VistaPE Guide - Creating a VistaPE CD

[MudCrab]

My illustrated guide to creating a VistaPE CD is now available on my website.

VistaPE Guide - Creating a VistaPE CD

The intent of this guide is to provide the necessary steps to allow anyone to create a VistaPE CD, whether you are an experienced computer user or someone who needs step-by-step instructions. Also included are instructions on adding mustang's Acronis scripts as well as his AddDrivers script.

I would like to thank mustang and K0lo for their support and help in the creation of the guide. I will try to keep the guide updated and current (as time allows, of course).

Please feel free to post any comments, suggestions or problems related to the guide.

[Bruce Mahnke]

Very nice accomplishment. You, mustang and KØLO have done an excellent job in creating this document.

Bruce Mahnke
Amateur Radio KØEHN

[K0LO]

Bruce:

Thanks, but don't send any credit my way - MudCrab has done all of the work and I only did the easy stuff like proofreading.

Paul has a terrific eye for graphic illustration and clear instructions. Everyone reading this should take a minute to look at the quality of his work; it's first-class stuff.

[Bruce Mahnke]

To Mark:

Well perhaps. I have seen many of your very helpful postings and believe that you deserve recognition for your suggestions.

Take care,
Bruce

[truthseeker]

Originally Posted by MudCrab

My illustrated guide to creating a VistaPE CD is now available on my website.

VistaPE Guide - Creating a VistaPE CD

The intent of this guide is to provide the necessary steps to allow anyone to create a VistaPE CD, whether you are an experienced computer user or someone who needs step-by-step instructions. Also included are instructions on adding mustang's Acronis scripts as well as his AddDrivers script.

I would like to thank mustang and K0lo for their support and help in the creation of the guide. I will try to keep the guide updated and current (as time allows, of course).

Please feel free to post any comments, suggestions or problems related to the guide.

You forgot to thank me :-)

[GroverH]

MudCrab,
A very nice presentation. You have achieved your goal of making it easier to understand and implement. And... thanks to those that helped you present this very professional document. Now, I will have to try it out even though I do not have Vista. Good job!

Addendum: June 5, 10:23 p.m.
Just finished reviewing the new guide via a high speed connection (I have dialup). All I can say is "Wow". Many may not realize it but there has been a tremendous amount of time spent on this presentation. This was not put together in just a few hours...there is days--even weeks involved here.

Once again, our thanks should go out to MudCrab for his willingness to invest this much time in the effort to provide knowledge to others. I know I certainly appreciate the help he has given me in the preparation of my guides.

[Earthling]

As Mark has said, this is really first class stuff, especially when compared with what passes for support in so many commercial organisations.

I built my VistaPE a while ago, but feel like redoing it now this is available - mainly to see what opportunities I missed the first time around.

[shieber]

That's the ultimate compliment for a guide, it's so nice some of us are remaking something just to use the instructions.

[dbknox]

Hi MudCrab I did't realise you had a site, I should have known,would you mind inserting the link to your site in your "contact info" so we can access it from anywhere by clicking on your name. There is so much usefull stuff and when I am away from my computer I would be able to find your site by simply loging in here and clicking on your name.
Thanks
Denis

[MudCrab]

Denis,

I have added the site to my profile and also to my signature. I am actually just getting the site up so it's still pretty new. I still have other pages to move over and hope to keep adding new guides and procedures.

[dbknox]

Thanks MudCrab, I was wondering why it wasn't under your signature. If there is more to come, I can hardly wait.
Meanwhile I am adding the link above to my "bookmarks"

[johnstar]

Lets not forget if t11 worked as it should none of this would be necessary ... i am still waiting for some sort of update to make the image i created on my vista system installable.

[truthseeker]

Originally Posted by johnstar

Lets not forget if t11 worked as it should none of this would be necessary ... i am still waiting for some sort of update to make the image i created on my vista system installable.

Nothing works "as it should". So get used to it and welcome to Earth.

We live in a world where nothing is perfect, so why do you demand TI should be perfect?

Can you name even a single operating system or program that works perfectly without even a single bug, glitch etc and that works 100% on every single PC in the world?

So make the best with what you have. TI works on my Vista and successfully backs up and restores.

[Marc_G]

Hi folks,

In the past I have used the excellent info here to create a BART PE CD with the Acronis 10 plug in and make that into a USB/Flash drive bootable environment. Now, I have a new computer which is a late-model Gateway (6 GB RAM, Vista SP1, yadda yadda), downloaded the latest TI11, and figured I would make a new VistaPE image to go forward with.

