I'm using WinPE 2005 from the Windows 2003 SP1 source on a Sandisk USB flash drive. I've used this setup without issue on both desktops and laptops until recently when we received laptops with SATA controllers. I edited txtsetup.sif and successfully added the device strings for the SATA controller so that PE can see the hard disk. My issue now is that for some reason when SATA is enabled, and I boot from the USB key, the USB key gets a volume # of 1. This is problematic when I attempt to run Ghost 8 using the following command:

ghost32 -clone,mode=prestore,src=image.GHO:1,dst=1:1,sze1=V -rb

What happens is that even though the flash drive is assigned letter X, and my two existing NTFS partitions are C: and D:, the Ghost command is trying to restore the image to the first partition on Volume 1 which is assigned to the flash drive. So in this instance I have the following:

Volume 0 - E: - CDROM

Volume 1 - X: - USB Flash Drive Running PE (Removeable)

Volume 2 - C: - NTFS Windows System Partition

Volume 3 - D: - NTFS Data Partition

Obviously I do not want this to happen. I want to restore my partition to C: regardless of the Volume #. Oddly enough, the behavior does not occur when I boot PE from a CD regardless if SATA is enabled. Also, if I turn off SATA and use ATAPI/IDE mode while booting PE from USB, I get the C: drive as Volume 1. Is there any way to either force my USB device to take Volume 1 upon bootup or is there a way to force Ghost to restore the image back to the C: partition? I was thinking I could probably use some sort of script to check the current Volume status but I'd like a simple solution as possible.

Thanks

Personally, I would go with a script to determine the proper volume number. Regardless of this specific issue, you are not guaranteed that the C: partition will always be on volume one. It may not be the simplest solution, but it is the proper one.