Avin

I'm running some code that uses FindFirstFile/FindNext, CreateDirectory, and CopyFile in a recursive function that recursively copies a source directory and all subdirectories to a destination path (which may not exist initially). The code works fine on my XP PC, and generally works on PE as well, however it keeps failing to create the directory Q:\windows. Other directories parallel to that are being created perfectly fine. Thinking that perhaps there might be some sort of protection against creating a windows directory, I had my function create a directory called "xyzzytemp" instead of "windows" if it was supposed to create such a directory and then use MoveFile to rename it to "windows" ... however the CreateDirectory call would still fail. The error I received was 87 (ERROR_INVALID_PARAMETER) but I cannot see how the parameter is invalid for only this directory and not every other directory. Any ideas? Are there hidden differences between standard API functions like those I am using between their implementations on XP and PE? [Edit: I figured out the problem. The format had not yet completed by the time I copied the Windows directory.]

Alright, I've resorted to splitting the aforementioned drive into three partitions now, one with XP one with PE and the third with Linux, all booting from Grub on the MBR (and all work!). The Linux partition is not even used, and in fact I removed it from the boot menu, but I put it on so I could get Grub installed. This seems to solve my problems although it's a crazy approach : now I have three operating systems, the second is only for recovery, and the third I don't even want. But I guess it's sufficient for me. If you have any advice on why the setup in my above post wasn't working or how I could get it to, let me know. I might still consider switching back.

Ok, here is what I've got in more detail: I have two fobs. One that cleans and installs Windows XP, running the following diskpart script first: The second fob contains a bootable image of WinPE (exactly the same as the first), except that it doesn't automatically install Windows XP - in fact it just goes into WinPE and gives you a prompt. I just took the same files from the first fob and modified the winbom.ini.What I did was I booted using the first fob, which installed WinXP (Home edition, by the way) onto the second partition ©, and then once I booted into that XP installation I installed the Recovery console and copied the minint folder, and winbom.ini off the fob onto C. I rebooted and that was when I experienced the working dual boot of winPE and XP off that hard drive. So then I copied the boot.ini, ntldr, bootsect.dat, and minint folder that was on the hard drive onto a subfolder (called "backup") on the second fob. My goal now is to use only the second fob to get the hard drive configured with the same partitions, however with the first partition set as the active partition, not the second. So I booted using the second fob, and once in WinPE I ran the same script as above, although I omitted the "assign letters" because I didn't think that mattered - I guessed what you confirmed, that the letters were only relevent to the software. I reformatted both new partitions and copied the contents of the backup folder to the first partition, which is also now C. So the same ntldr is there from the XP home installation, the same bootsect.dat, the same boot.ini, and the minint folder is the same. Does setting one partition to be active versus the other affect the bootsect.dat? That is another thing that would have changed. Do I need to have the PE ntldr? I don't think I actually had it on the hard drive before, when I had the dual boot working, so I figured it was unnecessary. Here is the contents of the boot.ini, by the way:

Thanks for the response. Theoretically, the partitioning should have been the same before as it was afterwards. I had a primary partition © that was 4000 MB and another primary partition (D) that took up the rest of the 40 GB disk. I don't believe I did so, but if I change the letters assigned to the partitions, does that affect the bootsect.dat?

Hi all, I have read several threads on instructions for dual-booting WinPE and WinXP, and I successfully have been able to reproduce getting WinPE to dual boot with WinXP Home (by installing the Recovery console and then copying the Minint folder and Bootsect.dat, and editing the boot.ini). I have a USB flash drive that boots into Win PE. I want to be able to run a .bat file (or executable if need be) from within this instance of WinPE that will: 1. Create two partitions on the single hard drive, clean them, and format them 2. Copy over the necessary files so that when I next reboot, I will be able to select between WinXP and WinPE both booting from seperate partitions on the hard drive. The partition with WinPE on it needs to be the active partition. So after I got WinPE and XP dual booting from C as mentioned above, I copied the root contents of the C drive and minint folder onto the fob in a seperate location from the WinPE files already there. Then once booting into WinPE from the fob, I used diskpart to clean and then partition the hard drive, then format them and copy the files I had copied onto the fob into the C drive, which I had set as the active partition. Now when I restart, I get the same boot menu I had gotten before from when I had XP and PE dual booting successfully, and XP rightly fails to load because I never reinstalled it, but PE does not either: I get the error message that it couldn't find ntldr. Yet ntldr is indeed still present on the C drive (the XP version of ntldr, not the PE version, as I noted they were different). I had thought that it was ntldr that loaded the boot.ini to begin with, am I mistaken? At any rate, how do I get it to recognize the ntldr that is present? Does the file need to be on a specific sector of the hard drive? What can I use to put it there? Thanks, Avin