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MVP USB drive won't boot on Honor Magic Book Pro

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I've used MVP Builder successfully for a while - great stuff!

I have a 2TB USB3 drive with a 1GB partition and I use MVP Builder to install the boot files - the rest is Data, where I store images before copying them to more permanent storage.

Recently upgraded to ATI 2021 and MVP Builder worked fine and other machines boot OK with it.

Just replaced my wife's ancient Acer Laptop with an Honor Magic Pro (nice machine) - but I can't get the 2TB USB3 drive to boot and run - it just says 'Boot Fail' - cryptic....

I've disabled secure boot, It will boot OK using an 8GB USB2 Stick with the same MVP build.

So what 'tool' does MVP Builder use to write the ISO to the USB drive?

Any ideas how I can de-bug this bios failing in the Magic Book?

Many thanks...

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Colin, if you have a working 8GB USB stick, then you could try simply copying the \sources\boot.wim file from that stick to replace the one on your 2TB USB drive (same folder), but perhaps copy the one that is already there to another location.

Note: it is recommended to use at least a 2GB FAT32 partition for the MVP rescue media (I typically use a 5GB partition to allow for more versions that I can rename to test).

The MVP Custom PE builder does not use an ISO when creating the USB media, it creates the media directly on the USB stick from the WIM file or else would create a CD or DVD is that media is selected when prompted.

Many thanks for your Reply Steve, I'll try your suggestions.

I've already tried making an ATi image of the USB2 8GB image and copying that to the 1GB partition on the 2TB with same result.

I suspect there is something in UEFI partition details that the Magic Book doesn't like.

I have a few utilities, Easy BCD and I thought I had Haslo Easy UFI, but that seems to have gone...

So any ideas there would be appreciated.

Again,

Thanks.

Colin, it is possible to create a multi-boot USB 'survival' drive where the drive boot menu will let you choose which version of media to boot from.

The process of creating such multi-boot media can require a fairly steep learning curve but is well worth doing, especially as upgrading the media options later is relatively easy by just copying a new .wim file to the drive and editing the BCD files to point to the wim file.

The starting point for creating such a multi-boot drive is to create a larger FAT32 partition on the drive - I have used a 32GB FAT32 partition for my 2TB multi-boot drive, then use the Windows 10 Media Creation tool to make the FAT32 partition bootable with Windows 10 installation media to begin with.  I have selected both 32-bit & 64-bit Win 10 install options.

After that the next step is to add a new folder to the drive root, i.e. \wims as a place to store additional media .wim files, then to use a BCD editor tool to add entries that point to the individual .wim files for both Legacy and UEFI boot options.

For the editing, I use a free tool called BOOTICEx86_v1.3.4.0.exe from www.ipauly.com to modify the separate BCD files.

Hi Steve, happy new year - 2021 can't be worse than the last - can it?
Anyhoo, tried following you advice - with mixed results:
Downloaded and used MediaCreationTool20H2 on the MagicBook, that worked except (of course) it wiped the whole 2TB USB drive DOH! - good job I'd had the foresight to back it up to another drive......
That worked and the MagicBook recognised 2TB USB drive in it's boot options and booted OK.
BOOTICE - all attempts to access www.ipauly.com were blocked by Chrome, Edge and Opera browsers - wonder why?
Searching for BOOTICEx86_v1.3.4.0.exe brought up VirusScan.org showing:
'Scanner results:6% Antivirus software(3/44)found malware!@'
But I found it on https://www.filehorse.com/download-bootice/download/
Downloaded it and Kaspersky didn't object.
So I ran it (with no clues on how to use it) anyway and had a 'poke around' on a sacrificial UEFI laptop - I know how much damage you can do to a working system reading/writing boot sectors and such......
Loads of options, eventually settled for the BCD tab and selected the external 2TB drive.
I managed to add the wims folder, copied the MVP wim there and added the option to the boot menu - or so I thought.

But when I booted it on the MagicBook the new entry didn't appear.
I've since found there are another 2 BCD files on the drive in the x86 and x64 boot folders - maybe I chose the wrong one.
Anyway, I gave up on BootIce - for now....
As the drive was wiped anyway, I experimented with Rufus, and managed to make a UEFI boot disk from the MVP ISO:

That worked.
I also made an ATI image of the small 8GB MVP USB drive and restored that to the 2TB USB drive - that worked on a UEFI system, but not on any 'legacy' machines - ho hum...
So without further guidance on using BootICE, I'm stumped there.
As a stopgap, I can boot the MagicBook using the small 8GB USB stick and save to the 2TB USB drive - but I'd prefer to have a single device to backup to.

Apart from wanting to master BootICE, the other issue is creating a drive using MVP ATIPEBuilder.
The builder has no option to only create a drive from an existing WIM - so it's a chore to go through it all to just make a drive.
So again, what 'tool' does MVP Builder use to write the ISO/WIM to the USB drive?
I tried posting on the MVP forum - but was denied access - it seems I'm not worthy.
Yours hopefully....

Colin, please see the attached PDF document with screen images from my own multi-boot drive showing how this was setup using BootIce to edit the BCD entries, which should help you better understand.  This was shared with me by another of the MVP's Bobbo a couple of years back when I first went through the same learning experience, though the document was created today.

Once you have a working multi-boot drive, then updating any of the .wims is simply a case of copying in the new version of the file and overwriting the old one, keeping the same file name!

PS. the MVP forum is private with only the Acronis MVP's having access by invite from Acronis, so all other users are not allowed access either!

Attachment Size
564533-210014.pdf 926.89 KB

The MVP Tool uses a Microsoft command line utility named MakeWinPEMedia.cmd found in the ADK Windows Preinstallation Environment folder. You need a WinPE build environment to use it. It's not practical for you to use it directly.

The MVP Tool will deal with your 2TB drive if you create a 2GB partition on the drive formatted FAT32 and give it a drive letter. Only the 2GB FAT32 partition will be formatted during the build.

You also have the option to take an existing USB drive that boots into WinPE and just replace the boot.wim file in the sources folder with the wim file created by the MVP Tool. Use Acronis_MVP_PEMedia_amd64.wim found in the ISO\Wim folder and rename it to boot.wim.

 

Great Steve, thanks.

That explains why it didn't work - I updated the BCD in the legacy boot....

Thanks for the instruction pdf - I'll follow it, I'm sure it will work - if not I'll hassle you again :)

Mustang - yes, I don't want to mess with a WinPE build env....

Now I know I can just copy and rename a later wim onto the existing boot drive, that's an easy option.

Still don't understand why the MVP built on my UEFI Dell > 2TB USB drive isn't recognised by the MagicBook - it's worked on everything so far - JOOT (Just One Of Things) I guess.

Thanks to you both.

It's definitely some BIOS setting in the MagicBook causing the problem.

Not sure if this is relevant, but I understand that the Honor Magic Book Pro uses an AMD CPU. I believe it is Ryzen™ 5 4600H Processor, so there could also be driver issues or as Paul suggests a BIOS/UEFI setting problem.

Ian

Mustang, I'm sure it is the bios or a setting, bios is the latest, but can't find much to play with there:

Can't find much about 'TMP' or 'fTMP' - don't want to lock myself out of the machine....

As you can see it recognises the 8GB USB Transmemory stick, but not the Toshiba 2TB USB drive, both were attached.

Ian, yes AMD 4600H - nice price/performance balance (better than similar Intel) that's why I bought it :)

Thanks for the input.

Colin