What is BartPE - for a newbie

Can someone explain exactly what is BartPE and what it can do.

I am having problems as per this thread -----> https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=159287 so maybe it will help me.

Thanks in advance.

 

Hi Geoff,

BartPE basically provides you with a CD-Bootable version of windows. Typical use would include recovering of data from a broken box, or spyware removal for example.

I notice from your thread that you have SATA drives setup - you can make a custom bart build with whatever drivers you want (it's not something I have done myself - just a tool I have used) so you should at least have a look at it.

Sorry I can't help you more.


Mike

 

Bart's PE Builder can create a disk to boot your computer into a limited version of Windows XP and run TrueImage.

Why would you want to spend the time creating such a disk when TrueImage creates a bootable Recovery CD with one click?

Test the Recovery CD - be sure to install the latest build of TrueImage and make a new Recovery CD from that build. Does your computer boot successuflly? Does your mouse work? Does the keyboard work? Can you see all your drives including internal IDE and SATA hard drives, the CD/DVD ROM drive and any external drive (USB or Firewire) or network drives that you use with TrueImage full system backups? If the answer to these questions is Yes, you don't need the Bart's PE Builder disk.

However, if the answer to some questions is No, then you need to test the various F11 switches available to make some hardware work. If that solves the problem, you don't need the Bart's PE Builder disk.

If you still can't get some of the critical hardware that you use to make full system backups to work with the Recovery CD, then a Bart's PE Builder disk may be a very useful alternative which will support your hardware with Windows drivers.

In your case, that would involve installing the SATA drivers when you create the Bart's PE Builder disk.

Note that you will have to have a Windows XP SP2 installation CD to create the Bart's disk. An OEM Recovery CD will probably not be sufficient, most are just images of the system when shipped. You must be able to install Windows XP from the CD.

 

Thanks Mike,

Am I right in assuming I would need to obtain the drivers for the hard drives I needed to read and write to. Would these drivers need to be Linux, Windows, etc?

Why doesn't everything just WORK.....

 

thanks jmk.

i haven't tried the recovery cd option yet, just the default settings for F11 when booting from the mbr.

I will give the recovery cd first and see what happens.

 

If that's not sufficient, the Bart's PE disk is a Windows operating system, so the SATA drivers that you need are Windows drivers. You already have them installed or Windows couldn't access the drives. If you didn't have to install them from a driver CD or floppy, then the built-in Windows drivers are sufficient, and a Bart's PE Builder disk will show all your drives.

 

Windows XP Pro saw both my Seagate and Maxtor SATA Drives without having to load any SCSI drivers (i.e. hit F6 when installing XP) on my new install, so BartPE should show them as well.

Thanks JMK,

 

Hello,

You can also try Ultimate Boot CD for Windows - a highly-enhanced BartPE. Comes with tons of goodies and will also support Acronis plugins.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

For more details, you might wanna try my article about that (see sig).

Mrk

 

A further reason for making a BartsPE disk in addition to those in jmk94903 post at 3 above is speed, from the TI rescue disk it takes nearly two hours to make a image of my system disk to a USB external drive (it is USB2), using a BartsPE disk the time comes down to approximately 10 minutes, not much longer than when booted into normal windows

 

There is also Reatogo-X-PE Boot CD, which uses Bart PE.

 

It appears that in order to make a BART PE CD, one must have an XP CD or the installation files on one's HDD.

I have a Dell Dimension 8300 which has a "reinstallation cd" for XP SP1. Would this suffice to make the PE CD?

Also, I have an IBM R40 Thinkpad with no CD, but a reintallation partition. How would I make the PE CD in this case.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Thanks Mrk,

Already started reading how to slip-stream xp sp2 into cd. I will definately give this a go.

Thanks for all the info.

 

Thanks Blackcat,

Am going to give Mrk's recommendations a go first, then I will try out Reatogo as well for a comparism (and some fun).

Cheers.

 

OK,

This is where I am at right now.
Created UBCD4WIN CD with XP + SP2 slipstreamed <------ no problem, just had to follow the instructions.
Test booted from CD with no problem. Computer Management recognised ALL my HDD's including my Acronis Secure Zone <---------- EXCELLENT!!!

Next hurdle is I need to now include Acronis T9.1 into the UBCD4WIN Bootable CD so I can access the Acronis Secure Zone to restore my data <----- How do I do this?

Thanks in advance


UPDATE:
I have downloaded "Acronis True Image Corporate Workstation 9.1 With or Without Universal Restore Builds Below 3625" (I have Acronis True Image Workstation version 9.1 build 3,602) from Mustang's BartPE Plugins url.

Copied it to Applications folder in Plugins.

Refreshed plugins - Acronis plugin found. Tried enabling and it generated this error message:




Now I'm a bit stuck...

 

Hello,
You're almost there.
You need to execute the TIH9-Get_Files+Lic.cmd to build the plugin.
It will copy the necessary files - and only then will the plugin work.
Mrk

P.S. Replace TIH9 with relevant filename, if necessary.

P.S.S. Read instructions on the site! That's what they're for!

 

The error message tells you to hit the Help button. The help file will tell you what to do.

 

Thanks guys,

I will give it a go this afternoon when I get home from work.

Cheers...

 

All done!!

Installed TI10 Home, copied over the BartPE plugin to UBCD4WIN plug-in/applications folder, reburnt, rebooted from CD, accessed TI10 Home, test restored part of My Documents from my removable SATA drive in caddy. PERFECT..

So happy, I now have on off-site storage solution with alternating drives.

Thanks to everyone who responded to this thread.