Creating a dual boot USB

I cannot at all replicate this behavior under the latest EasyBCD 2.3 beta builds. Loading the BCD from the USB and then installing NeoGrub correctly deploys NeoGrub to the USB drive and does not touch the local disk.

This may have been an issue in 2.2 and earlier builds of 2.3, but in the latest it's definitely behaving correctly.
 
I must not be doing it correctly.
By you saying loading BCD from the USB. Do you mean you launch the program from the USB?
I have been launching the program from the hard drive.

Thank you,

Docfxit
 
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I re-created my USB thumb drive.
Then I selected BCD deployment, Partition = USB , Install BCD
I'm getting an error saying:
"The boot partition must be a primary partition.
Please either select a different drive or convert the selected partition to primary first, then try again."

The USB partition is Primary. I created it NTFS. Does it have to be FAT32?

Do you have any ideas why it's giving me this error?

Thanks,
Docfxit
 
Why are you re-creating the USB? Is this on the same thumb drive or a different one?

If you can provide a disk management screenshot, that would help figure out what the problem is.
 
Thank you for looking at this.

DiskManagement.jpg

The USB is the ThumbDrive (L:smile:

This is what is in the root of drive L:
RootDrive.jpg

Thanks,

Docfxit
 
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I figured out the last time I tried this on a machine that there was more than the maximum primary partitions of 4 for Win7.
This time I tried to make the thumb drive bootable with a different machine that has less than 4 primary partitions.
DocfxitLTPartitions.jpg

And when I select BCD Deployment, partition H: (for ThumbDrive) and Install BCD I get this error:
EasyBCDPrimary.jpg

Why isn't Easy 2.3 beta 196 recognizing that it is a primary partition?

Thanks,
Docfxit
 
Thank you for taking a look at this:

BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2011 <http://neosmart.net/>

WARN: Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{911e71ad-c42f-11e4-98e5-806e6f6e6963}\
WARN: Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{276c8ae9-c464-11e4-bbfe-e8b1fcf7bf24}\
WARN: Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{3bee4bcd-c3ae-11e4-99e0-e8b1fcf7bf24}\
WARN: No active partition detected on disk 1.
D0,3,3,1,480103981056,0
P1,,7,104857600,69062656,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1),Yes,
P2,C:\,7,319564021760,172142608384,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2),No,NTFS
P0,,15,160430063104,0,Yes,,No,
P3,G:\,7,160430030848,53509451776,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3),No,NTFS

D1,1,0,1,30992891904,-1
P1,H:\,4,30992891904,3986227200,No,,No,NTFS
 
If I'm reading the output correctly, BootGrabber doesn't recognize the thumbdrive as being active.
When I see the screen from MiniTool Partition Wizard it shows it as active.
EasyBCDPartitionWizard.jpg

Maybe that will help you.

Gary
 
I'm pretty sure that program isn't using the terms active/boot/system in the same (contrary) sense that MS uses them.

Disk Management flags have the following meanings

"boot" = "this is the system you're running"
"system" = "this is where I found the boot files for the currently running system"
"active" (on the first HDD in the BIOS boot sequence) = "this is where I started the search for the boot files"
"active" (on subsequent HDDs in the BIOS boot sequence) ="this is where I will look if I don't find something in the MBR on the first HDD"

Your screenshot in #28 suggests it was not active (in the MS sense) then.
Go into Disk Management and right click it then it should have the option to set it active if it isn't already so.
(MS "active" is a flag in the MBR used by the BIOS to know which partition to go to. Linux (and most of the rest of the universe) calls it the "boot" flag.)
 
Thanks for the reply.

In Disk Management when I right click on it the Thumbdrive "Mark Partition as Active" is greyed out. Since Partition Magic says it's active wouldn't that mean it's active?
On a support page it says "Don't mark a partition as active if it doesn't contain the loader for an operating system."
How can I get EasyBCD to install the loader?

Thanks,

Docfxit
 
If that option is greyed out, then it has been flagged active since post #28 and that is therefore not the problem.
Back to mqudsi for the interpretation of bootgrabber.
(Is NTFS OK on a bootable flashdrive ? all mine, bootable or not, are FAT32)
 
I converted the USB thumbdrive to FAT32.
I installed BCD from the DCD Deployment menu with no other files on the thumbdrive.
It worked great.
I then copied the ISO files to the thumbdrive.
I used the Add New Entry for each ISO I want to boot.
It's working great now. So EasyBCD USB deployment doesn't like NTFS.

Thank you very much,

Docfxit

PS: I'm really glad to get this working.
 
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