Simplest way to make a bootable flash drive for testing BSOD

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:03:23 -0000 (UTC)
William Unruh wrote:

On 2016-06-28, burfordTjustice wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 02:20:43 -0400
". . .winston" wrote:

I've bootable usb and dvd's of Win7, 8.0, 8.1, and 10.

So what?

It indicates that the OP's contention that it is impossible to make a
bootable usb or dvd of any recent windows system is wrong.
Of course more helpful would have been had Winston told us how he
managed to make those bootable usbs and dvds.




He will tell you what ever microsoft has said on how to do that.

Donna D. wrote:
As I said, the entire Windows thing is COMPLICATED like you
can't believe. I don't even know what PE stands for, let alone
how to access it on the one working Windows XP system I have.

PE means preinstallation environment; but you don't have to make one,
you can 'cheat' and use one someone else made.

You could:
- dl Rufus which does not require installation
- dl Hiren's
- write the Hiren's .iso to a USB, the precedings using the good XP
- boot the Hiren's USB on the bad Dell
- of the boot options on Hiren's choose the miniXP
- use the live XP environment on the bad Dell's C:/ to chkdisk


Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...on_Environment
WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for ... troubleshooting
an operating system while it is offline. It is intended to replace
MS-DOS boot disks and can be booted via USB flash drive, PXE, iPXE,[1]
CD-ROM, or hard disk.

https://rufus.akeo.ie/ t can be especially useful for cases whe you
need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows,
Linux, UEFI, etc.)

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd All in One Bootable CD which has all
these utilities - Portable Windows Xp that runs from CD/USB/Ram Drive to
repair/recover dead windows operating system.

Hiren's 600 MB .zip containing .iso at http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/555302 Unmountable Boot Volume
- 1.The file system is damaged and cannot be mounted. - chkdsk /r - If
the above process fails to restore the system then in the number#5 step
use fixboot command instead of the chkdsk /r command.

--
Mike Easter

Donna D. wrote:
Mike Easter wrote:

What is the Dell's model & number, CPU, and ram?

It's a Dell XPS M1730.
I'd have to boot it to get the RAM and CPU out of it.

This reviewer described the entry level of that model as 2G ram and Core
2 Duo, but some of the comments said they have 4G.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/Dell-XPS-M1730-review


--
Mike Easter

On 6/28/2016 10:36 AM, Mike Easter wrote:
Donna D. wrote:
As I said, the entire Windows thing is COMPLICATED like you
can't believe. I don't even know what PE stands for, let alone
how to access it on the one working Windows XP system I have.

PE means preinstallation environment; but you don't have to make one,
you can 'cheat' and use one someone else made.

You could:
- dl Rufus which does not require installation
- dl Hiren's
- write the Hiren's .iso to a USB, the precedings using the good XP
- boot the Hiren's USB on the bad Dell
- of the boot options on Hiren's choose the miniXP
- use the live XP environment on the bad Dell's C:/ to chkdisk


Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window...on_Environment WinPE)
is a lightweight version of Windows used for ... troubleshooting an
operating system while it is offline. It is intended to replace MS-DOS
boot disks and can be booted via USB flash drive, PXE, iPXE,[1] CD-ROM,
or hard disk.

https://rufus.akeo.ie/ t can be especially useful for cases whe you
need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows,
Linux, UEFI, etc.)

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd All in One Bootable CD which has all
these utilities - Portable Windows Xp that runs from CD/USB/Ram Drive to
repair/recover dead windows operating system.

Hiren's 600 MB .zip containing .iso at
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/555302 Unmountable Boot Volume
- 1.The file system is damaged and cannot be mounted. - chkdsk /r - If
the above process fails to restore the system then in the number#5 step
use fixboot command instead of the chkdsk /r command.



I have read about Hirens Boot CD but never used it, So this morning I
D/Led Ver 15.2 and Burnt to Disc and fired it up.
Man, there are tons of good stuff on this CD.
Definitely a Keeper.

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
I have read about Hirens Boot CD but never used it, So this morning I
D/Led Ver 15.2 and Burnt to Disc and fired it up.
Man, there are tons of good stuff on this CD.
Definitely a Keeper.

It is valuable even if one eschews 'questionable' copyright issues. The
info page/site shows which wares could be avoided as non-freeware.
Almost everything is 'OK'.

It is valuable for setting up an environment for the use of many tool
choices.

--
Mike Easter

burfordTjustice wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 15:03:23 -0000 (UTC)
William Unruh wrote:

On 2016-06-28, burfordTjustice wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 02:20:43 -0400
". . .winston" wrote:

I've bootable usb and dvd's of Win7, 8.0, 8.1, and 10.
So what?
It indicates that the OP's contention that it is impossible to make a
bootable usb or dvd of any recent windows system is wrong.
Of course more helpful would have been had Winston told us how he
managed to make those bootable usbs and dvds.



He will tell you what ever microsoft has said on how to do that.

