Lightweight and versatile Grub4dos bootloader. As far as I know, there are two versions of this bootloader, the first for installation on optical disks and the second on a flash drive (which will be discussed). The Russian assembly of Grub4dos is the same version of this bootloader (Grub4dos v 0.4.6a), only the installer and russification of the boot menu have been changed. Well, now in detail: Grub4dos v 0.4.6a supports file systems: NTFS, FAT, FAT32, EXT, more stable version. Installation process. 1.Download the archive file and unpack it anywhere except a USB flash drive where the bootloader will be installed. 2. Run the batch file setup.cmd.

Then press enter and a menu appears: 1 - Format USB HPUSBFW RUS, 2 - GRUB4DOS Installer Installer, 3 - Copy files to USB copy files USB, 4 - Help Help, 0 - Quit Quit. From the beginning, format the USB flash drive (ATTENTION AFTER FORMATTING ALL DATA ON THE MEDIA WILL BE DESTROYED !!!). Be careful when choosing a device, otherwise you may format the wrong device by mistake.

In order not to accidentally install a boot record on the wrong disk (especially for the system hard disk, if you set this record, the operating system will not boot). There are two ways, the first is the volume of the hard disk drive much more than the volume of the flash drive, the second, if many flash drives are connected in the computer at the same time, then you can determine the one you need by the amount of memory or turn off the flash drives that are unnecessary in the work. So the boot record is installed, then the next stage is copying files (extracting files from a 7z-SFX archive).

The archive contains the files needed for work and 61 backgrounds and screenshots for them (59 pcs.) (If you wish, you can use screenshots as a background on your desktop). Additionally. You can edit the boot menu file menu.lst (opens with notepad) as you want, if you need help, open the Help RUS.chm help file. There are two versions of this file: the first is in the gfx folder, and the second is in the root of the flash drive. If you want to edit them, then the first one has the UTF-8 encoding, the second one is OEM-866. For an example of loading, some parameters are already recorded in them. Your task is only to correct the path to the file that you want to load. If you did everything correctly, then restart your computer and go into the BIOS and select your USB flash drive as the first device after loading the flash drive, you will see the boot menu.

Updated: 19.05.2015 - 12:16

X86 operating system loader (-64).
GRUB4DOS Toolbox for Windows is a set of GUI tools to facilitate the installation, configuration and removal of the bootloader.

Requirements:

1. Try to install only newer versions.
2. Windows 2000 or higher. The toolbox can be run on older versions too, but there is no guarantee.
3. GRUB4DOS can only be installed on 32-bit versions of Windows because the main bootlace.com will not work in a 64-bit environment. (64-bit Windows users wishing to use bootlace.com can give it a try.)
4. Administrative privileges are only required to access drives.

GRUB4DOS features

1. Installing GRUB4DOS to a disk, partition, or disk image. This feature requires the bootlace.com utility from GRUB4DOS, which is only compatible with 32-bit Windows. GRUB4DOS can be installed in the boot sector of a disk (MBR), in the appropriate locations on the disk, or in a disk image file. Disk images are often used to run one operating system inside another, through emulators such as Qemu, VirtualBOX, Vmware, and others.
2. DD data between disks, partitions or image files. This is an implementation of the basic features of the dd program, available for almost all operating systems. This feature is designed to copy data from disk / partition to file, from file to disk / partition, or from file to file for backup. For example, installed with GRUB4DOS Toolbox for Windows, GRUB4DOS can be removed by restoring the image file to disk.
3. Adding the GRUB4DOS multiboot menu to the WIndows multiboot menu (Vista / 2008 and above). This capability depends on the Windows built-in bcdedit utility. For Windows XP / 2000/2003 there is no such function and manual editing of the boot.ini file is required.
4. Setting up the menu.lst file. This is usually rarely required by advanced users.
5. Getting the UUID of mounted partitions. This is useful for writing a more robust menu.lst for GRUB4DOS.

