[tromp]

Beware of slow devices.

This summarizes a lesson learned in another thread "CD (BartPE) boots, but programs are not available."

The take-home lesson is: The project build fails on a USB drive. This may be related to warnings about copying the Windows CD to a drive before building, i.e., both are errors generated by slow devices (USB has fast burst speed, 480 Mbps, but has slow sustained throughput ~35 Mbps).

The version 2.5, PEbuilder 313, build was performed on a Windows 2000 system that uses SCSI (LSI) disks, but has USB drives attached. The identical builds on the two drives had different results.
NOTE: Both the pebuilder directory and the windows source directory were moved to the SCSI drive. That is the for the USB build they were both on the USB and for the SCSI build they were both on the SCI drive.

USB:
===
ISO size 560 MB (588,101,632)

Project sub-directories:
--------------------------
drivers ***
etc
help
i386
plugin ***
programs
system32
PN *** (an empty folder with the project name PN -- identical to parent dir)


SCSI (320):
=======
ISO size 353 MB (370,731,008)

Project sub-directories:
-------------------------
etc
help
i386
programs
system32

Note the directories identified with *** that differ between the two builds.

[SteelTrepid]

**PINNED***

And, thanks again!!

[xxx]

1. USB can sustain 240 Mbps
2. You don't claim, that below a certain system speed, the UBCD build fails, do you ?
3. check your disks for errors With some good tool. (wildly copying around large RAR files and then checking their CRC is also a good way)

[jerojero]

Hi! Please, I need some advise.

My ASUS notebook has no internal CD drive.
My one and only CD drive is a portable USB Panasonic DVD multi drive.

My question is: should I forget about building and using an UBCD4Windows CD? Or is it still worth a try?

I am new to all this PE things. The one and only reason why I am considering to build and use an UBCD4Windows CD,
is just to upgrade my 40 GB HDD to a 160 GB one.

I googled for a way to do this using freeware, and I found the advice to use SELFIMAGE bundled in a UBCD4Windows CD.
The whole idea seems to be as follows:

0) First of all I have to build an UBCD4Windows CD.

1) Then, step 1 will be to use SELFIMAGE to copy an exact image of my 40 GB HDD on an external HDD,

2) then I replace the notebook HDD with the new 160 GB HDD, and I can format it and make partitions on it using the UBCD4Windows CD.

3) And finally I have to copy the whole image back from the external HDD to the new 160 GB HDD using the SELFIMAGE tool on the UBCD4Windows CD.

...But do you think I really have NO chances to succesfully build and use an UBCD4Windows CD if I do it all from a USB CD drive?

Thank you very much in advance for any answers.

[rdsok]

You success or failure will actually depend on your system's BIOS and what it supports concerning the USB devices and the CD that you hook up to it... Newer systems and usb devices are more likely to work but you won't know until you try it.... Please note that the thread you just posted in is already 3 years old if you didn't take time to look at it... a lot has happened in the last 3 years.

[pcuser]

Quote

do you think I really have NO chances to succesfully build and use an UBCD4Windows CD if I do it all from a USB CD drive?

If I had an external USB CD drive and some free time, I'd try it for you and let you know how it goes. Since you have the hardware available, why not try it and let us know how it goes?

[jerojero]

Thank you very much for your answers, RDSOK and PCUSER.

(PCUSER, please read (1.a) for the answer to your comment. )

RDSOK, I appreciate your advice, and I am sorry if, by failing to mention that the system and the hardware I own are the same old as this forum thread, I made the impression that I had "not taken the time to look at (the date of) it".

