Restore Windows on EEE BOX without CD/DVD drive (boot from USB falsh drive)
ASUS provides your a DVD recovery disk for your EEE BOX machine, which does not have CD/DVD drive. When something of your OS goes wrong, you have to plug in a CD/DVD drive to run the recovery DVD to get Windows recovered. It happened that I do not have a portable CD/DVD drive available. How can I install the Windows OS without pluging in a Cd/DVD drive? The answer is it is not easy but you can do it. A step by step instruction is given here.
1 Software needed
- Ultra ISO Creator Version 9 Trial from http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/download.htm
- A USB flash drive with at least 2 GB free space
- a XP computer with DVD drive and USB 2.0 port
- Asus EEE Recovery DVD
- Optional (to avoid working with original DVD) : a program to create the bootable ISO of your Recovery DVD. I used LCIsoCreator.exe from http://www.lucersoft.com/freeware.php- PeToUSB
- A USB flash drive with at least 2 GB free space
- a XP computer with DVD drive and USB 2.0 port
- Asus EEE Recovery DVD
- Optional (to avoid working with original DVD) : a program to create the bootable ISO of your Recovery DVD. I used LCIsoCreator.exe from http://www.lucersoft.com/freeware.php- PeToUSB
2 Create an ISO file from the ASUS original Recovery DVD
a ) Unzip the file LcIsoCreator.zip in a folder of your choice
b) Insert Asus EEE Recovery DVD into the drive
c) Launch LcIsoCreator.exe, select the DVD unit and click on Create ISO. Type the file for your iso image , for example : EEE.iso
b) Insert Asus EEE Recovery DVD into the drive
c) Launch LcIsoCreator.exe, select the DVD unit and click on Create ISO. Type the file for your iso image , for example : EEE.iso
3a Create your bootable Asus EEE USB flash drive (using Ultra ISO)
a) Install Ultra ISO with default settings
b) Launch UltraISO, click on Continue to Try ..
c) If you decided to work using an iso image instead of the physical DVD mount the iso image on a virtual DVD (Tools / Mount to drive (F6)). You can also mount it using another tool such Daemon tool if you prefer it.
d) From menu select File / Open CD/DVD e select the DVD drive of the Asus EEE Recovery DVD (physical or virtual depending on your previous choices)
e) Insert your USB pen into an USB port
f) From menu select Bootable / Write Disk Image. on Disk Drive select the USB pen drive, on Image File you should have already the DVD drive, on Write Method select USB-HDD.
g) Click on Xpress Boot and wait the image creation. It will take about 30 minutes
b) Launch UltraISO, click on Continue to Try ..
c) If you decided to work using an iso image instead of the physical DVD mount the iso image on a virtual DVD (Tools / Mount to drive (F6)). You can also mount it using another tool such Daemon tool if you prefer it.
d) From menu select File / Open CD/DVD e select the DVD drive of the Asus EEE Recovery DVD (physical or virtual depending on your previous choices)
e) Insert your USB pen into an USB port
f) From menu select Bootable / Write Disk Image. on Disk Drive select the USB pen drive, on Image File you should have already the DVD drive, on Write Method select USB-HDD.
g) Click on Xpress Boot and wait the image creation. It will take about 30 minutes
3b Create your bootable Asus EEE USB flash drive (using PeToUSB)
a) Unzip PeToUSB to a folder
b) Connect a USB Flash Drive with at least 2GB of storage to your PC and start PeToUSB
c) The USB flash drive should show up under Destination Drive. Check USB Removable, Enable Disk Format and Enable File Copy
d) Finally browse to the Source Path of the EEE.iso created in the second step
e) Click “Start” button and answer the following two questions “Continue?” with “Yes”. All existing volumes and data will be lost!
Depending on the write speed of your USB Flash drive it may take a while to copy all EEE.iso files.
f) If everything goes well, the message “Operation Completed Successfully!” should appear. Click “OK” and close PeToUSB.
b) Connect a USB Flash Drive with at least 2GB of storage to your PC and start PeToUSB
c) The USB flash drive should show up under Destination Drive. Check USB Removable, Enable Disk Format and Enable File Copy
d) Finally browse to the Source Path of the EEE.iso created in the second step
e) Click “Start” button and answer the following two questions “Continue?” with “Yes”. All existing volumes and data will be lost!
Depending on the write speed of your USB Flash drive it may take a while to copy all EEE.iso files.
f) If everything goes well, the message “Operation Completed Successfully!” should appear. Click “OK” and close PeToUSB.
4 Modify WINPE.ISO to Choose Symantec Ghost as start application
a) Use Ultra ISO open WINPE.ISO on the USB falsh drive
b) Navigate to I386\SYSTEM32\ and find WINPESHL.INI
c) Extract this file to your hard drive
d) Open the file WINPESHL.INI and change …
b) Navigate to I386\SYSTEM32\ and find WINPESHL.INI
c) Extract this file to your hard drive
d) Open the file WINPESHL.INI and change …
[launchApp]
AppPath=x:\EPCRecover.exe
AppPath=x:\EPCRecover.exe
… to …
[launchApp]
AppPath=x:\GHOST32.EXE
AppPath=x:\GHOST32.EXE
… and save the changes
e) Copy this file back to I386\SYSTEM32\ in UltraISO
f) Save your modification to the USB flash drive
In addition, please also copy all content in the ASUS drive CD to the USB flash drive. You need it once the Widnows is installed.
f) Save your modification to the USB flash drive
In addition, please also copy all content in the ASUS drive CD to the USB flash drive. You need it once the Widnows is installed.
5 Recovery process
a) Connect the USB Flash Drive to your Eee PC and turn on the Eee
b) Press “Delete” at the boot screen and you will be able to open BIOS setup page
c) Go to Boot tab and set the Hard Drive to USB flash and set it to first priority drive
d) After booting from USB Flash Drive, WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment) should start and finally Symantec Ghost
e) Click “OK” and then “Local > Disk > From Image”. From the pulldown menu on the top choose your USB Flash Drive. It should be drive X:, because Windows assigned this drive letter during boot up. From here you can choose the image file ASUS.GHO.
f) Now you have to select the destination drive. Of course this should be the Eee BOX hard drive
g) The next window will show you the destination drive details. Here you can change the partition layout or just click “OK” to keep the default settings.
h) The ghost image ASUS.GHO was password protected. You have to use the password “mbrcd” to proceed. There will be one last question “Proceed with disk restore?”. If you click “Yes”, the process will be started
b) Press “Delete” at the boot screen and you will be able to open BIOS setup page
c) Go to Boot tab and set the Hard Drive to USB flash and set it to first priority drive
d) After booting from USB Flash Drive, WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment) should start and finally Symantec Ghost
e) Click “OK” and then “Local > Disk > From Image”. From the pulldown menu on the top choose your USB Flash Drive. It should be drive X:, because Windows assigned this drive letter during boot up. From here you can choose the image file ASUS.GHO.
f) Now you have to select the destination drive. Of course this should be the Eee BOX hard drive
g) The next window will show you the destination drive details. Here you can change the partition layout or just click “OK” to keep the default settings.
h) The ghost image ASUS.GHO was password protected. You have to use the password “mbrcd” to proceed. There will be one last question “Proceed with disk restore?”. If you click “Yes”, the process will be started
6 Install and setting your Windows
It was a big pain to install Windows and set up all things. It took hours to complete. After Windows installation is done, you can navigate the ASUS drive folder on your USB flash drive and start the setup program. It will automatically install all drivers for you.
Now it is time to enjoy your brand new EEE BOX.
