Victoria hdd 4.47 bootable flash drive. Creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows OS

Bootable flash drives are the main means of dealing with computer failures that make it impossible to boot the operating system from the hard drive. However, in addition to these rather rare situations, bootable flash drives are used by system administrators for other purposes. In particular, if “stray errors” are observed, that is, problems that cannot be associated with the launch of certain programs or the overload of a particular PC component.

Typically, such problems are associated with viruses, but if a full-scale anti-virus scan or even reinstalling the operating system does not produce results, the search for hardware defects begins. They can be “broken” RAM cells or “bad sectors” of a hard drive; if the former can only be dealt with by replacing the entire RAM module, the latter can be blocked using special applications. But first you need to find them.

Description of the Victoria program

A popular tool for diagnosing hard drives in the CIS is the Victoria program. It is free and undemanding in terms of computing resources, but, like any other “fundamental” (that is, low-level, working directly with hardware, drivers and basic PC control codes) utility, it is designed primarily to run under DOS.

In addition, if it is impossible to load the operating system - which happens quite often when there are problems with the hard drive - there is no other way to call it from an external drive. Therefore, if there is a need to diagnose a hard drive, the best option is to use someone’s work computer and make a bootable USB flash drive with Victoria. This procedure does not take much time and requires only a few supporting applications.

In principle, you can write Victoria to a flash drive in different ways, among which the simplest and most logical is to add this program to a flash drive with DOS. However, there are other ways.

Formatting a flash drive

In any case, the drive needs to be formatted first. This can be done in any convenient way – either through third-party utilities or using standard Windows tools.

In the latter case, you need to right-click on the flash drive icon in the “My Computer” window, select “Format”, set the file system to “FAT 32” and click “Start”, agreeing with the warning that the files on the flash drive will be erased (their , of course, you need to copy it to other media before formatting).

Recording Victoria files

After formatting is complete, you can use any file writing application that can create boot sectors. These include the common ghost32.exe, in which, after launch, you just need to specify the path to the Victoria image via:

"Local" -> "Disk" -> "From Image"

and Grub4Dos Installer, in which after launch you need to specify the required media

in the “Disk” field, check – > “Whole disk (MBR)” and click -> "Install"

Then copy the Victoria files to the root of the USB flash drive. After this, the Victoria program will be launched from the flash drive when connected to a computer whose BIOS starts with USB drive.

Although the Dos version of the Victoria program seems archaic, it performs its functions fully and efficiently. In addition, unlike the version for Windows, it is possible if it is the only one in the laptop or computer, that is, the operating system is installed on it.

Copy the file to the flash drive with ERD Commander in the root directory Victoria.IMA from the archive. Now you need to add a menu item to load Victoria.

Open the file in Notepad or another text editor menu.lst. At the end you need to add the following entry:

map --mem /victoria.ima (fd0)

chainloader(fd0)+1

rootnoverify(fd0)

That's all. The flash drive is ready. Now another item will appear in the flash drive menu Victoria, selecting which will launch the Victoria 3.52 program.

2. How to make a separate flash drive with Victoria

If you don't have a bootable flash drive yet, you must first install the bootloader on the flash drive. To do this, you will need an archive with an installer, which can be downloaded.

Run the file hpusbfw.exe(from the grubinst.rar archive) to format a USB flash drive and create a boot sector (MBR) on it. This is a necessary condition for booting from a flash drive.

In line Device select your flash drive. We leave the file system as FAT32. In line Volume label write the name of the disk (this name will be displayed, for example, in Explorer). Click Start to start the process of formatting our future Bootable USB flash drive with ERD Commander. During the formatting process, all files on the flash drive will be deleted, so if there is anything you need there, make backup copies. After creating a bootable flash drive, it can be used as before, because the Victoria program takes only a few megabytes.

We ignore the message about deleting files and click Yes to confirm formatting.

After formatting the flash drive is completed, a success message will be displayed. Click OK.

After this, close the program window by clicking the button Close.

Run the file grubinst_gui.exe to install the bootloader on a flash drive.

Copying files from the archive victoria-usb.zip to a flash drive. The bootable flash drive with Victoria is ready! A flash drive can still be used to store any information. I recommend creating a separate folder in which you will store your data, so as not to accidentally erase the files necessary to boot your computer from a flash drive.

For a long time, optical disc drives—CDs, and later DVD-ROMs—were used as a source for downloading and installing an operating system (OS). But their popularity has declined; many computers now do without optical drives at all.

But portable USB drives - flash drives - have begun to be used en masse. It is logical that the palm among portable loading devices passed to them.

What it is

A bootable flash drive is a portable storage medium that is connected to the USB port of a computer on which the OS is ready to download and install.

For Windows XP, a 1GB drive is sufficient; Windows 7 or 8 require a device with at least 4GB capacity.