Well, that is not the case. And, actually, it was the following suggestion I found on the UBCD4Win FAQ page which gave me hope and encouraged me to post my question in this thread:

"Build fails with USB device?
Short answer, the USB device is evidently too slow for our UBCD4WinBuilder program. If data isn't processed quickly enough the build will fail. Do not build UBCD4Win from or to a USB device, always use one that is connected to your computer internally to avoid build problems.
Mentioned originally in this post, please ask questions there is necessary: http://ubcd4win.com/...?showtopic=2742 "

I must confess that the meaning of both this FAQ and the original postings in this thread seem absolutely cryptic to me, to the point that I am fully missing the point about WHAT kind of failures were originally detected by tromp, SteelTrepid and xxx when using USB drives.

I apologize for the unclear formulation of my first post... But basically I meant to ask the following two questions:

1)

Were the detected problems limited to the process of bulding (MAKING) the boot CD or... did the detected problems relate also to the USE (operation) of the boot CD?
(1.a) I mean, if the detected problems were limited to the process of bulding (MAKING) the boot CD, then there is an easy solution: I can take my Windows recovery CDs and an empty CD to the Internet Cafe on the corner, and there I can safely build a boot CD in a powerful PC with internal CD/DVD drives. (And of course it will be a pleasure for me to try the same at home with my USB drive, and to let you know how it goes.)

(1.b) But, on the other hand, if the detected problems relate also to the USE (operation) of the boot CD, then I would have to make a very well thought and responsible decision about using or not using this boot CD from a USB drive for the tasks of installing, formatting, partitioning and restoring ALL my data to a brand new HDD ...which I intend to use for at last the next two years!.

2)

(For the second question, I assumed (2.a) that the detected problems DO also relate to the USE of the boot CD, and I also assumed (2.b) that some tasks and applications demand higher data flow speed than others... in other words: that some tasks and applications are more prone to cause failures than others.

Assuming that (2.a) and (2.b) are true, then I ask the second question:

Do you think that the following uses of a boot CD will demand too high data flow speed, and thus will be prone to cause failures?:
- to install, format and partition a new 160 GB HDD
- to restore the backed-up contents of a 40 GB HDD (all my data!) to this new 160 GB HDD using SELFIMAGE

If somebody reading this can help me find answers, it would be really great.
Thank you very much in advance.
jerojero

[pcuser]

The only reason that this is even mentioned in the FAQ's is that having your source files on media that's too slow for the builder to read can cause errors that prevent the build from finishing, that's all. If your build finishes without issues then there's nothing to worry about as far as using the cd goes (there's no "danger").

[jerojero]

I see.
Thank you very much for helping me understand the point, PCUSER.
Now I'll try to build the CD with USB hardware, and I'll post the results here.

[bozo8787]

pcuser, on 05 September 2008 - 09:59 PM, said:

The only reason that this is even mentioned in the FAQ's is that having your source files on media that's too slow for the builder to read can cause errors that prevent the build from finishing, that's all. If your build finishes without issues then there's nothing to worry about as far as using the cd goes (there's no "danger").

Hi,

I understand that this thread is over 4 years old and as you mention it's in the FAQ's as to why USB is not supported(plus the FAQ links to this thread). But, now that things have progress could it be possible that UBCD4WIN acknowledge and support USB? Plus, this topic is so important to many it has been viewed over 18,400 times!

Specially, since the massive end users of ULCPC's or Netbooks? More specifically, as most know by now Netbooks do not come with optical drives but they do boot of USB.

I'm trying to install Win7 from USB using WinSetUpFromUSB Version 0.2.3. I see it has an option to add BartPE/WinBuilder/WinFLPC. The last time I build a ubcd4win was 7 years ago and it worked just fine. But, I followed the tutorial.

Without, a tutorial for USB i'm a bit lost.

Could you or somebody take a look at this thread and see if it possible to implement Win7+UBCD4win+USB?

TIA:)

This post has been edited by bozo8787: 28 October 2009 - 09:36 AM

[bozo8787]

My bad, I found a an entire section on booting to USB. Perhaps, the FAQ could be updated, cause it still leads you to this thread.

[RaechelParker]

Thanks. very helpful post. I read a few of your other posts and they all helped me.