly and specifically to DISable Secure Boot - so I had it DISabled in the BIOS.

But, literally, just when I started deeply digging thru ALL of my individual BIOS settings (after I carefully "noted" the special ones I wanted/needed set in a particular way) - I "reset" all the BIOS settings back to the Dell factory BIOS defaults.

I wasn't even planning at all to look at Secure Boot - and it was actually OFF - after I had reset everything back to factory settings. But something told me to "try" it with Secure Boot ON - and that was the first thing I tried. And I absolutely could NOT believe it when IFL fully booted up successfully to the IFL boot screen on that first attempt.

So, by ENABLING Secure Boot, it was able to successfully boot into IFL via USB flash drive..... Go figure!!!

Again, I still don't fully understand this - but I guess if it works - then I guess it works!

I'm half wondering (????) if the Dell BIOS might somehow have the "logic" of Secure Boot in some sort of "double negative" setting - where when it is OFF it is really ON and vice versa - but it doesn't seem like that is the situation!

But I tested and re-tested and re-re-tested and if I have Enable Secure Boot ON - it boots up the IFL USB flash drive fine/OK. If I turn Enable Secure Boot to OFF - the IFL USB flash drive results in the infamous blank, black screen.

So, that is the weird/crazy results I've discovered!

One other very weird note before I try to wrap this up for now (!)......

Once I was able to get things to boot up OK with the IFL USB boot drive - when I went into the IFL "Partition work" module - I noticed that basically ALL of my SSD drive partitions where showing up in the Partition work screen without the drive label/names the partitions had. In other words, basically all the partitions had just very generic name/label like "basic partition" or something similar - and NOT the individual partition names I had given them weeks ago.

What I ended up discovering was that doggone MS BitLocker got "activated" on my drives and was mid-way into encrypting ALL of my SSD drive partitions. I couldn't believe it! I was sure I had turned BitLocker OFF a long time ago - but perhaps I missed/forgot it (??).

Potentially directly related to all this (?), in all my testing/etc, I'm wondering if when I "changed" my SATA drive operation from RAID to AHCI mode a couple of days ago - if THAT might (?) have somehow re-enabled/triggered BitLocker to kick back into action (?).

It is getting really late for me - so I'm running out of time/energy to get into more detail on that. However, before I forgot, I thought it might be something to mention that if someone may try "changing" their SATA drive operation mode in BIOS from RAID to AHCI - you may (?) want to spot check your BitLocker settings/activity on your system.

Once I finally got some clues that BitLocker was in action, by typing in "Manage Bitlocker" at the Windows start menu - I could see it was "waiting activation" after having basically encrypted all the visible partitions.

If you may find yourself in that situation - you should be able to "manually" disable BitLocker for each individual volume/partition by opening a windows command prompt window (important - Run as Administrator) and type in the following at the C: prompt: C:\>manage-bde c: -off (enter).

You may need to "repeat" this same command for each volume/partition letter that "Manage BitLocker" indicates has been encrypted. NOTE: I'm NOT an expert (at all!) in regard to BitLocker. So, please feel free to research more info on this before taking too much direct action on these comments. But maybe the above might give you some clues/info that might help if you may need it.

SUMMARY for now:

1) I did get the IFL USB flash drive boot media to boot/work by ENABLING Secure Boot in my Dell XPS 15 BIOS. Go figure!!

2) While the IFL USB flash drive is working pretty well now - there are some parts of the IFL screen/display that are showing up in super small/tiny font size - due to my "native" 4K laptop screen/display.

For example, the little arrow mouse cursor is like a super small/tiny speck on the screen. Most of the screen/display is readable and "normal" size, but the mouse cursor - and if I right click on anything - the pop-up right click menu is super/tiny 4K small.

If anyone might have any ideas on how I might (?) be able to better "reset" the video mode so the mouse cursor and right click pop-up menus are more readable - I'd greatly/sincerely appreciate it!!! It is probably 90% good/workable at this point - but the small areas of super small/tiny font size make it more exciting than usual!

In the meantime, once I can get a little more time, I'm planning to do some quick backup/restore image tests between IFL and BootIt UEFI and compare those to each other.

Sorry again for this long post - but thought I'd pass along what I've been learning in case it might help someone else possibly down the road.... thanks for everyone's patience with this one!! =)

PS I hope most of the above has made sense/etc. It is pretty late and I'm fairly tired/etc - but thought I'd try to shoot this off while it was all still relatively "fresh" (so to speak!) in my mind! =)

ComputerOwl,

Do you have to enable Secure Boot to boot other UEFI UFDs?

Hi Brian K...

For overall review/summary purposes, for the IFL USB Flash Drive (UFD) - I do need to have Enable Secure Boot ON for it to boot.

If I have Enable Secure Boot OFF - then the IFL UFD will not boot.

However, for the BootIt UEFI UFD, that flash drive will boot up fine/ok whether I have Enable Secure Boot ON or OFF on the XPS laptop. (Sort of crazy huh?)!!

I also tried a specifically created Image For DOS (IFD) UFD - and it would not even show up as a "selectable" bootable device on the XPS laptop - whether Enable Secure Boot was ON or OFF. However, this same IFD UFD booted up fine/ok on my "old" MBR PC.

So, very weird/odd.... But it appears with Enable Secure Boot ON - I can boot to either IFL or the BootIt UEFI UFD.

And it looks like I should be able to boot from the BootIt UEFI UFD fairly reliably (?) in either Secure Boot mode ON or OFF.

I will add this - very quickly:

My initial test backup and restore times of the IFL UFD were SUPER BLAZING FAST......

I don't have the time to list out all my test info here, however, suffice it to say that a very quick whole ~ 50 Gb SSD drive/disk image only took a "cold-booted" IFL flash drive 21 seconds to create the image.

Yes, you read that correctly, only 21 seconds................ wow.....

Whereas, Macrium Reflect (free version) 7.2.5107 took 2:38 to create the exact same image and Ghost Solution Suite 3.3RU4 took 4:36.

(These Macrium Reflect and Ghost SS tests also "cold-booted" off respective USB flash drives exactly like IFL was - these measured times from the moment I clicked "finish"/"create"/"start" on the respective backup/restore operations).

The same drive image to restore, IFL took only 13 seconds (wow!!); while Macrium Reflect took 2:27 and Ghost SS took 4:26.

So, IFL is stunningly MUCH faster...

NOTE: I have two PCIe NVMe SSDs in this XPS laptop. So, the source (Operating System) PCIe NVME SSD drive is going directly over to another PCIe NVMe SSD. That must be why it FLIES by so quickly with IFL...

And there was probably at least ~ 14 Gb or so of hibernation windows system type files/etc out of the "total" 50 Gb of disk/drive data that were probably "excluded"/"bypassed", so to speak, from the actual backups/restores - but nonetheless - incredibly impressive - at least for me (!)....

I was pretty sure I didn't do something correctly when the IFL image test got done so quickly....

However, the IFL restore worked fine/good/great/FAST - within all my testing processes/etc - so it certainly seemed to work ok/fine....

If time/energy/etc may allow - I might try to post some more of the details of this first wave of image comparison tests. But there are a LOT of other things I need to get done in the meantime...

Also, I still need to learn MANY more of the details and nuances of IFL (especially when I start trying to back up and restore individual partitions in "different" partition slots, so to speak, on my main boot OS SSD - and in this "new" UEFI environment for me).

However, these initial test results have exceeded my wildest expectations so far....

Thanks for everyone's input/ideas/help/patience as I'm trying to work thru all this!