Thread: Using EWF on regular WinXP

Well I had to mention I do not use hibernation and virtual memory. If you do the same, you can start with deleting hidden file in your root directory called "hiberfill.sys". Then its only cosmetics. I delete all INF files from your Windows dir (called OS in my case), TXT, LOG files... and OOBE, WEB, HELP, SYSTEM folders... all the junk left by nLite, such as DOS enviroment in System32...

So what's the best way to install to CF? Do you just do a regular install (using an nlite bootable CD) to the CF card in the IDE slot, or do you install first to a regular HDD and then copy the system over to a CF disk?

I always do all the work on HDD and then transfer image on CF using an utility such as Ghost, thus I keep writes to CF on minimum. I do not want my CF to burn even before I am actually done with my CarPC install

Originally Posted by mpattonm

Well I had to mention I do not use hibernation and virtual memory. If you do the same, you can start with deleting hidden file in your root directory called "hiberfill.sys". Then its only cosmetics. I delete all INF files from your Windows dir (called OS in my case), TXT, LOG files... and OOBE, WEB, HELP, SYSTEM folders... all the junk left by nLite, such as DOS enviroment in System32...

..and you can find lot more stuff that can be painlessly deleted here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?...pic=32463&st=0

sfiorito so can u email me these files u have listed???? we then can try to get sum one to host it.

Does anybody have any idea how to get hibernation to work with EWF? I want to try to get XP installed on a Compact Flash card so it'll survive winter here in Ottawa, Canada. That way I can hook my laptop drive as a removable USB device.

you're not going to be able to use hibernation because think about how it works: it writes your RAM to disk... which is protected by EWF. An option is to run the "ewfmgr c: -commitanddisable -live" to turn ewf off and then hibernate. Actually, no that won't work because then EWF will be turned off when you come out of hibernation. I think your best bet is to disable any unnecessary services and startup programs, run bootvis, and defrag your drive before you set EWF and just use a regular bootup. I don't know if it's possible to set the hibernation file on another drive (not protected by EWF), but that would be your only possibility.

On a side note... anyone else getting the "error booting up" windows message when you reboot? I didn't get it on VirtualPC, but I'm getting it on my epia system. I wonder if windows writes something to disk saying it booted up successfully, but since it's filtered by ewf windows doesn't see it on reboot and gives me that message. I just select start windows normally and everything is fine, so if I keep seeing it I may just disable the error bootup screen.

Another question: is there any significant speed difference between CF cards? I'm looking at getting a 512MB or maybe 1GB CF card to use with an nLite WinXP install, but I was wondering if certain cards have faster read speeds??

This has really reinvigorated my mp3car project!! Unfortunately because of school I had to set this aside, but this ewf thing came about just in time for the holiday break!!

I tried it in VMware. It seems to be working. I made changes to the file system and rebooted. The changes were gone. One problem though. Everytime it boots I get the error where it says
"We apologize for the inconvenience... blah blah blah, but windows did not start successfully. blah blah blah, giving me the options to start in safe mode or normallly.
I select start normally and it boots no problem with all changes reverted. Any thoughts on what might be causing this?

Note: I could import any registry files into the registry. I got a permissions error(yes i set everone's persmissions to Full Control). I had to input everything manually.

I'm getting excited about this. It'll be amazing if I can get this to work with hibernation!

SFiorito is going to email me the files then I will upload them for you guys.