GRUB4DOS - flash drive - made a boot mess before EasyBCD shown

ChiefZeke

Active Member
GRUB4DOS - flash drive - made a boot mess before EasyBCD shown

I'm assembling a new system and, as I have not yet installed a CD/DVD drive in it, I was thinking of using a flash drive to install XP Pro w/SP3 as the initial operating system. Once I was satisfied with things I would install Win7 Ultimate and have a dual/multi-boot setup.

First, using the RyanVM Integrator and the latest update pack, addons, and DriverPacks I created/integrated an up-to-date version of XP Pro w/SP3 for installation on the 'newer' system.

So, booting my 'older' system into XP Pro and using the program "WinSetupFromUSB-1-0-beta7.7z" and a 16Gb Kingston flash drive I carefully proceeded, I thought, to setup the flash drive as a boot device. When it became obvious the time required to transfer the up-to-date XP Pro w/SP3 to the flash drive would take hours and as it was now very late I opted to cancel the transer and try again when there was more time available.

This afternoon when I booted the 'older' system I was presented with a strange, multi-colored boot menu. It took me a while to determine it was from something called "grub4dos" and it was a major pain to navigate this menu as presented. I eventually figured out how to get to my previous multi-boot menu and then boot into XP Pro. This same menu allows access to XP Pro x64 and Win7 Ultimate and EasyBCD 2.2.0.170 lists these options/programs - as it should.

I did a Google search on this grub4dos thing and learned it had messed with the MBR. I also found a new folder: \WINSETUP and new files: winsetup.lst, windefault, usbdrive.tag, plpbt.bin, menu.lst, grldr, and default in the root of my C:\> (boot) drive.

I also found comments that said to boot to the XP Recovery Console and run FIXBOOT and FIXMBR to repair things; but I'm guessing that this would also change things so that Win7 as an option would disappear as a boot option.

So, my question now is: do I use EasyBCD's Re-create/repair boot files option and/or do I use the Backup and Restore Bootloader Settings > File: (select *.bcd) > Restore Backup. Or some other procedure?

Thanks in advance.
 
No problem. Glad it worked.

Addendum:

For the future, check out EasyBCD's ability to create a bootable setup USB.
 
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