BASIC INSTRUCTIONS USING GRUB4USB
1. The files posted on SOURCE FORGE may not be the most recent build.
You can obtain the most recent builds from:
www.grub4usb.com and www.pocketrocketlinux.com
2. The binaries are EXE files made for a Windows / DOS environment and must be run as Administrator. You are modifying the BOOT RECORD of USB FLASH DRIVES and the DD utility literally crashes if you lack permission to write a USB Flash Drive boot record. There is a tutorial on obtaining Admin rights at the sites above.
3. The normal process is to download grub4usb.exe and run it as Administrator - right-click-properties-compatibility-run as Administrator. If you can't download an EXE use the ZIP version and extract the EXE from that file and run it.
a) grub4usb.exe creates a folder \G4U and copies itself there.
b) grub4usb.exe restarts itself in the \G4U folder and creates the help page - an html document that shows progress (what drives have been updated etc.) This is a HTML document grub4usb.htm with a bit of javascript grub4usb.js which simply has a log of events. The LAST/MOST RECENT EVENT is on top in the display.
It should be noted that you should use FIREFOX or TOR for downloads and as your default browser. IE is often infected/crippled and Google Chrome doesn't play well with the log so the page / fonts look crummy. We strongly suggest you dump both IE and Chrome and make Firefox or TOR your default browser or things may not work very well for you.
This is especially true for FINDING YOUR DOWNLOADS. Firefox preference options has an easy-to-find feature under the GENERAL tab to ALWAYS ASK WHERE TO SAVE DOWNLOADS. You should click this and always put downloads some place you can find them; Internet Explorer and Chrome are (ahem) cripples when it comes to making things easy for users and are generally INFECTED - especially IE - and should be deleted/ripped out of every PC (along with Windows, but that is another debate).
You can save grub4usb.exe to your F: USB Flash Drive and it will run from there just fine, create the \G4U folder and avoid your C: hard drive altogether. This is the smartest/cleanest way to use grub4usb, HOWEVER at Windows start up, if grub4usb attempts to run and is not on your C: drive you will probably get an error message or Windows will simply ignore the request to run grub4usb.exe on start up.
c) Once running, grub4usb.exe extracts the GNU WGET utility from itself - wget is embedded in the same file grub4usb.exe and is tested to verify it is functioning correctly. wget is used to download the library (next step).
d) grub4usb.exe checks for the utility library which contains the dd utility and master boot record - a 446 byte file specifically for USB Flash Drives, as well as a Linux distribution; the default is Pocket Rocket Linux. grub4usb.exe downloads the libary automatically from www.pocketrocketlinux.com - the download folder - the prlsetup.sfx file is about 20MB and contains source code, binaries, a linux distribution, the DD Rawwrite utility and GNU and other related licenses. prlsetup.sfx is a SELF-EXTRACTING ZIP and is actually an EXE created by the 7zip utility. Therefore, to open prlsetup.sfx you must rename it to prlsetup.exe. This is handled automatically by grub4usb.exe.
e) Once the utilities are extracted and verified, grub4usb.exe begins scanning drives D through Z - the C drive is ignored, protecting User Windows installations. You can view/verify this in the C program source code.
4. For programmer/geeks/curious people, the source code and utilities are in the folder \tce\extra\grub. grub4usb was compiled with TinyC (TCC) and runs very fast.
5. The most common problem is users forgetting to right-click-properties-compatibility-run as Administrator. Windows also requires many users to click XP compatibility since grub4usb.exe is a 32 bit program and 64 bit systems may fail to run all utilities.
6. The second most common problems are related to Windows Security, Firewalls and other anti-virus programs. These are designed to STOP ANY PROCESS from writing a boot record and so grub4usb.exe will fail if these programs are active.
Since grub4usb.exe IGNORES the C drive and you can verify that by reading the code and/or recompile it yourself, you should disable anti-virus, firewall and Windows Security when running grub4usb.exe or it will bomb.
7. grub4usb.exe also sets the boot.ini or BCD records (depending on if you have XP, Vista, 7 etc.) so you can boot your USB Flash Drive from a standard Windows boot menu. This was added when we found many bios versions can't boot USB.
More information and tutorials are available at the sites above.
ONCE INSTALLED:
1. grub4usb.exe scans drives, and if it finds a drive that has not been updated, automatically (hands-free):
a) installs the \tce folder and loads a small Linux distrubition, and
b) installs grldr and grldr.mbr to the root and
c) installs menu.lst to the root and
d) updates the master boot record IF the device is a removable flash drive, and
e) updates boot.ini or BCD, depending on the Windows version.
If your bios is capable, you can boot the flash drive on a PC with or without Windows. If your bios is old/crippled, you can boot the flash drive with F2, F12 or using the Windows boot entries.
2. Once the Linux boots it will continue downloading Office tools, Firefox, Opera, the TOR projects and other applications. This expands the original 20MB download to about 600MB - less than 1GB - and then reboots and tests the full version of Linux. You don't have to use Pocket Rocket Linux and can replace that by editing the menu.lst file and adding other Linux distributions to your flash drive.
Pocket Rocket Linux was chosen because:
a) it starts small and automatically obtains the other files
b) runs very fast - much faster than any other full suite Linux distribution (office tools etc.) except Tiny Core Linux,
c) is very reliable with good forum support
d) is available in 32 bit and 64 bit configurations.
Results with other Linux distributions will vary and are unlikely to provide these four features: small/tight, fast, reliable, wide 32/64 bit platform support.
