How to install Windows RE on the hard disk

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

wosully — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 16:28:32 GMT

This worked great for me the first time, and I think we should make this part of our image for recovery purposes.

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

jamesperrycms — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:50:40 GMT

Hi, this is a fantastic concept - I've been seriously looking into how to install WinRE on the hard disk for all the Vista PC's we build, as we're planning on shipping a recovery solution on the hard disk, rather than ship external media. However, I've found that the autofailover breaks after running Sysprep /generalized and the PC no longer boots into WinRE after 'first' boot. We need to use the generalize command, because we mass duplicate the hard drives when an image is sealed. Any ideas on how to maintain the boot configuration data after generalizing? I've looked EVERYWHERE for any other referenece to this issue.

Thanks

James

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

WinRE — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 02:02:43 GMT

Yes, generalizing a Windows image causes auto failover to break. This is known issue and there is a work around for it. You should run SetAutoFailover.cmd (or equivalent) during the OOBESystem phase of setup by setting this in your FirstLogonCommands.

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

hswear3 — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 02:07:00 GMT

Hi. My computer had Windows XP on Partition 1 and Windows Vista on Partition 2. I also had the recovery console installed on XP. I used Partition Magic to move the XP partition up and created a new small partition at the start of the disk for WinRE.

After I rebooted, I couldn't access XP (which was now on Partition 2). I used the WinRE notepad to edit boot.ini and now everything works.

What's confusing is that many drive letters have changed. I have 2 320 GB hard drives and 4 USB drives with 12 partitions (there's a reason)!

So my question is: "Is there a way to preconfigure the volume to drive letter mapping when building the WIM?"

Thanks.

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

WinRE — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 07:12:45 GMT

You may be able to assign drive letters using setup while installing Vista. Please look for documentation about Windows System Image Manager. The following component can be used to assign drive letters:

Microsoft-Windows-Setup\DiskConfiguration\Disk\ModifyPartitions\ModifyPartition

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

jamesperrycms — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:20:56 GMT

Regarding running the SetAutoFailover.cmd (I have this script) during the OOBESystem phase of setup - is there any supporting documentation for doing this? Also, as I'm looking to install WinRE on the hard drive, won't the autofailover just break again, if the end user restores the factory image?

Final question, there are numerous references to OEM's being able to store this factory image into the WinRE partition, but again, very little information as to how to set this up, to allow the end user to easily restore the image from WinRE (I'll be using a *.WIM Image). Do you know of any supporting documents? We don't have any software developers here, so it would most likely have to be a 'no frills' script that is run from a command prompt that utilises Imagex.exe - has anyone managed to create a restore solution using this method yet?

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

someone — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:00:17 GMT

I read about some sort of "Self-healing" functionality in Vista and Longhorn Server's NTFS. Would you elaborate in detail on this?

re: How to install WinRE on the hard disk

WinRE — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 21:08:25 GMT

Regarding NTFS self-healing, you can find some information from the following WinHEC 2006 presentation:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/b/9/5b97017b-e28a-4bae-ba48-174cf47d23cd/STO123_WH06.ppt

re: How to install Windows RE on the hard disk

samsung — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 09:43:40 GMT

Why your blog updated very slowly?

re: How to install Windows RE on the hard disk

hilde — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:28:13 GMT

How does one go about creating the magic hidden partitions on Longhorn Server? I have created the WIM file and I'm ready to plop-n-drop, but I can't figure out how to create the recovery partition before the Windows OS partition.

Any help is appreciated!

Hilde

re: How to install Windows RE on the hard disk

jeffXYZ — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:22:51 GMT

I like these articles, by reading over the less than recent posts I can see that I am a little late in posting (sorry). Anyway, I think it might also be a given that a user may want to have a backup Windows RE on CD. This is sort of a given, but for the record (helpful for running cloning utilities):

#1 login to Windows PE build directory:

copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe2_x86

#2 as stated in your blog post:

mkdir c:\winre_image

mkdir c:\winre_mount

#3 as stated in your blog post:

imagex.exe /export /boot e:\sources\boot.wim 2 c:\winre_image\winre.wim “WinRE”

#4 as stated in your blog post:

imagex /mountrw c:\winre_image\winre.wim 1 c:\winre_mount

#5 as stated in your blog post:

1. By using a text editor, create a file called winpeshl.ini that contains the following text:

[LaunchApp]

AppPath=x:\sources\recovery\recenv.exe

2. Copy this file to \Windows\System32 directory in your mounted Windows RE directory. For example, copy winpeshl.ini C:\winre_mount\Windows\System32

#6 as stated in your blog:

Unmount the image by using ImageX. For example,

imagex.exe /unmount /commit c:\winre_mount

#7 now move winre.wim to folder c:\winpe2_x86\ISO\sources and delete old boot.wim and rename winre.wim to boot.wim

#8 finally, CD back to c:\program files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\ and issue the following command:

oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso

Now burn winpe_x86.iso to a CD, this gives you a secondary Windows RE with your favorite utilities that can be accessed through a root command prompt.

re: How to install Windows RE on the hard disk

Perk — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 20:21:15 GMT

HI, Great Blog and thanks for posting all your great advice, But......and it's a big one..Ive been bashing my prune trying to get the setautofailover.cmd to apply the nescessary changes in the recovery partition in the OOBE system pass and it will not apply! it works fine if im in end user maode or audit mode but as far as im aware it needs to trigger the command during the OOBE as the generalize option will break it, i have done this and i can see it in \panther\unattend.xml but if i OOBE /generalize nothing happens, the partition is still visable and F8 has just the regular options! am i the only one with this issue? Please any advice would be greatly appreciated!

amd64

JSComputerTech — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:55:31 GMT

What would need to be changed for a 64bit system?

Would the winpeshl.ini still go in the system32 directory?

Would i use the boot.sdi file from the amd64 directory or still use the x86 version?

And if i want to add inf driver files would i have to be running inside a 64bit OS?

re: How to install Windows RE on the hard disk

sergejk — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:48:16 GMT

Hi!

I have followed steps to install it on HD, but there are errors ...

I manage to see the option "Repair your computer" in advanced menu with F8, but after i click on it i get the following error:

...

boot selection failed because required device is inaccessible

...

Is someone having a similar problem(s)?

Any help would be appreciated ...

Brgds,

Sergej