WinRE and MSDaRT cannot see system restore points

[VoodooV]

My google-fu is failing me so I guess I'll ask for help.

I've been messing around with WinRE 3.1 I made a bootable USB disk and eventually I tested out System Restore, but for some reason, it cannot find any system restore points. I reboot normally and boot back into Win7, and launch System Restore there, sure enough, it sees plenty of restore points. I even create a brand new system restore point. I boot back into the WinRE stick and still, cannot find any system restore points.

I thought maybe it had something to do with the PGP encryption we've got on our laptops. I did add in the PGPWDE tools into the boot.wim and I can authorize myself to the disk so that it can see the drive, but I thought maybe something there was still interfering but I tried the WinRE on an unencrypted laptop and it too cannot see any system restore points

I also built a MSDaRT 8.0 stick today, but it too cannot see any restore points.

Any idea what I could be missing? Thanks in advance!

[Tripredacus]

I haven't used DaRT before, but the first thing I can think of (since you didn't mention it) was if the WinRE can see the hard disk at all.

[dahak]

I dont have my Dart image handy,lost my usb drive with it, so i could be wrong, but two things pop into my minds, after what Tripredacus said about it not seeing the hard drive

1) the tools are specific to version and bit ness of windows, ie you can only use Dart 8.0 32-bit on Windows 8 32-bit, but that will not work on win7 64-bit

2) I believe you have to log into the version of windows that is loaded for it to see the restore points. I remember it props for a login of windows.

[VoodooV]

I apologize, I'll try to be more clear.

A while back, I built a WinRE 64bit stick (based on WinPE 3.1) The goal was to have a recovery option for our encrypted Win 7 64bit laptops if they should ever fail to boot. I installed the pgp tools to the WinPE image so even though when you first boot up to WinPE, you can issue a command line to authorize yourself to the encrypted drive and the C drive can be viewed/explored/read etc.

details are here: http://blog.uvm.edu/jgm/2011/05/13/microsoft-emergency-repair-disk-pgp-and-windows-system-recovery/

Here's the thing though, even on an unencrypted laptop, I couldn't get the system restore to work on the WinRE image.

More recently, I started fooling around with MSDaRT 8 64 bit (Windows 8 based), unfortunately I'm not able to add the PGP tools to that because apparently PGP doesn't support 8 yet, but even on an unencrypted laptop, System Restore seems to not be able to see restore points.

Because of the PGP issues, today I built a MSDaRT 7 64bit image (Windows 7) That one, however IS able to see system restore points on an unencrypted laptop, however, when I add the PGP tools and try it on an encrypted laptop, even after authorizing myself to the C drive, it can't find any system restore points.

I can see how PGP can be interfering with things, and using Win8 tools on Win7 could cause an issue but what I am baffled about is why it can't see system restore points even on un-encrypted laptops. the WinRE 3.1 image should be able to see the system restore points on a Win7 laptop

Edited April 2, 2013 by VoodooV

[VoodooV]

I think I sorta see what's going on. I just don't know how to get around it.

after I run the pgp command line to authorize myself to the C drive. I can see the C drive now, but I have to somehow get WinPE/RE/MSDaRT to recognize that the C drive is available and to look there for system restore points. That was my understanding for why you have to run WINPESHL.EXE when I run WINPESHL.EXE it appears to start over and it appears to recognize the C drive and it even asks me for the admin password to authorize myself to the windows installation.

problem is, running WINPESHL.EXE seems to kill a bunch of needed services and loaded drivers because I noticed that after I run WINPESHL.EXE, I can no longer see my network card or USB drive. So it seems as though running WINPESHL.EXE got WinPE to see the encrypted C drive, but maybe it killed some driver or some service that system restore needs to work?

I did some reading and my understanding is that wpeinit is supposed to re-scan PnP and load drivers but it doesn't seem to do that, at least not that I can see. How do I reset WinPE back to it's default state after I authorize myself to the encrypted hard drive and re-load all drivers and services so that system restore has what it needs?

EDIT: after more investigating, it appears that MSDaRT doesn't load the usb drivers period. I never noticed before, but even prior to running WINPESHL.EXE, the USB stick is not recognized, wheras WinPE apparently does. so that's something else I'll need to figure out how to add to MSDaRT

Edited April 4, 2013 by VoodooV

[Tripredacus]

Does diskpart exist in DaRT? Diskpart has a rescan command that should pick up the "new" drives.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

[VoodooV]

Does diskpart exist in DaRT? Diskpart has a rescan command that should pick up the "new" drives.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

yeah, diskpart is in MSDaRT.

Already tried diskpart and rescan. no dice. what I'm currently doing is using the DriverView utility to compare what drivers get loaded in WinPE vs what drivers get loaded in MSDaRT and see if I can use drvload to load the missing drivers in MSDaRT. I also ran NET START to compare what services are running, but they appear to be identical.

DriverView: http://community.landesk.com/support/docs/DOC-23264

[jaclaz]

Maybe stupid suggestion, but why don't you build instead a PE with Make_PE3 or a win7PE_SE project?

AFAICR there is full support on both for USB disks/devices.

jaclaz

Edited April 4, 2013 by jaclaz

[VoodooV]

because USB access isn't even the real issue. The main issue is getting around the PGP encryption (which I can), but how do I get WinRE/MSDaRT to see the system restore points?

MSDaRT sees the restore points on an unencrypted drive just fine. PGP has a command line tool to authorize myself to the drive so that the C drive is visible but I need to somehow "reset" WinRE/MSDaRT so that it too recognizes the C drive and System Restore can get to what it needs to get to.

I've got this same question out on Symantec's forums for PGP and I haven't gotten a response there either. I've seen two articles that say that all you have to do is reload winpeshl after authorizing and everything will be seen. That's great, but it doesn't work for me. It's certainly possible that i'm missing something, but Im running out of things to try short of starting completely from scratch.

Edited April 4, 2013 by VoodooV

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

EDIT: after more investigating, it appears that MSDaRT doesn't load the usb drivers period. I never noticed before, but even prior to running WINPESHL.EXE, the USB stick is not recognized, wheras WinPE apparently does. so that's something else I'll need to figure out how to add to MSDaRT

I have yet to use the Windows 8 DaRT or any Windows 8 PE, but USB drivers always worked in all the previous DaRT releases and even on the proto-DaRT ERD Commanders from System Internals. I would find them useless without the ability to save files to and from USB thumbdrives ( well, I guess networking might still be useful, but USB is critical for offline systems ).

This project for Win8PE SE appears to have USB successfully working, but again, I have no first-hand knowledge.