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Have you made an E2B v2 USB drive recently? It now supports direct UEFI booting and loading of ISOs using a1ive grub2 (agFM) and also has a version of Ventoy too (MBR\UEFI). To UEFI-boot you just boot to the 2nd FAT32 partition now and select an ISO/VHD/EFI file, etc. On most systems you can even Secure UEFI64-boot to the menu system and use a1ive grub2 menu or Ventoy to boot unsecure ISOs, etc. I am the E2B developer and free chat help is available if you have any problems.

Easy2Boot will install from a vanilla unmodified MS XP ISO on a USB flash drive to a target AHCI/SCSI/RAID PC. You need to add the DriverPacks.net mass storage drivers (just unzip the files to the correct folder on the Easy2Boot drive). Easy2Boot automatically makes the needed F6 virtual floppy disks with the correct drivers (autodetect). Instructions are on the RMPrepUSB site - Tutorial 72a.

Serva is kind of an automated tftpd32. You can set up any PC to be a proxy PXE server (even if there is a DHCP server on the network) and it automates RIS and WDS. Just plonk the install DVD contents in folders on your PXE server (XP or Vista or Win7 etc. box) and Serva will automatically create the boot image and boot menu for all the OS's. It is really quite neat! The website is here Some info on how to set up a PXE server for XP and Win7 installation via PXE using Serva is here. Hope you find it interesting.

This method maps the USB drive as a virtual floppy drive. It should work with most modern systems (and all RM systems). If you try it and find it does not work on any system, I will try to help get it working. Usually the problem is that it boots the USB Flash drive as a ZIP drive rather than an HDD drive.

For anyone still running CC3 and using floppy disks or single build disk USB drives, you can easily and quickly make Build Disk images and have them all on the same USB Flash drive. See here. No need to ever see a floppy disk again! Works with any USB Flash drive (no special type of USB Flash drive needed).

CC3 Build pens must boot as drive A: - unfortunately most BIOSes nowadays try to boot USB mass storage devices as drive C:. See TEC1656521 How to make a universal Community Connect 3 Workstation Build USB Flash memory pen - This tricks DOS into thinking it is booting from a floppy even if the BIOS thinks the USB pen is a 'hard disk' and normally boots as C:. Using a similar technique, you could have all your CC3 build floppies on just one Flash pen and load any image - for example, just add to the menu.lst file for each disk image, using a menu entry such as: You can make an image of each of your floppies (or 1.44MB Netac USB pens) using the RMPrepUSB USB->File button and save as a .IMA file.

You can have several Windows 7 ISOs + Vista ISOs + Server2008 ISOs all one one flash drive and install the OS to any hard drive. See here. This method will also work using a USB hard disk, but you need to also have a USB flash drive with an AutoUnattend.xml file on it. For maximum convenience though, just buy a Zalman VE200 hard disk caddy - read about it here. This has an LCD display - just select the ISO you want to load and viola! - you have a USB DVD drive with that ISO in it, just as if it was a shiny spinny plastic disc!

If the problem is that it does not even try to boot from the USB stick, then use a Netac U207 stick from RM instead of a USB floppy. If the problem is that it does try to boot but then always gets an error when trying to load DOS - see: How to make a 'universal' CC3 Station Build USB Flash memory pen Describes a work-around for systems that boot from a USB pen as C drive rather than A drive. TEC1656521

New tool downloadable from RM website. Use RMPREPUSB to partition, format and make bootable any USB stick. RMPREPUSB

You can configure the systems as dual boot, and students can boot to an unmanaged version of XP. But you will need to have two licenses per system. An alternative is to have a virtual machine with an XP OS. This gives the user full access but to a virtual system so they do not have admin access to the station. Ask RM for advice.

