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WINPE & NLITE


pbolduc

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Hi,

Whoever is responsible for making nlite can you please make it compatible with WINPE so i can build a PE image with addition mass storage device support. Thank you

My original Microsoft POST:

I have already successfully automated a bootable universal XP CDROM installation which has many integrated mass storage drivers, hotfixes and programs that I want pre-installed etc... Now I'm taking it one step further. I want to place this entire process on a hidden recovery partition rather than on a CD. Here's what I know:

My hard-drive needs to contain 2 partitions. The primary, (first partition NTFS) will be the destination partition for my XP install. The second partition (recovery partition FAT32 which will be marked as active and bootable through the "F9" key immediately after POST. ( Don’t worry about this process I have already the MBR editor to perform this stage) I will need to contain a custom WinPE installation similar to my custom XP CD which needs to include a large variety of mass storage controllers as this automated restore process can also be universal to each unique PC. No I don't want to use PC angel because it’s not a free solution and it’s more than I need and the OPX is less than impressive because:

1) I haven't received a response back from my e-mail I have sent to opx@microsoft.com.

2) You can’t install multiple mass storage drivers without specifying each individual driver file which would take me years to do since there are more than one driver associated with each driver.inf

3) Microsoft doesn't offer support for the OPX tool. I figure if I can add an unlimited amount of mass storage drivers to my XP CD I should be able to do the same to the WINPE installation somehow????? I’m surprised Microsoft hasn’t already bought the rights to Nlite as this utility so far has proven to be the most useful, but unfortunately it doesn’t offer support for WINPE.

My intentions of using WinPE on my recovery partition is to:

1) Load a variety of mass storage devices to support many hard-drive controllers so that I can resize my primary partition to maximum drive size and quick format using NTFS.

2) Kick off the C:\winnt32 /syspart:D: /tempdrive:D: /dudisable /unattend:unattend.txt /makelocalsource) This should prep the primary partition and begin the install on next reboot. The reason why the selected drive is D is because from the recovery partition containing WINPE my primary partition is no longer primary and active, making it the secondary partition and just before reboot I run a batch file to deactivate the recovery partition and hide it as my install will then run from my primary first partition. Once the system is rebooted and F9 is not initiated my primary partition should then become “C:” Which should include a prepped install of XP to commence. This process will be used to speed up the installation process as CD media installations are way slower than partition to partition installations.

My confusion resides in the fact that I cannot add many mass storage devices to winpeoem.sif > OemDriverDirs= because it generates an error stating theres an error on this line. I figure it’s because there is a character limitation to how many paths I can specify. Preferably I would like a sollution that would enable me to add future mass storage drivers to a indivdual path in a subfolder such as:

OemDriverRoot="windows\system32\drivers\”

OemDriverDirs=001, 002, 003, 004, 005 etc… and adding additional drivers to the sequential list. Currently I have folders 001 to 085 for my mass storage devices.

The majority of the mass storage drivers share common file names therefore they need to reside in separate folders. After this problem is resolved I think by searching through the forms I should be able to figure how to create batch files for diskpart and format that will enable me to automate the rest of the process by placing links to my batch files in STARTNET.CMD or would I have to use a winbom.ini file? Not to sure about this process either.

Sorry about the lengthy post, hopefully someone can shine a bit of light on this topic for me. Thanks -Paul

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