Sunday 9 October 2016

Add Easy Recovery Essentials Windows 10 (EasyRE) to E2B

The Easy Recovery Essentials Win10 ISO (not free!) does not seem to boot from E2B as a .ISO file or if simply converted to a .imgPTN file. The ISO seems to be based on FreeBSD and does not seem to contain the necessary grub2 boot loader for USB booting in an easily-accessible form.

Note that the ISO file can be booted using the E2B grub2 menu system (you must also extract some files and use a FAT32 partition, there is an example .grub2 config file in the \_ISO\docs\Sample mnu Files folder on the 2nd partition).

Instructions

Here is how to get it working as an MBR-only bootable .imgPTN file under the standard E2B grub4dos menu system (not the E2B grub2 menu system):


1. Extract the contents of the file EasyRE_Win10.iso to a new empty folder using 7Zip - e.g. C:\temp\EasyRE
2. Download the latest version of Grub2_for_imgPTN.zip from Alternate Download Area - Other Files.
3. Extract all the files from Grub2_for_imgPTN.zip into the EasyRE folder (overwite any files when requested, it should overwrite many files in the \boot\grub\i386-pc folder) - check that C:\temp\EasyRE\g2ldr now exists.
4. Now drag-and-drop the whole C:\temp\EasyRE folder onto the MPI_FAT32 Desktop shortcut to make a new .imgPTN file - e.g. C:\temp\EasyRE_Win10.imgPTN
5. Copy the EasyRE_Win10.imgPTN file to a normal menu folder on your E2B USB drive (e.g. \_ISO\UTILITIES) and use \_ISO\SWITCH_E2B.exe to 'switch' it in. You should now see the E2B USB drive contains \g2ldr, a \e2b folder, + other files and folders (see screenshot below).
6. Edit and add the following text to the end of /menu.lst

iftitle [if exist /g2ldr] Easy Recovery Essentials (Win10) \n Boot via grub2
kernel /g2ldr
boot

Check extra files from EasyRE and Grub2 download are present.

Notes:

  • I tested this on my Asus Z87 Haswell-based PC using a USB 3.0 port and it worked OK.
  • I tested it on my IdeaPad 300 and it would not fully boot however (USB 3.0 port or USB 2.0 port). 
  • The default EasyRE menu entry just booted to a blank screen on my EeePC 904HA netbook. The (VGA Mode) boot option showed an arrow pointer and then froze. The (Safe Mode) boot option successfully booted to the Desktop however.
  • It did not seem to like booting under VBox from USB at all!



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