This article describes how to create a Gatedefender eSeries installation USB drive for image files provided by Panda and to verify the integrity of the image file. The procedure applies to Windows users with XP, Vista, or Windows 7/8/10 systems.
NOTE: Starting with release 5.0, Panda releases installation images as .iso file, rather than .img. However, the following procedure and suggested software can be used also with .iso files.
It is assumed that you have a Panda Gatedefender eSeries image file and its correspondent md5sum checksum on your computer. This article takes as example an image and its correspondent md5sum file saved in C:\.
In order to create the Panda Gatedefender eSeries installation USB flash drive you need to download an application that allows to burn img and iso images to USB flash drives disks, like win32 Disk Imager.
Download the file and extract its content into a suitable directory, like C:\Win 32 Disk Imager.
Why use md5 checksum?
Md5 is an algorithm widely used to verify data integrity. In a few words, it receives a file as input and produces an hexadecimal string that can be used to verify that a downloaded file is the correct one and it has not been corrupted (e.g., due to a faulty download).
For every software image produced, Panda supplies the calculated md5sum in a separated file. To verify that your image file has not been corrupted, verify that the string contained in the txt file (open the file e.g. with notepad) is the same produced by the win32 Disk Imager tool (see the procedure below, step 6).
Procedure - IMG files
The procedure is straightforward to follow. Please use the following screenshot as reference.
- Make sure that you have administrative rights on your PC.
- Plug a USB flash drive in your computer: the software application should detect the USB flash drive automatically.
- Start the Win32 Disk Imager tool.
- Click on the folder icon to select the image that should be burned.
- Click on the drop-down menu on the right to select the USB disk device.
- In the middle of the window, the md5sum checksum is calculated. If the string is the same as the one in the txt file opened in notepad.
- Click on Write to start the burning process.
- Wait for the application to copy the image on the USB Flash Drive (this may take a few minutes).
Procedure - ISO files
The only difference with the procedure explained in the previous section is at step 4: Here, make sure that you chose *.* in the drop-down menu Files of type:
At this point you can choose the .iso file and continue the procedure from point 5.
Troubleshooting
- Some USB Flash Drives may not be compatible and prevent appliances from booting. In this case you may have to try with a different USB Flash Drive model.
- The partition is often Linux-based, so Windows may not detect it.