What to create

Windows includes tools that allow you to create a USB drive with a pre-installed OS without using third-party programs. But it is quite difficult for an untrained user to do this; it will take time and effort. Therefore, a considerable number of utilities have appeared for creating bootable flash drives.

The most popular of them:
Acronis True Image;
UltraISO;
Victoria;
Rufus;

DAEMON Tools.

Let's look at each of these programs in more detail.

Video: making a bootable USB flash drive

Acronis Among manufacturers of software for data backup and working with hard drives, Acronis has long been a leader. In the latest versions of this company's products Acronis True Image and Acronis Disk Director

It is possible to create a USB or ISO.

Algorithm of actions:

After this, go to the window for selecting the drive to record to, or creating an ISO image if you need to burn the disc. It is better to pre-format the flash drive by selecting the FAT32 file system.

Finally, confirm your choice and wait until the recording ends. When loading from a flash drive, the following menu will appear:

Now you can not only start your computer, but also restore the OS from a backup, troubleshoot problems with HDD partitions, and install several operating systems.

Ultra ISO

Ultra ISO utility very popular as a program for burning and editing CDs, creating images from them, as well as CD/DVD emulation. However, among its many functions there was also a place for bootable USB.

Working with the program is easy:

Be sure to select “USB-HDD+” in the “Recording method” line.

If necessary, format the flash drive at the request of the program. That's it, you can use it. Thus, you can create a boot device not only for Windows, but also for Linux.

Victoria

The Victoria utility was developed by Belarusian programmer and entrepreneur Sergei Kazansky. This is a small but very functional and effective program.

Its advantages:

free;
no installation required;
fast work;
tiny distribution size;
a large number of tests;
supports ACHI mechanism.

Victoria up to version 3.52 inclusive, is designed to work under DOS. Now the official beta version 4.46b and the unofficial 4.47 have appeared for working under Windows, but we will consider the most famous 3.52.

This time, in addition to the utility, you will also need a bootloader program. For example, HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool from Hewlett Packard is suitable. Download and unpack the archive.

To be able to boot from a USB drive, it needs an MBR - boot sector. To create and format it, we use the file hpusbfw.exe from the downloaded archive.

Further actions:

in the “Device” column we find the desired device;
the file system does not need to be changed - let it be FAT32;
write any volume name in the “Volume label”;
Click “Start” to start formatting.

As a result we get flash drive with installed ERD 3Commander. Naturally, during the formatting process all data will be destroyed. So move them somewhere for a while. Then you can write it back - Victoria will take no more than a few megabytes.

We confirm the deletion of data and wait for the formatting to complete. After the message about successful formatting, click “OK”.

Now you need to install the bootloader on the flash drive using the grubinst_gui.exe file.

The next step is to copy the Victoria files to the USB flash drive. Unpack the archive and copy all the files from there. Ready!

Moreover, a USB drive can, as before, be used to store data. Just create a separate folder for them so as not to accidentally delete system files.

Despite being somewhat archaic, the program is very useful for:

low-level testing. Helps to identify faulty areas of the hard drive, the so-called “bad sectors”;
access time measurements. In addition to assessing HDD performance, it identifies suspicious surface areas that may soon fail;
reducing noise levels. Can control the speed of movement of the read heads;
irretrievable destruction of information;
setting passwords.

Rufus

Like the previous program, Rufus is free software. This is a small utility consisting of just one file. It does not require installation, and working with it is not difficult at all. After launch, the following window appears:

Further algorithm:

select the required device;
Set the remaining settings as shown in the figure;
in the line “New volume label” indicate what it will be called flash drive after formatting;
select one of DOS, MS-DOS or FreeDOS as the boot OS.

If you need a Windows or Linux system, then select the “ISO image” option in the column. After that, click on the button with the image of the drive and indicate the path to the distribution kit.

According to the developer, “Rufus” works faster than all its analogues, without being inferior to them in functionality.

DAEMON Tools

Like UltraISO, Demon Tools is primarily designed to work with CD/DVD drives, creating disk images and device emulation. Burning bootable USB drives is one of the additional features.

Launch “DAEMON Tools” and select “Burn boot image to USB” from the “Tools” menu.

After that:

connect the USB drive and select it in the “Drive” field;
in the “Path to image” line, click the “Browse” button and specify the container with the OS distribution;
Check the "Overwrite MBR" option to make the USB drive bootable. Make sure the Windows WMI service is enabled;
check the “Format” box, specify the required file system and indicate the name that the device will receive after formatting;
check the amount of free space, make sure there is enough of it;
If all the necessary parameters are set, click “Start”.

Wait for the recording to finish. After that, close the program by clicking the “Finish” button.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive using the command line

If you want to do without additional programs, then this option is also possible. Windows has the ability to create a bootable USB flash drive using the command line called “cmd.” The device is ready, all that remains is to copy the OS files to it. Don't forget to extract them from the archive or ISO container.

As you can see, there are a variety of ways to create bootable USB devices. You can choose any one that suits your specific situation. But don't forget to set it to boot from USB when you start your computer. This can be done one-time by selecting the appropriate item in the boot menu (relevant for laptops).

