Easy2boot Mac

[Merlino Riviere]

Thedemands of today's expert software users are always increasing. Whether you are an IT expert working with a wide variety of clients or a savvy hobbyist, having a multiboot USB makes the job so much easier. There are dozens of multiboot USB tools on the market, but one of the best is Easy2Boot available at www.easy2boot.com. Let's take a detailed look into what makes Easy2Boot one of the best applications for setting up and maintaining a multiboot USB.

Let's start with the basics. A multiboot USB tool is a software application that turns your everyday USB stick into a tech geek's Swiss Army Knife. Multiboot USBs allow the user to boot many dozens of bootable programs and operating systems from a single USB drive. These programs and operating systems run without needing to be installed on the computer you plug it into. This means that you can safely run programs and test or repair systems without leaving a trace on the host computer.

There are as many reasons to use a multiboot USB tool as there are programs you can run off of them! The most common is needing to boot into a wide range of operating systems. If you ever need to try a specific Linux distro or install Windows, this will be the most time-saving way to get that done. It's way easier than installing and dual booting dozens of operating systems or, and I shudder to think of this, hot swapping dedicated operation system hard drives!

Other reasons to use a multiboot USB are for people interested in the more clinical side of computing. If you're working in IT, penetration testing, or system recovery, a multiboot USB is mandatory. These tools allow you to run any number of software without "touching" the host computer. So if you have a machine that can't boot, is crushed by malware or you're troubleshooting it, a multiboot USB tool is where it's at!

The old days of making a multiboot USB were a major hassle. You had to install each ISO, Live CD, and .bin individually. The USB boot loaders were often fickle and required regular updating to keep them working when new ISOs were released - Easy2Boot gets us past all of this. With Easy2Boot, all you need to do is perform a one time install of the Easy2Boot software onto a USB flash drive, and then you're done! Really! After that installing your software packages or ISO files is a breeze. You just need to plug in your Easy2Boot USB and drag and drop your desired software (e.g., ISO file) into the right directories, and then you are good to go! Easy2Boot dynamically creates a new boot menu every time you load it, so there's no updating needed on your end. If you want to swap software payloads, say you want to replace or add the latest Ubuntu distro, all you need to do is drag and drop the new files and delete the old ones (or leave them and have both!) Easy2Boot lives up to the "easy" in its name! Easy2Boot will boot 99% of all Linux 'LiveCD' ISOs and is not version specific. Easy2Boot uses the NTFS filesystem, so you can also store all your files on the same USB drive even if they are over 4GB in size.

An Easy2Boot v2 USB drive can UEFI-boot to the 'agFM' grub2 menu system and can directly load ISO/VHD/IMG/EFI files (if the 'agFM' UEFI boot files were added to Partition 2 when it was created). In addition, you can convert a payload to a .imgPTN partition image file using the MPI Tool Kit (a Windows utility). You then copy the .imgPTN file onto the E2B USB drive. Using the boot menu, you can then select any one of your .imgPTN files. This will then cause the Easy2Boot partition 1 to be instantly replaced by the contents of the .imgPTN file (you can instead use the Switch_E2B.exe utility to switch in any .imgPTN file). Once the .imgPTN file has been 'switched-in,' you can UEFI-boot (even Secure UEFI-boot) directly from the USB drive. In this way, you can have hundreds of Secure UEFI-bootable images such as Windows Installers, Linux Installers, Linux Live OS's, WindowsToGo OS, MemTest86, KonBoot, etc. all on the same USB drive.

So you've added dozens of operating systems, a fully functional Kali Linux pen testing setup, countless drivers, etc. In short, you've built the true all-purpose multiboot USB, but now you have to update Easy2Boot. I can hear your trepidation. You don't want to lose all that work by risking an update and, thankfully, with Easy2Boot, you don't have to! Just download and run the latest version and click on the Update E2B Drive button.

Here's an Easy2Boot pro tip: You can also use Easy2Boot's UPDATE_E2B_DRIVE.cmd utility to spot-fix any problems you might be having with your multiboot USB stick. If you suspect some files on the USB drive are missing or corrupt, run the update utility and 9 out of 10 times that will repair E2B and get your multiboot USB back online and running at full force!