Installing GRUB4DOS from GNU / Linux:
dd if = grldr.mbr of = / dev / sdb bs = 446 count = 1
dd if = grldr.mbr of = / dev / sdb seek = 512 skip = 512 bs = 1

1. Before starting the operation, it is recommended to format the USB flash drive with the HPUSBFW program (369Kb), having previously saved everything you need from it (if any)
2. Download this file: GRUB4DOS_RUS_v.2
3. Launch it. After starting, select (with the Browse button) the target, that is, the device on which we will install the Loader.
This is either a Hard Drive or a USB Flash Drive.
If we are going to bet on a USB flash drive, then select the root of the flash drive X: \
(X is the letter of your flash drive)
If we are going to install on the Hard Drive, then we select the root of the C: \ drive (or on which one you want, the main thing is to be Active)

4. Click the "Extract" button. After that, the Grub4Dos Installer 1.1 program will install to you in C: \ Program Files and drop a shortcut to your Desktop. At the same time, the bootloader files (Folder - Boot; Files - grldr, MEMDISK, MENU.LST) will be unpacked to the media you selected and the Grub4Dos Installer 1.1 window will open.

5. In the Grub4Dos Installer 1.1 program window, in the topmost line (drop-down menu), select the target for installing the bootloader
(HDD or USB flash drive) You do not need to select anything else.

6. Press the Install button.
7.If everything is successful, then you will see a console window with a proposal to press Enter, Press Enter.

Warning! If you are going to install the Boot Loader on your Hard Drive, you should first get experience with the GRUB4DOS Boot Loader, know how the Menu.lst file is edited, etc. You can also read about it.
By default, the Menu.lst configuration file contains menu items for booting from the first partition, the first hard disk, if your OS is installed in a different location, and you install the Loader according to this instruction without knowing how to boot the OS from another section, you will face difficulties.
So if you are unsure, it is not a good idea to install GRUB4DOS on your hard drive first.

Greetings!
This article will talk about a quick way to create a bootable Flash drive with a minimum of effort.

The process of preparing, formatting and writing the universal and powerful Grub4Dos bootloader to a USB flash drive will be described in detail. With the help of this loader, which is open source and is supported on the vast majority of computers (including old ones - from ~ 2006 release), you can download both various diagnostic utilities and install the operating system from a USB flash drive.

Preparing a Flash Drive

Preparing your flash drive means copying all important data from it, since in the subsequent formatting process, which is a prerequisite for creating a bootable flash drive, all data on it will be irrevocably deleted.

After creating a bootable area on a flash drive, you can continue to use it as a normal storage medium: copy and read files and other data from it. The boot area written to it will not be affected. You can still boot from it, run various service utilities and install the desired operating system.

Formatting a flash drive

We will carry out formatting and subsequent procedures in the rather popular Bootice utility. The tool is quite powerful, but don't worry - all the steps will be covered in detail.

First, we need to download it. Go to the official site, which, by the way, is in Chinese. But don't be afraid.

At the top of the main page, the name of the program in English and the version number are displayed - click on it.

The page that appears contains links. There are two versions: for 32bit or 64bit operating system. If you find it difficult to determine the bitness of your operating system and, accordingly, download the required version, then this material will help you.

Yes, do not be confused by the Chinese language of the program interface, which is shown in the screenshot. The utility supports the English interface language.

After downloading the archive with the program, unpack it. If you do not have an archiver program, then you can use a popular solution called.

After unpacking, run the file. The program is portable (does not require prior installation).

In the window that opens, select your media, and then click the button Parts manage.

As a result, an additional window will be displayed in which you will need to click on the button Format this part... And in the additional window that appears, be sure to specify a as the file system FAT32, the rest of the parameters can be left as default.

Press the key to start formatting the flash drive. Start.

After formatting, check if the partition is active. If the button Activate inactive (you cannot click on it) in the window Partition Management then everything is fine. Otherwise, click on it.

And so, the section is formatted and active. Let's move on to the next step.

Bootloader (boot area) entry

While in the main program window, click the button Process MBR.

A window will open Master Boot Record, in it select the item Windows NT 5.x / 6.x MBR, and then press the button Install / Config.

In the opened sub-window Choose MBR click on the button Windows NT 6.x MBR.

As a result, a message about the successful operation will be displayed. Close this message by pressing the button OK, and then the window itself Master Boot Record.

You will return to the main program window, where now you need to click the button Process PBR.

In the opened window Partition Boot Record you must specify the section from which the download will take place. Check that this section matches your flash drive (determined by size and name).

And just below, put a checkbox (dot) at the point GRUB4DOS 0.4.5c / 0.4.6a (FAT /FAT32 /NTFS /ExFAT) and click on the button below Install / Config.

