If you wish to make an E2B USB drive manually (for some reason!) without using the scripts provided or RMPrepUSB.exe, please follow these steps:
- Create Legacy\MBR PRIMARY partitions (not GPT) on the USB drive using a suitable Partitioning program such as EaseUS Home Partition Master or AOMEI Partition Assistant, MiniTool Partition Wizard, etc.
Primary Partition 1: NTFS (recommended not larger than 127GB) Primary Partition 2: FAT32 (recommended at least 600MB-1GB) max is 32GB for FAT32 Primary Partition 3: (optional) If you have a large >128GB USB drive then format as NTFS or exFAT for remaining space Primary Partition 4: MUST NOT BE DEFINED
- Note: A maximum of only four partition table entries are available on a legacy\MBR drive.
- Some partition utilities default to creating Logical Partitions – make sure you change the Advanced option from Logical to Primary!
- Maximum size is 2TB for Legacy\MBR drives
- Partition 1 + Partition 2 should total less than 128GB for compatibility with some buggy legacy BIOSes!
- Only later versions of Windows 10\11 will show/create/access multiple partitions on a USB flash drive. Windows Disk Manager can lie – do not trust it when using USB flash (Removable) drives – use a 3rd party utility instead!
2. Download the latest version of E2B .zip file and extract the contents to an empty temporary folder on your system drive – e.g. C:\temp\E2B.
3. Copy the contents of the new extracted folder at C:\temp\E2B\ to the root of the first partition on the USB drive. Your E2B drive should now have a \_ISO folder in the root (i.e. \_ISO) as well as about 15 other files in the root .
4. From the download folder (C:\temp\E2B) double-click on the file at “\_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\Install grub4dos to E2B USB drive.cmd“. Do NOT run this file from the USB drive. This will install grub4dos to the E2B USB drive. Take care to select the correct drive when asked!
5. Download the latest version of agFM as a .zip file and extract the contents directly onto the 2nd FAT32 partition. This will provide UEFI boot support. You will need to boot to Partition 2 for UEFI-booting.
If you have an older Windows version (XP/7/8) system and are using a USB Flash drive, then to access Partition 2 you will need to temporarily switch it with Partition 1. To do this, run Switch_E2B.exe and click the ‘Access Partition 2 on a Removable drive’ button – then copy the agFM files to the empty FAT32 partition – then click on the ‘Access Partition 2 on a Removable drive’ button again to reset the partition order and gain access to Partition 1 again.
6. Run the script “\e2b\Update agFM\Update_to_latest_Ventoy_version.cmd” from the 2nd partition to add ‘Ventoy for Easy2Boot’. Plugins for Ventoy can also be added.
7. If you want to add the latest ‘Official’ Ventoy version and convert it to image files – see here for details.
Once you have made the E2B USB drive, you can update it at a later date using the \Make_E2B.exe utility and then click on the ‘Update E2B Drive’ button. Run Step 7 to remake the latest ‘Official’ Ventoy images.
See the pages on E2B, agFM and Ventoy for Easy2Boot for more information or get the eBooks :-).