Can't boot WinPE 2.0 from USB-Stick

[FireGeier]

I'm using the newest available WAIK and trying to boot WinPE2.0 from USB-Stick. I was following the steps from WAIK-Walkthrough "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD"

Everything went fine expect that UFD was booting on Testsystem.

NOTE:

The Testsystem is able to boot from UFD generally and I've prepared BIOS settings for it. I'm able to boot from this stick generally, too. But it does not boot WinPE.

I've read in the newest Readme.rtf of newest WAIK that you've to follow the BCDEDIT Steps from WAIK-Walkthrough "Boot Windows PE from Harddisk" and replace all "partition=c:" entries through "partition=boot".

Here are the advices from the Walkthrough:

Bcdedit –createstore c:\temp\BCD
Bcdedit –store c:\temp\BCD –create {bootmgr} /d “Boot Manager”
Bcdedit –store c:\temp\BCD –set {bootmgr} device boot
Bcdedit –store c:\temp\BCD –create  /d “WINPE” –application osloader
Bcdedit –import c:\temp\BCD

The last command returns a GUID value. Substitute GUID with this value in the following examples.

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID osdevice partition=c:
Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID device partition=c:
Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID path \windows\system32\winload.exe

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID systemroot \windows

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID winpe yes
Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID detecthal yes

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –displayorder GUID -addlast

The first part till BCDedit -import is running fine. But the first command of second part - I've replaced GUID with the long number -

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID osdevice partition=boot

gives me the following error:

An error has occurred setting the element data.

The request is not supported.

I've no clue what to do now and the help of BCDedit is not realy helpfull.

Any help would be highly appreciated!

Martin

Edited December 8, 2006 by FireGeier

[Jazkal]

Your problem could be that the winload.exe is not in the system32 folder.

copy all the files in the System32\Boot folder to the root of System32. This is a known bug that was reported to Microsoft, and was supposed to be fixed for the RTM release, but wasn't.

I use this command in my build script

xcopy "%source%\mount\Windows\System32\Boot\*.*" %source%\mount\Windows\System32\*.* /e /y

[FireGeier]

Hello Jazkal!

Thanks, for your reply. Cause I'm sure this would be the next trap I would run into. But if I understand that right, this will help for line three of the second part. Right?

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID path \windows\system32\winload.exe

Wouldn't it be a solution here to change the path to

\windows\system32\boot\winload.exe

instead of moving all the files?

My problem is that line one of second part gives the error allready. However I'll try out your solution.

Thanks again!

Martin

[FireGeier]

Problem solved partly...

replace all "partition=c:" entries through "partition=boot".

That's wrong!

You have to replace "partition=c:" through "boot".

After that BCDEdit commands will run fine.

Thank's MS for some further wasted days!!!

However USB-Stick is still not booting WinPE. But I guess that has something to do with combination of BIOS and Stick.

Martin

[FireGeier]

UPDATE:

OK.. Problem is "fixed" or better, I know what's causing the problem now. Like I've expected my BIOS USB Stick combination is behaving weired.

I redid everything from "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD" walkthrough. It was still not booting from stick.

So I turned off my test system and disconected the HD.

Turned system back on... and surpirse... it was rocking from the stick.

After endless time of booting I turned system off again, reconnected the HD, turned it back on... and still booting from stick.

Wiped out everything from Stick, followed walkthrough again, put stick into testsystem - HD still connected - and it was booting from HD instead of stick.

Turned off system, disconnected HD, turned back on... booting from stick.

Turned off system, reconnected HD, turned back on... booting from stick.

Hope, everything is clear now guys!

Thanks for helping!

Martin

[Innocent Devil]

i still havnt got it working

i even tried bootsect /nt60 m:

(m: -stick)

[FireGeier]

Hello Innocent,

first you need to know, if your stick is able to boot on your system. If BIOS is not able to boot your stick, than you'll not able to get it working. I know that there are a lot of boards around, where you've the options in BIOS menu to boot from USB, but at least nothing happens, if you realy try out.

To find out, if BIOS allows you to boot your stick, you should try to prepare your stick with diskpart - like discribed in WAIK walkthrough "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD". But there is an important thing I've found out for my stick and my system:

When I was trying to use diskpart within from a Windows Vista command prompt or from Windows XP command prompt it wasn't listing the USB-Stick. But the USB-Stick was recognized by the system.

Background:

Some UFDs are recognized as a Disk, what allows you to create diffrent partitions like on a HD, but some sticks are recognized as removable media. These Sticks you can't prepare like a disk from within Windows XP and it seems to be it's the same with Windows Vista.

So I was building a basic Windows PE 2.0 CD, booted the system and started diskpart. Windows PE was recognizing the same stick on the same system as HD. So I prepared the stick like discribed in walkthrough, and than used xcopy to copy all files from Windows PE 2.0 CD to the prepared stick.

Now I had to do the strange steps posted above (disconnecting HD) and it was working.

What kind of message you get, when you're trying to boot from your stick?

Martin

[Innocent Devil]

i have usb bootable bios

i had booted same with bartpe, got working

the stick is not recognized by diskpart in XP

but vista takes it allowing me to do all specfied in the walkthrough

but just the problem , it wont boot

then i tried Fedora's diskboot.img file to test

dd if=/media/fc6/images/diskboot.img of=/dev/sdb

did a reboot

pressing F10 got the bios boot menu

select the stick to boot ....... Fedora's Intall menu is ready on my Desktop

Now it is clear that it can boot

then why winpe cant ??

now im doing the ramdisk method

[FireGeier]

What kind of message you've got, when you were trying to boot the diskpart prepared stick?

Martin

[Innocent Devil]

No msg at all

1 sec blank screen

then it boots from HD

[FireGeier]

And if you disconnect the HD and boot system with UFD insert only?

Martin

[sitta]

Could some one post the steps required to create Bootable Windows PE 2.0 RAM Disk on UFD please?

Thanking in Advance.

[geezery]

I got the usb stick booting only when I first used the HP usb stick format tool.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/330

I also needed the MS Dos boot disk to get the needed files for the HP utility.

Then I followed the steps how to boot Pe from usb stick.

[FireGeier]

Could some one post the steps required to create Bootable Windows PE 2.0 RAM Disk on UFD please?

You just need to follow the steps of "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD" in WAIK-Help.

The other question is, if your combination of UFD and Mainboard/BIOS will allow to boot the stick at least.

Martin

[TehSuk]

Problem solved partly...

replace all "partition=c:" entries through "partition=boot".

That's wrong!

You have to replace "partition=c:" through "boot".

After that BCDEdit commands will run fine.

Thank's MS for some further wasted days!!!

However USB-Stick is still not booting WinPE. But I guess that has something to do with combination of BIOS and Stick.

Martin

Can you elaborate on the exact commands you are running to create the new BCD file? I'm having a hard time translating:

You have to replace "partition=c:" through "boot".

... into the actual BCD commands.

The verbiage in readme.rtf states:

Booting Windows PE directly from CD-ROM or USB flash drive

You can boot Windows PE directly from a CD-ROM or USB flash drive (UFD), not into memory (RAM). To do so, refer to step 4 in the "Walkthrough: Boot Windows PE from Hard Disk" topic, replacing the references to "partition=c:" with "partition=boot". For CD-ROM, you must still create an .iso file and then burn the image onto a CD-ROM. For UFD, you can copy the source files directly to a UFD device.

Thanks!

Edited March 9, 2007 by TehSuk