Or change the settings in the BIOS, giving priority to USB devices. To do this, enter the BIOS menu by pressing the Del or F2 key during boot (there may be different options for computers from different companies). In the "Boot" section, find the list of boot devices and move USB to the first place.

A final word of caution is that very old computers do not have USB boot capabilities. Then there is no alternative to fragile and bulky optical disks. In all other cases, a compact and reliable flash drive is preferable.

The Victoria HDD DOS program was created for diagnosing and restoring hard drives.

Victoria program download in Russian

Victoria DOS ISO

Installation Features

Victoria runs under DOS, that is, the computer must be started not from the hard drive, but from the media on which this program was recorded.
Works on any computers and laptops only with HDDs with an IDE or Serial ATA interface.
The Victoria program is in Russian but can be switched to English.
The archive contains the following files:
WinSetupFromUSB.
Victoria 3 52 RUS ISO.

To start using the program, you need to burn it to a CD/DVD disk or flash drive. The boot disk is made by the Alcohol program, and using the WinSetupFromUSB program a bootable USB flash drive is made from the Victoria HDD image. In order for the Victoria HDD ISO program recorded on a flash drive to run, you will need to set the flash drive first in the BIOS.

Features of the program

To control the program, use hotkeys or the command line.
Checks the disk for bad Victoria sectors, and also recovers information from damaged disk sectors.
Victoria can fix bad sectors on a hard drive in several ways.
Victoria produces low-level formatting.
Detects all connected ATA and SATA controllers.
Displays the passport and C.M.A.R.T data of the disk.
Performs a software reset of the hard drive to factory settings.
You can control the level of acoustic noise of the hard drive.
You can resize the drive and restore it to its factory size.
Tests the mechanics of hard drives.
Sets and removes ATA password from HDD.
There is a file viewer for files.
Provides information about the logical partitions available on hard drives.
Adjusts the disk rotation speed in the HDD.
Can stop the spindle motor.

How to use Victoria HDD program

A bootable USB flash drive or disk is inserted with the Victoria program. Run the program from DOS. You can only work in the program using the keyboard.

Download Victoria HDD in Russian

In the program you can immediately see which keys are used to launch which functions; to do this, press the F1 key. To close the tooltip, press any key on the keyboard. Next, press the P key. A list will be displayed in which, using the arrows on the keyboard, select the very last item and press Enter. A table will appear with all connected hard drives. If Victoria does not see the hard drive, then you will need to go into the BIOS and switch the HDD operating mode from AHCI to IDE. To select the disk that needs to be checked, you need to click its serial number and press Enter. After this, press the F4 key. A menu will appear in which you select the verification mode, the graph construction mode and, having selected Start, press Enter. The program will begin checking the hard drive; if you need to interrupt the process, press the Esc key. If you don’t change anything in the menu, a quick test of HDD Victoria will start and will not change anything but will display bad sectors.

Victoria HDD image download

If you want to work in the program using the command line, then press the down arrow on your keyboard and then the F1 key and you will see a list of commands for the command line.

How to make a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program

Although the Dos version of the Victoria program seems archaic, it performs its functions fully and efficiently. In addition, unlike the version for Windows, it can be used to check the disk for bad sectors if it is the only one in a laptop or computer, that is, an operating system is installed on it.

Copy the file to the flash drive with ERD Commander in the root directory Victoria.IMA from the archive. Now you need to add a menu item to load Victoria.

Open the file in Notepad or another text editor menu.lst. At the end you need to add the following entry:

map --mem /victoria.ima (fd0)

chainloader(fd0)+1

rootnoverify(fd0)

That's all. The flash drive is ready. Now another item will appear in the flash drive menu Victoria, selecting which will launch the Victoria 3.52 program.

2. How to make a separate flash drive with Victoria

If you don't have a bootable flash drive yet, you must first install the bootloader on the flash drive. To do this, you will need an archive with an installer, which can be downloaded.

Run the file hpusbfw.exe(from the grubinst.rar archive) to format a USB flash drive and create a boot sector (MBR) on it. This is a necessary condition for booting from a flash drive.

After creating a bootable flash drive, it can be used as before, because the Victoria program takes only a few megabytes. Yes to confirm formatting.

We ignore the messages about deleting files and click

After this, close the program window by clicking the button Close.

Run the file grubinst_gui.exe After formatting the flash drive is completed, a success message will be displayed. Click OK.

to install the bootloader on a flash drive. Select an item Disk and select your flash drive from the list (in my case, a 4 GB flash drive, so I chose hd1 3859 Mb). In field Part List choose Whole disk (MBR).

. If the list is empty, you need to click the Refresh button to refresh the list. After this, press the button Install

A command line window will appear with a message indicating that the bootloader was successfully installed on the USB flash drive. Click Enter to continue.

Copying files from the archive After this, press the button Quit