MOAT - Mother Of All Thumbdrives

http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11445

From a single USB flash drive (UFD) / thumbdrive, boot:
- UBCD4Win http://ubcd4win.com
- UBCD  http://www.ultimatebootcd.com  
- Knoppix http://knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Need fast thumbdrive, have tested with 2G OCZ Rally2
(need to remove some big modules from UBCD4Win) & 4G OCZ Rally2.

Start with UBCD4Win Install & do updates as you would for building a CD.

i. Optionally - update spybot (http://www.safer-networking.org ) from 1.5.2 by copying all files from the program directory of a working, installed copy to C:\UBCD4Win\plugin\AntiSpyware\Spybot\. You can edit the .inf file to reflect new version instead of 1.5.2.
Build - no ISO output necessary.
Replace all instances (it may not be necessary to replace every instance; I didn't test) of ntdetect.com, setupldr.bin, and ramdrive.sy_ / ramdrive.sys in the C:\UBCD4Win\ tree with the equivalent files from Windows Server 2003 SP1 or SP2 (or greater?)
I've heard SP1 files should work, I only tested with SP2.
W2K3SP1 or 2 files are older than the XPSP3 files, but they can handle USB booting.
Download from http://www.microsoft.com , and run -x to extract the entire service pack to a directory, then pick out the files you need.

The following is adapted from http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9630,  with corrections/notes made.
i. As admin, run PEtoUSB (http://gocoding.com/projects/petousb/4CO22...USB_3.0.0.7.zip ). I've only tested using "Enable Disk Format" / "Quick format"; it may work some other way.

ii. This will get you to a booting system on the flash drive, but it boots the NT way, not the syslinux way (i.e. no menu to choose UBCD4Win/UBCD/Knoppix).
iii. Run syslinux.exe -s -d /syslinux X:, where X: is your flash drive. I used v3.71, later is probably OK/better. Download from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/.  
iv. Don't bother with downloading the "boot menu" files he lists. (But see note below***)
v. Copy cat.c32, chain.c32, menu.c32, reboot.c32, and vesamenu.c32 from the syslinux you downloaded to the thumdrive's /syslinux/. (The .c32 files are small utility programs that run when called from by syslinux)
Try booting the windows environment. If you get a BSOD, verify that all instances of ntdetect.com, setupldr.bin, and ramdrive.sy_ / ramdrive.sys on the thumbdrive are from the W2K3 service pack.

Add UBCD
Use the CD or extract the files from the .ISO.
Copy all of the directories from the root of the CD / .ISO to the thumbdrive, except /isolinux/ and /syslinux/. /images/ will overlap with your existing /images/ directory, and that's fine. The filenames don't conflict, just the directory name.
Make backup copy of thumbdrive's /syslinux/syslinux.cfg. Edit /syslinux/syslinux.cfg
i. Add the following stanza:

LABEL UBCDDOS
  MENU LABEL Launch "The Ultimate Boot CD (DOS)"
  KERNEL menu.c32
  APPEND /menus/main.cfg

ii. Optionally, for better compatibility, change DEFAULT vesamenu.c32 (graphic menu) to DEFAULT menu.c32 (text menu) and remove the line MENU BACKGROUND LOGO.PNG.
iii. Optionally customize MENU TABMSG & MENU TITLE.
iv. Optionally remove TIMEOUT 200.
Make a backup copy of the thumdrive's /menus/main.cfg. Edit /menus/main.cfg to include this stanza:

LABEL back
   MENU LABEL Back to main menu
   KERNEL menu.c32
   APPEND /syslinux/syslinux.cfg

Add Knoppix
Copy the \KNOPPIX\ directory from the Knoppix CD to the root of the USB drive.
Copy the \boot\isolinux\ directory from the CD / .ISO to \KNOPPIX\isolinux\ on the thumbdrive. (This invalidates every entry in the knoppix menu, but that's easy to fix w/a global search & replace)
Edit the thumbdrive's /syslinux/syslinux.cfg to include the following stanza:

LABEL knoppix
  MENU LABEL Launch Knoppix
  KERNEL menu.c32
  APPEND /KNOPPIX/isolinux/knoppix.cfg

Copy the thumbdrive's /KNOPPIX/isolinux/isolinux.cfg to /KNOPPIX/isolinux/knoppix.cfg
Edit /KNOPPIX/isolinux/knoppix.cfg
i. Global search for KERNEL linux & replace with KERNEL /KNOPPIX/isolinux/linux
ii. Global search for initrd=minirt.gz & replace with initrd=/KNOPPIX/isolinux/minirt.gz
iii. Insert the following stanza at the top of the stanza list

      LABEL back
         MENU LABEL Back to main menu
         KERNEL menu.c32
         APPEND /syslinux/syslinux.cfg

iv.Optionally delete the TIMEOUT 300 line.
v.Optionally customize MENU TABMSG & MENU TITLE.
vi.Optionally make at least some cheat codes available. (Probably better to add your favorite cheat codes as a new stanza)
Add the following stanza

LABEL cheat
   MENU LABEL Cheatcodes (See note below)
   KERNEL cat.c32
   APPEND /KNOPPIX/mycheats.txt
   TEXT HELP
   This *EXITS* the menu system. Type 'menu.c32 syslinux.cfg' to return.
   ENDTEXT

Copy the thumbdrive's /KNOPPIX/knoppix-cheatcodes.txt to /KNOPPIX/mycheats.txt, and edit /KNOPPIX/mycheats.txt so it's no more than 24 (prettier) or 25 (more info) lines.


From the UBCD4Win menu, "Memtest86" and "NTFS for DOS" don't work, but that's OK because UBCD (DOS) supplies them - either ignore those options, delete the stanzas, or edit the stanzas to point to the UBCD equivalent.
***The "Windows™ Recovery Console" doesn't work either, maybe that is fixed by the bootfiles from http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9630?  I'll let somebody else test that.

For those who care, UBCD4Win goes first because USB-booting Windows is flaky (if I hadn't found PEtoUSB I don't think I'd have ever got it). Once that's running, it's pretty easy to add non-Windows syslinux/isolinux apps.

There's a lot of work left to "pretty-fy" the menu system; maybe the next person can upload some of that work here. Here's my mycheats.txt: (those superscript "3"s are ascii vertical lines)

... etc. -> http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11445