Spellbinder7’s Weblog

I posted a follow-up to an article posted on MSDN blog network. It dealt with the issue of installing WinRE to the hard disk (in a hidden partition) for recovery purposes. I added to the content of the article by simply restating the necessity to have the ability to create a secondary recovery CD for running select utilities.

http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/ (the article)

http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/default.aspx (main topics on Windows RE)

Here is my post (comment) to his wonderful article:

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.