There is an issue with an *installed* Windows OS on a USB storage device.

Without modification, the USB bus is commissioned in the middle
of the booting process. The bus reset on the USB bus that results,
causes a deadlock (cannot read more of the boot source) in the
middle of the boot.

If you research "BootBusExtender", it is possible to change
the status of the USB bus, and cause it to move to earlier
in the boot process. Then, when the USB bus is reset, the
boot process can continue, as the bus is then properly handled.
A number of buses have that status already, but USB wasn't
one of them.

But the process of modifying an OS for "BootBusExtender" is
a lengthy one. Something a jolly great script might do,
but hand edits, not so much. There are a couple web pages
that go into the details, but they're a pretty long read.

*******

Installer media class materials, like a 200MB Recovery image
or a 4GB DVD install image, those have USB boot capabilities.
And past Windows 7 media, that media will even survive hardware
which only supports XHCI at boot time (hey, thank you Intel).
If you try Windows 7 media or older, on a Z170 PCH, it
shouldn't boot. Such useless hardware will also have trouble
with a raft of other OS discs. The modification Intel made
to the hardware, was totally totally unnecessary.

So recovery discs or installer discs, shouldn't have a problem
booting up. But it is an installed OS, if you just move
it over to USB storage, don't expect that to boot. And
Microsoft has done that on purpose, seeing as the
infrastructure does exist for the booting to actually
work.

Paul

William Unruh wrote :
On 2016-06-28, Wolf K wrote:
On 2016-06-27 16:36, Donna D. wrote:
. . .winston wrote:

Does your operating system support booting from a flash drive ?
Funny you mention that.

I have a couple of "broken" windows systems, and in one, an
IBM A31p, you can't set the BIOS to boot from a flash drive
*unless* the flash drive is actually inserted in a slot!

Then, when you reboot, the setting disappears!
What?
I've never heard of a transient BIOS setting, but there it
seems to be.

AFAIK, when you set the USB drive to boot from Windows, it's not a BIOS
setting as such. Windows just passes the "Boot it" command to the flash
drive, which then does just that (exiting from Windows in the process).

A usb drive is a memory device, not a computer. It does not run
commands.

[...]

Unless the USB firmware is pretending to be a USB keyboard.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 00:39:54 -0400, Paul wrote:

As another example of snagging, when DigitalRiver had
Windows 7 links hosting ISOs for download, I got a
few suitable for repairing my laptop.

Back then, I snagged more than a few different ISOs from Digital River since
I never knew what I'd need the next time someone would bring a computer to
me for repair. I still have those safely tucked away, along with their
checksums.

If I wanted
to use the Microsoft download links today, if I enter
the COA off the OEM sticker on the laptop, Microsoft
just laughs at that key and tells you to bugger off.

I've never tried that method but I'm aware of it. It's not as convenient as
Digital River was, by a long shot.

So if you didn't snag a copy of Windows 7 while
DigitalRiver was giving them away, now it's a lot
harder to get media.

Using the app below, it's actually a lot easier now than it was before, but
the capability may not last so take advantage now if you think you might
need something.

This site claims to have some genuine URLs for
downloading stuff.

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techno...ence/microsoft

But I don't know anything about the level of trust
for this thing. Whether you can figure out where
the URL points in advance, and so on. I need checksums,
before I can begin to trust "strange" media.

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techno...-download-tool

The first link above includes a screenshot of the application, but you can't
see very well that there are buttons on the right side to get the raw
download links. If you select a product and its language, those buttons
light up to give you the links. At that point, you can either download via
the application natively, or you can take the direct links and pop them into
your favorite web browser. Curl works fine, as well.

For example, here I selected Windows 7 Ultimate Retail - English, and it
provided the following two links for the x86 and x64 versions:

http://software-download.microsoft.com/pr/Win7_Ult_SP1_English_x64.iso?t=648bbc34-48b2-4ef6-ac2d-6c16ac7f9efa&e=1467224431&h=3ff578fe6598180789012a 804d066ea2
http://software-download.microsoft.com/pr/Win7_Ult_SP1_English_x32.iso?t=648bbc34-48b2-4ef6-ac2d-6c16ac7f9efa&e=1467224431&h=ecf95d6e5176493a3f4bdd e14db2c615

Links provided by the application expire in 24 hours, so apparently MS is
doing something funky behind the scenes, as evidenced by the string of hex
digits.

As you can see, you don't have to figure anything out. The link targets are
clearly provided. As for checksums, you need to get them from a trusted
source. How about directly from Microsoft? The same would be true regardless
of how or where you get the images. At a minimum, you should check that the
download isn't corrupted in any way by the download operation itself, but
it's also good to use checksums to ensure that nothing has been added to the
image by a bad actor.

--

Char Jackson

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 08:36:31 -0700, Mike Easter wrote:

Donna D. wrote:
As I said, the entire Windows thing is COMPLICATED like you
can't believe. I don't even know what PE stands for, let alone
how to access it on the one working Windows XP system I have.