An auxiliary window will open ConfigGRUB4DOS, in which it will be necessary to switch the option to item Version 0.4.6a, and then press the button OK.

An information window will be displayed indicating that the changes were applied successfully. Close this window and the rest, exit the Bootice program.

Now we need to download the Grub4Dos bootloader itself. We will download it from the official repository.

After opening the site, download the latest version. To do this, select the current year, and then find the archive with the most recent date in the list, and click on it.

Open the downloaded archive. If you are having difficulty opening it, then it will help you.

From the archive, we will need to copy only two files to the root of the bootable USB flash drive - grldr(has no extension) and menu.lst which is contained in the subfolder sample archive.

Grub4Dos menu configuration

Within the framework of this article, it will hardly be possible to consider all the "chips" of this bootloader. However, the basic functionality is still worth talking about.

The author of this material at one time created a diagnostic flash drive with utilities that you can see in the image. To this day, this flash drive serves faithfully, and downloads the utilities I need on the widest range of devices.

But back to configuring the Grub4Dos menu.

For example, you need to install Windows 7 (8.1, 10) from a USB flash drive. Just copy the ISO image (in the example it will be called WinInstall.iso) of the Windows distribution into the previously created folder image on a USB flash drive, and then open menu.lst notepad or text Notepad ++ and add the following lines:

Title Install Windows map /image/WinInstall.iso (0xFF) || map --mem /image/WinInstall.iso (0xFF) map --hook chainloader (0xFF)

You can read about adding Russian language support for boot menu items in the article.

Checking the functionality of the created bootable USB flash drive

The easiest way to do this is on a computer by choosing to boot from the Flash drive in the BIOS or by pressing the appropriate key when turning on the computer.

There is no universal way to enter the menu that would work on all computers. Here you need to be smart.

If you have a stationary computer, then using the article, find out the brand and model of your motherboard, and then use the search engine and enter the following query “ name of your motherboard boot menu ". If you have a laptop, then look at its name and enter the corresponding request.
You can read more about how to call the boot menu in the material.

However, if you edit the menu by adding new items for the loader, then it will be faster to view the changes using the MobaLiveCD utility.

Download it from the official site, save it in the desired location and run it as administrator.

In the window that opens, click on the button Run The LiveUSB.

In the window that opens, specify the bootable USB flash drive. Be guided by the drive letter.

In the next window, you will be prompted to create an image - refuse by clicking the button #.

If everything was done correctly, the boot process will be emulated, the corresponding menu will be displayed.

Congratulations! The bootloader is registered correctly and now your USB flash drive is bootable.

Short summary

In this article, we examined a quick way to create a bootable USB flash drive, from which you can both install the operating system and diagnose the PC using the appropriate bootable utilities.

Using this step-by-step guide, you can easily make a bootable USB flash drive with an individual list of utilities that you are used to using when working with a computer.

If you have any questions, you can ask them in the comments.

Allows you to create multiboot configurations.
This loader allows you to boot from various devices and partitions, supports loading various images (iso, img, ima, bin ...), understands the file systems FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3 and much more.

CREATION

Method one. For him, we need a program grubinst which will write the data about the grub4dos bootloader into the mbr area of ​​the required device, and the executable file of the bootloader grldr.

The contents of the archive grubinst_1.0.1_bin_win.zip.

The contents of the archive grub4dos-0.4.6a-2013-04-01.7z.

Unpack the contents of the grubinst archive. We insert the USB flash drive into the computer. Run from unpacked files grubinst_gui.exe .
In the window that opens, next to the word Disk select our USB flash drive from the list, usually the very last item from the drop-down list. If the drop-down list does not contain any values, then you need to click on the button Refresh.
In the dropdown list Part List choose value Whole disk (MBR)... Similarly, if the list contains no values, click on Refresh.

Click on the button Install ... After that, in response, we will receive a window with a message stating that everything has been successfully installed.

Press the key ENTER .

Now it remains only to copy the files to the root of our flash drive grldr and menu.lst ... The latter is the configuration file of the displayed menu, which we will see after booting from our flash drive. We take these files from the archive grub4dos-0.4.6a-2013-04-01.7z. File menu.lst lies in the folder sample.

It should look like this ...

The creation of the grub4dos bootable stick is now complete.

Now we set the boot priority in the computer BIOS to our USB flash drive, and boot from it. The download result is shown below.