Create a WinPE Boot Disk for Imaging & Repair

March 30th, 2007 Posted in Windows Vista

Windows VistaTo create and deploy images of Windows Vista without any 3rd party tools like Symantec Ghost, you’ll need a bootable WinPE CD.  Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) is a powerful yet small version of windows that will boot from a CD or DVD and give you a command line.  It’s today’s equivalent of a really powerful version of the Windows 98 boot disk essentially.  The process to create a bootable WinPE disk is relatively long, but pretty painless. 

To get started, you’ll need to download the Windows Automated Installation Kit or WAIK for short.  The WAIK includes all the tools necessary to plan for deployments and create, deploy, & customize images.  The download is a whopping 992.2MB, so feel free to take a walk to get some coffee while you wait.  Once it’s downloaded, you’ll need to burn the image to a DVD or mount the .img file and then install it.  After the install, you’ll need to open a command prompt and follow these steps:cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\
copype.cmd x86 C:\WinPE_x86In the above command, you can choose either x86 for standard 32 bit machines, amd64, or ia64. You can also choose any directory you like for the output files, but a directory indicating architecture is always a good idea now that 64 bit machines are becoming more prevalent. You now need to copy ImageX to the tools directory of your new image. ImageX is Microsoft’s new tool for creating & deploying WIM images. mkdir C:\WinPE_x86\iso\Tools
copy “C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe” C:\WinPE_x86\iso\ToolsCreate a text file with your favorite text editor with the following data in it and save it as wimscript.ini in C:\WinPE_x86\iso\Tools.[ExclusionList]
ntfs.log
hiberfil.sys
pagefile.sys
“System Volume Information”
RECYCLER
Windows\CSC
[CompressionExclusionList]
*.mp3
*.zip
*.cab
\WINDOWS\inf\*.pnfImageX will automatically detect wimscript.ini if it’s located in the same folder with the ImageX executable. Now you’re ready to create an iso image. From the PETools directory of WindowsAIK do the following:oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.isoNow burn the iso to a CD with your favorite burning program (Nero, Easy CD Creator, etc).





  1. 9 Responses to “Create a WinPE Boot Disk for Imaging & Repair”

  2. By Andrew J. Leer on Oct 30, 2008

    So wait a minute…

    You said that you can use ia64 for 64-bit Intel processors right?

    Well assuming that the directories in the AIK installation are the supported architectures.

    Please see my blog post here…
    http://userssuck.com/2007/03/30/create-a-winpe-boot-disk-for-imaging-repair/

  3. By Andrew J. Leer on Oct 30, 2008

    Sorry my bad….
    My blog post here…
    http://leeand00.tiddlyspot.com/#%5B%5BCreating%20a%20Windows%20VIM%20Image%5D%5D

  4. By admin on Oct 30, 2008

    Andrew, ia64 would be used for the Intel Itanium 64 bit architecture. Most likely you’ll want to use the amd64 option which will work on the Pentium D, and the Core and Core2 series of Intel processors.

  5. By Jack on Dec 10, 2008

    Question..
    “Create a text file with your favorite text editor with the following data in it and save it as wimscript.ini in C:\WinPE_x86\iso\Tools.”

    Tools is a file, not a container. Trying to save it with my text editor “in” Tools just asks to replace the tools file….??

    Other than that question, flawless guide!! Thanks!

  6. By Jack on Dec 10, 2008

    I think you might have to add

    mkdir C:\WinPE_x86\iso\Tools

    Before you copy imagex.exe to it…otherwise you end up with a WIM file called “tools” that you are unable to copy wimscript.ini to?

  7. By Jeremy on Mar 25, 2009

    Followed the instructions to the letter but ImageX does not run from the PE disk. It looks like it cant find the program. Do we know if anything changed recently?

  8. By admin on Apr 5, 2009

    Jeremy,
    I believe your problem may be caused by what Jack pointed out above. I forgot to add that you need to create the Tools folder, before you can copy imagex into it.

    Also, after booting the WinPE disk, you would need to cd into the Tools directory before being able to run imagex, since the Tools directory isn’t in your path.

    I hope this helps. Sorry for the confusion.

  9. By Matt Minotaur on Jan 6, 2010

    So… where is your Boot.wim mentioned in all this???

    People, it seems nobody really does their homework, the winpe.wim file that is created in the PE reference build is not there just for decoration, this winpe.wim has to be copied to the sources folder and renamed boot.wim.

    Attempting to create a PE CD or DVD following the steps above, will ultimately produce a roughly 30MB in size .iso file and this will not do.

    Now, is there anyone who will attempt to correct me here??

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