PE means preinstallation environment; but you don't have to make one,
you can 'cheat' and use one someone else made.

You could:
- dl Rufus which does not require installation
- dl Hiren's
- write the Hiren's .iso to a USB, the precedings using the good XP
- boot the Hiren's USB on the bad Dell
- of the boot options on Hiren's choose the miniXP
- use the live XP environment on the bad Dell's C:/ to chkdisk

snip

I'll be very surprised if the ISO images that you can download from
Microsoft aren't already bootable. I won't be able to test that for myself
for at least a month since I'm traveling, but it would make sense.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
I'll be very surprised if the ISO images that you can download from
Microsoft aren't already bootable. I won't be able to test that for
myself for at least a month since I'm traveling, but it would make
sense.

Booting a MS installation disk isn't the same utility for solving
problems as booting a PE or a multipurpose tool with linux and dos tools
such as Hiren's or another Hiren's derivative I found today called
FalconFour.

--
Mike Easter

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 12:07:43 -0700, Mike Easter wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
I'll be very surprised if the ISO images that you can download from
Microsoft aren't already bootable. I won't be able to test that for
myself for at least a month since I'm traveling, but it would make
sense.

Booting a MS installation disk isn't the same utility for solving
problems as booting a PE or a multipurpose tool with linux and dos tools
such as Hiren's or another Hiren's derivative I found today called
FalconFour.

Of course, but I thought the OP was complaining about it being "impossible"
to have a bootable Windows DVD these days so I assumed (my fault!) that you
were working in that direction. My apologies.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
Mike Easter wrote:
Char Jackson wrote:

I'll be very surprised if the ISO images that you can download from
Microsoft aren't already bootable. I won't be able to test that for
myself for at least a month since I'm traveling, but it would make
sense.

Booting a MS installation disk isn't the same utility for solving
problems as booting a PE or a multipurpose tool with linux and dos
tools such as Hiren's or another Hiren's derivative I found today
called FalconFour.

Of course, but I thought the OP was complaining about it being
"impossible" to have a bootable Windows DVD these days so I assumed
(my fault!) that you were working in that direction. My apologies.

:-)

Well...

.... when I read how someone describes their problem, I don't necessarily
'aim at' answering their questions or observations just as the
problem-person sees it.

Instead I aim at trying to solve the problem as *I* see it, while still
considering the problem's other aspects.

So, we started with the knoppix .iso business, but I thought a Win
environment would be more suitable, and I didn't 'mind' mentioning a
tool that some would consider an infringement or 'extension' of whatever
license the OP has for her XP.

--
Mike Easter

Mike Easter wrote:
Char Jackson wrote:
Mike Easter wrote:
Char Jackson wrote:

I'll be very surprised if the ISO images that you can download from
Microsoft aren't already bootable. I won't be able to test that for
myself for at least a month since I'm traveling, but it would make
sense.

Booting a MS installation disk isn't the same utility for solving
problems as booting a PE or a multipurpose tool with linux and dos
tools such as Hiren's or another Hiren's derivative I found today
called FalconFour.

Of course, but I thought the OP was complaining about it being
"impossible" to have a bootable Windows DVD these days so I assumed
(my fault!) that you were working in that direction. My apologies.

:-)

Well...

... when I read how someone describes their problem, I don't necessarily
'aim at' answering their questions or observations just as the
problem-person sees it.

Instead I aim at trying to solve the problem as *I* see it, while still
considering the problem's other aspects.

So, we started with the knoppix .iso business, but I thought a Win
environment would be more suitable, and I didn't 'mind' mentioning a
tool that some would consider an infringement or 'extension' of whatever
license the OP has for her XP.


A Windows installation DVD, also includes a copy of recovery console.
There is a "command prompt" in there for repair purposes. So yes,
the installation media is dual-purpose.

It's the Command Prompt option.

https://wpcf.neosmart.net/sites/5/20...ry-Options.png

This is what that screen looks like on a Win10 installer DVD.
Command Prompt option is in the upper right. And you can
run CHKDSK from there.

http://www.download3k.com/article_im...129ea6cc0e.png

Paul

In alt.os.linux Mike Easter wrote:
....
Hiren's is an easy way to do that.

There's no way to run chckdks c: /r that
I can see unless I can boot to a Windows-like
system, right?

Hiren's can boot to a live WinXP. Among many other things that it can
do which are useful, such as dos tools.

I mean, can I run "chkdsk C: /r" from Knoppix?

I don't know. I doubt it.

Does Hiren's (whatever it is) allow a chkdsk?

Yes.

Where can we get Hiren's files? Its web site doesn't seem to have the
download links?
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On 28/06/2016 23:56, Ant wrote:

Where can we get Hiren's files? Its web site doesn't seem to have the
download links?

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hi...ootCD.15.2.zip

If you want others look here.
http://www.gfi.com/blog/top-5-free-rescue-discs-for-your-sys-admin-toolkit/
--
Ray
UK