Most USB flash memory drives are USB-ZIP drives when shipped. They appear as a 'Removable Device' in Windows Explorer. If it appears as a 'Hard Disk' in Windows Explorer then it is a USB-HDD. On some UFDs you can change the 'Removable Media Bit' in the device Identify parameters so that it can appear either as a USB-HDD or a USB-ZIP (non-removable or removable) by changing this bit. Lexar Jumpdrives and RM MiniSafe Pro can do this. You can use the utility BootIt.exe to try to flip this removable media bit. Run it and click on the 'flip removable bit' button - wait for the LED to stop flashing and then remove the UFD and re-insert it. It should now appear in Explorer as the 'other' type. So that is the difference between a USB-ZIP and USB-HDD - BUT BIOSes also have their own rules. Many older BIOSes will not detect a USB-ZIP as a ZIP (floppy) device if the capacity is over 512MB. e.g. MX46 mainboards and Ultralight M5N early RM notebook. USB-FDD devices identify themselves as a 'TEAC floppy drive' and have a capacity of 1.44MB. Many BIOSes will refuse to detect larger devices as a 'floppy drive' unless it has these features. True floppy disks have no MBR and no partition table. The first sector of the disk is the volume boot sector (the one that loads IO.SYS or KERNEL.SYS depending on the OS present). Next we move onto partitions. Both USB-ZIP and USB-HDD drives have a MBR with boot code and a partition table just like hard disks. A USB-ZIP drive must have only a single partition table entry. The difference is that when the BIOS boots a USB-ZIP drive, it 'should' convert any floppy drive BIOS access calls (actually Int 13h 42h/43h for read/write) by adding the partition offset to the actual sector requested. This means that an OS sees the device as a large floppy disk with Sector 1 (i.e. LBA 0 or Block 0) when accessed, returned as the volume boot sector and not the MBR. i.e. the BIOS lies so that the OS thinks it is on a large floppy disk. For USB-HDD UFDs, these are treated just like any hard disk, with an MBR containing up to four primary partitions and containing up to four primary volumes, one of which can be an extended volume and hence contain many more volumes - just like any hard disk. Now we move on to the Volume boot sector. This is the first sector at the start of each volume. It contains the boot code that loads the OS in that volume and the name of the file to load - e.g. IO.SYS, ntldr, bootmgr, kernel.sys, etc.. For best compatibility for UFD DOS booting, this should be formatted as FAT-16, although to boot to WinPE you can format it as FAT-32 or even NTFS. A FAT-16 volume boot sector has two crucial bytes which identify what type of device it is ('floppy' or 'hard disk') to the OS that it will try to boot, these are at offset 15h and 24h. If these are set incorrectly then the OS may not boot correctly or may boot as a hard disk instead of a floppy (C: instead of A: for DOS). For CC3 boot UFDs it needs to boot as A:. DOS can boot as either, but WinPE (CC4) only boots from 'hard disk' volumes. Also, many format programs set the Drive ID byte (24h) to (for example) 81h instead of 80h. This will cause the boot to fail as the OS will try to load boot sectors from drive 2 (81h) and not drive 1 (80h). So, ideally: A UFD which is USB-ZIP, should have an MBR with one active partition. The Drive ID bytes in the volume boot sector should have bytes 15h and 24h set to F0h and 00h respectively. A USB-HDD UFD will have these bytes set to F8h and 80h respectively so the OS thinks it is a hard disk and accesses it as device 80h or the first hard disk. Unfortunately, BIOSes are VERY inconsistent in how they treat UFDs even if correctly formatted. The latest Intel BIOSes allow you to treat a USB-ZIP 'removable' device as either a 'removable' boot device or a 'hard disk' boot device. This determines if the BIOS should 'lie' about accesses to Block 0 (LBA 0) or not, as explained above. Changing the way that the BIOS treats a UFD in the BIOS settings can cause a device to boot or not boot. Different BIOSes can thus boot or not boot from the same UFD - it is very hit and miss! Setting a BIOS to USB-ZIP may work on one system, and setting it to USB-HDD may work for another system when using the same UFD! This means that one partition and format program for UFDs may work for one system, but will not work for a different system/BIOS. The best chance is to use a true USB-FDD UFD (like the Netac U207/U208) or a USB-ZIP of 512MB or less in size (like RM MiniSafe Pro 512MB or Lexar Jumpdrive 512MB). Several different systems I have tried will not boot from a 1GB RM MiniSafe Pro, but will boot from a 512MB MiniSafe Pro! HTH

The RM MiniSafe comes formatted as a USB-ZIP drive. Simply copy all files over to it in Explorer. Only works on systems that support USB-ZIP booting. Some systems may boot it as A:, some as C:. Check BIOS for 'USB-ZIP' or 'removable' option for USB boot options.

I understand RM are working on this. If you can boot it with a USB key to DOS and as a large drive (not a 1.44MB!), then you will be able to use that to install the CC4 files onto the hard disk. Then the PC can boot from the hard disk to WinPE. So if you have a USB key that will boot to DOS (eg USB-ZIP) it will work. However, it will take about 10 minutes to do it with the key left in, but you should only need to do it once per system. For some systems - e.g. MX46's, the *only* key that I can get to boot to DOS are the RM MiniSafe Pro 512MBs formatted as USB-ZIP (the 1GB ones I have do not work!). If you are desperate, ask RM if you can be a trial site. HTH

Try objShell.Run "cmd /c diskpart /s C:\diskpart.txt > c:\Logfile.txt", 6, True

RM sell the Netac NTU207/U208 1GB stick which has a switch on the side. In the 'FDD' position I have a CC3 station build disk, and in the other I have a CC4 WinPE build CD image, so I can boot either. To make a bootable CC4 USB disk, use the RMPARTUSB and RMBOOTSECT tools - see DWN1179666 on rm support site. HTH