WinPE 2.0 on UFD (USB Flash Device)

[mickregan]

Searching away and couldn't find this here.

WAIK User's Guide -

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

Download and open the WAIK.chm (help file).

Search for "boot" and "ufd".

Follow instructions for "Building a Technician Computer" then continue the Walkthrough.

You will need: -

- .NET Framework 2.0

- The latest Business Desktop Deployment (BDD) from the Vista Beta 2 CPP. (It contains the actual WAIK, ImageX, etc).

- A relatively new USB Flash Drive (for good read/write speeds). The size of the UFD device must be at least 64MB larger than your Windows PE image.

- Access to a computer running Windows Vista.

I hope this is enough info. I am going to play tonight as my work's Dev Lab is currently not setup with any Vista Boxes.

Cheers.

PS. I'm not sure if this is stupidly obvious info. It did take a while to figure out what I was even looking for...

Edited August 2, 2006 by mickregan

[louis.wang]

Why do you need a computer running Windows Vista? Do you not intend to use the winpe.wim that comes with the WAIK?

I've been able to create a bootable USB key in the following manner:

* Copy the folder "boot" from C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86 to the USB key

* Create a folder named \Sources on the USB key

* Copy the file winpe.wim or boot.wim to the \Sources folder on the USB key, and rename it to boot.wim if necessary

* Copy the file bootmgr from C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86 to the root of the USB key

* Install the Windows Vista Boot loader by running the command, with the appropriate drive letter for the USB key:

bootsect.exe /nt60 d:

Not to contaminate your results, but please report on what you did with your computer running Windows Vista. I have no means, right now, of creating a Japanese bootable PE image. I hope I can create one by accessing a Japanese Vista machine, though, but have no ideas how.

[JuMz]

Does the above help file / waik guide include how to use the new WIM format to deploy XP similarly?

[mickregan]

Why do you need a computer running Windows Vista? Do you not intend to use the winpe.wim that comes with the WAIK?

* Install the Windows Vista Boot loader by running the command, with the appropriate drive letter for the USB key:

bootsect.exe /nt60 d:

Not to contaminate your results, but please report on what you did with your computer running Windows Vista. I have no means, right now, of creating a Japanese bootable PE image. I hope I can create one by accessing a Japanese Vista machine, though, but have no ideas how.

The Vista requirement appeared to be because of some sort of Formatting differences with the FAT32 USB format. I have since found, as you did, that any FAT32 format will do.

The main trick is to get the MBR of the floppy to look for the "bootmgr" file instead of "ntldr" or "IO.sys".

Which is exactly what you've done with "bootsect.exe /nt60 d:" (where d: is your newly formated usb device).

As far as I know the current versions do not natively support anything other than US English. Undoubtably this more to do with Registry settings and Language folders not in the winpe.wim than anything. I'm not even gonna try that yet. I'm still wooping about getting my key to boot.

Okay, I now know more.

From WAIK help file: -

-Add a Language Pack

-

-The following procedure demonstrates how to use PEImg to add a language pack to a Windows PE image

-offline. Before you can run any PEImg command, you must first apply or mount the base Windows PE

-image (winpe.wim) using ImageX.

-

-The /lang command sets the locale and the UI language of a Windows PE image. A language pack for the

-specified language must already be installed. You can perform this on a Windows PE image that was

-previously prepared with /prep.

-

-To add a language pack to a Windows PE image offline:

-

-peimg /lang=<culture> <image path>, for example

-peimg /lang=en-us c:\winpe_x86\mount\Windows

Cheers

Edited August 3, 2006 by mickregan

[mickregan]

Does the above help file / waik guide include how to use the new WIM format to deploy XP similarly?

As far as I can see the ImageX tool is capabale of imaging and compressing XP with SP2. The main consideration is that while Vista is Hardware Agnostic (doesn't care where you redeploy the image), Windows XP will still have a fit if the hardware changes too much.

the command should look something like -

imagex.exe /capture d: c:\XPSP2.wim "MyWinXP-SP2" /verify

- d: is your XPSP2 root drive

- c:\ is the location to save the WIM file

- "MyWinXP-SP2" any name you want for your image

Cheers

[milli]

I am following these steps but I get a disk error while booting from USB flash:

1. copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe_x86

2. Format UFD as FAT32 on a Vista machine

3. xcopy c:\winpe_x86\iso\*.* /s /e /f e:\ (e: flash drive)

4. bootsect /nt60 e:\

If I take this USB flash and boot a machine I get "disk error".

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[mickregan]

From my limited experience, I'd say that the step "4. bootsect /nt60 e:\" hasn't worked properly because the files were in use on the drive.

I experienced the same and tried again. After a "full" format in Vista, careful "Safely Remove Hardware", bootsect with the /force tag included and another "Safe Removal" mine started working.

Handy hint: try bootsect-ing before copying files to usb drive. test booting an empty drive and see if it looks for "bootmgr".

I have no other suggestion but trial and error with USB ports and an empty USB drive.

[Kucht]

...

If I take this USB flash and boot a machine I get "disk error".

...

I had the same problem. Try using the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" for formatting the USB flash. With my stick only this way worked.

Kucht

[p4ntb0y]

Why not just burn of a CD and then insert your UFD nad then follow your instructions to format etc...?