I'm sure you've all experienced this, but once you become even slightly tech-savvy everyone you know will start calling you about their email not working or that "weird thing that happens whenever they open Outlook." I started learning pen testing and system recovery for my own use, and now it seems like everyone in town knows I'm the unofficial "IT guy." Honestly, with tools like Easy2Boot's multiboot USB, I don't mind it one bit.

Easy2Boot is so intuitive and user-friendly it's fun to use (and it is fully configurable too and comes with its own Menu Editor so you can design your own menu system). The first install is lead by a convenient graphic interface, and adding software payloads such as ISO files to the drive is as simple as copying the ISO file onto the USB drive using drag-and-drop. From there, plug in the drive and fire up whatever software the situation calls for! (You can even sneak your favorite game on here to play on the fly!)

In the past few months, easy2boot can now UEFI Secure Boot a Windows 10 Recovery Environment from a FAT32 secondary partition, from there you can swap in an .imgPTN file (now .imgPTN23), reboot, and now load whatever OS you choose from UEFI Secure Boot. Brilliant!

The easy2boot site does a superb job in documenting technical details however that is partly the challenge; its a lot to understand. My use case: an all-power bootable USB stick for Windows installations and WinRE to swap in-and-out different versions. I prefer two identical USB drives for redundancy. Two 64GB USB3.0 all-metal key-chain drives.

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Trying to install WinXP 32Bit on an ASUS P9X79-LE Motherboard, which has a ASMedia 1061 SATA Controller (sometimes referred to as 106x). Using a 120GB SSD. I was able to (1) download drivers from ASUS, (2) find a random driver copy online, (3) extract drivers from the WinSetupFromUSB install files, and also (4) extract drivers from the Easy2Boot install files. So basically 4 flavors of the same ASMedia driver - but all slightly different.

Can't seem to get any to work however. I can install WinXP when the BIOS is set to IDE, and also when set to RAID (IRST setting), but when set to AHCI I get the 0x0000007B BSOD right at the beginning of the WinXP installation, right before it would normally show the formatting options.

I tried installing from a few different copies of WInXP CDs that I have (basically 2 different copies - a Dell copy, and a "Plain Jane" non-OEM standalone copy) But neither would work for AHCI. The Dell copy would work for both IDE and RAID, but the non-OEM copy works only for IDE. I'm guessing the Dell copy has an extra driver on it that allows RAID to work. (This same Dell copy also allows the AHCI option to work on many different WinXP-era Dells that I have, but no such luck here.)

I tried WInSetupFromUSB - but it has the 0x0000007B BSOD no matter what, even for the IDE setting, again right before the formatting options appear. So seems like WinSetupFromUSB itself is not working. Tried debugging that a bit, but still no luck.

Tried Easy2Boot, but that hangs right before launching the WinXP installer. Works up until the "5 second" countdown that is apparently supposed to show right before launching WInXP - but it just stops and never shows that one last line. Again tried debugging that a bit, different settings and different USB ports, but no luck.

Seems to me that slipstreaming the driver onto the CD with nLite should have worked... which is making me wonder if I have the correct driver for AHCI specifically. (The drivers I have are called "ASMedia 1061 SATA Controller" - no mention of AHCI...)

I ordered a USB floppy drive, which is on its way, so I can try the F6 option, but I don't have super high hopes... No floppy ribbon cable port on this motherboard - so I can only try a USB floppy drive. (Or the GoTek drive...)

Also tried installing the OS all the way through on the RAID setting to see if I could somehow then switch it over to the AHCI setting, but no such luck there either... (Is there any viable way to switch over to AHCI after the installation, instead of doing it before?)

Something I'm confused about - when set to RAID, that means AHCI is NOT operational? In other words, they are mutually exclusive? Somehow I thought RAID included AHCI, but I guess maybe not? (maybe because on the Dells the setting is called "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - this may have misled me) - or is it true that the RAID setting should also include AHCI?

PS all the BIOS settings are set to be as legacy-friendly as possible - no UEFI stuff, etc. Plus like I say the IDE and RAID settings work, so I don't really think it's a BIOS setting causing the issue...

I had noticed that both WinSetupFromUSB and easy2boot had also been suggesting an intel driver as a secondary option in addition to their corresponding ASMedia driver suggestions. I just assumed they were being dumb, particularly since when I used the suggested Intel driver from WinSetupFromUSB, the WInXP installer just spit back an error about a missing file - iastorA.sys I think - even though the file was indeed present on the thumb drive.

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