I ran into a string of issues. Any assistance appreciated. Here's what I did:

1) Ran the Mudcrab instructions using the AIK as the source (first time build, without including the TI scripts from Mustang yet). Got a bunch of errors (21 to be exact) that were filecopy errors. Browser.dll, lanman.drv, netman.dll and so on ending with sscore.dll.mui. Haven't burned the .iso yet to see if it's a coaster or not.

2) Added the Mustang scripts for TI11 (I have 8101). However, I don't have the registry key indicated in Mudcrab's docs (HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Acronis\TrueImage) Standard
Under Acronis in the registry there all I've got is the scheduler. No True Image shown under there. I did attempt to paste in my serial number to the Winbuilder entry area from my purchase confirmation email; that SEEMED to work but I didn't get as far as testing it because:

3) To attempt to correct the problem in 1) above, I switched from using the AIK to using the installation CD that came with the computer. It gave me an error:
X64 Source Not Supported yet, please choose different boot.wim container!

I'm a total Vista noob. Otherwise a reasonably experienced person. So, I'm interpretting all this as that my environment is a bit ahead of the tested config / instructions I'm trying to use.

Any thoughts about best route forward would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Marc

PS: Is there an easy way to simply replace the Acronis 10 stuff I've got in my Bart PE with Acronis TI 11? I don't have the computer that was used to make it; that was turned in when I Recently switched jobs. Sigh.

[mustang]

1. Some build errors are normal using the AIK as the source. Some of the scripts require a Vista DVD as the source. Without it there will be file copy errors.

2. You can't use my VistaPE scripts on a 64 bit system. See tha note on my website. You need to install TI11 in a 32 bit system and use that system to build your VistaPE CD. Then you can use the CD to work on your 64 bit computer.

3. A 64 bit Vista DVD is not supported by VistaPE and will not work as a source.

No to your PS. TI10 and TI11 are very different. Again you need to install TI11 on a 32 bit sytem and download the TI11 BartPE plugin.

[Marc_G]

Thanks Mustang... I may go ahead and set up a VM with Windows XP for this purpose. Wish me luck. Or, I may just stick with the Acronis recovery CD until this all gets sorted in time. I love the idea of having my external USB drive bootable into the recovery environment, but the CD is easy and functional in this case.

Thanks as always for your contributions.

Marc

[MudCrab]

I've used a VM for creating a lot of my VistaPE builds. It works great.

[Pistol]

Hi all,

I have run into a severe error in trying to create a VistaPE CD with Acronis Trueimage Home 11 and Disk Director 10 built in for use with hard drive recovery etc.

The reasoning for building the CD in the first place is the fact that TI11 and DD10 don't support Raid Array's from the boot cd recovery mode.
I can back up the images and manage the hdd from windows while all is well but if I have a system crash and want to rebuild the images and drives from scratch then I can't due to the lack of RAID Support.

I followed MudCrabs Excellent Guide to the letter and performed every task and step as layed out and instructed.
I downloaded and built from the Windows AIK Img file once installed.
I downloaded from Mustang the VistaPE Scripts for TI Home 11 and the DD10.
Like stated as following the guide to the letter I built the VistaPE ISO first and burnt that, tested it, all ok.

Then I did the process again and added the scripts for TI11 and DD10.
The ISO image built ok (minus the few warnings as stated in other post's), I burnt it and then the problems started.

I took a step back and started again building the image from scratch with just TI11 as per the guide.
It will boot into Litestep Desktop but has TI11 errors as indicated from the screenshoots attached.
TrueImage is unusable due to the errors and the fact it can't load up correctly to recognise my hard drive's.

http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040311mw3.jpg
http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040312bd4.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040313bp0.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040314fz0.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040315co0.jpg
http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040316mh5.jpg
http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040317aa8.jpg
http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b040318bh4.jpg

It don't think it is a RAID DRIVER issue as A43 File Management can see the drives ok.

Any thoughts and help is desperatly needed as I wan't to get this working.

Thanks Peter.

[K0LO]

Peter:

Are TI 11 and DD 10 both installed conventionally on your host PC? In other words, did you let the installer put both programs in the default location on C:\Program Files\...?

If you installed either program to a different location then the WinBuilder scripts may be unable to find some of the files needed for the VistaPE build, since they are not in the expected location.

[Pistol]

Yes, both TI 11 & DD 10 are in their default install directories.
Even WAIK is in its default.

Cheers.

[MudCrab]

If you just include DD, does it work okay or do you get the same errors?

Is your computer running Vista or XP?

Was DD installed first and then TI?

[Faust]

I have made a couple of VistaPE disks for TI 10 & 11 following MudCrabs excellent illustrated guides along with Mustangs plugins and can confirm they work beautifully. I have also just made Mustangs WinPE disk for TI 2009 - a really easy peasy one to do thanks again to Mustangs hard work, this to works a treat - so a large pat on the back to all concerned.

[Pistol]

Will rebuild with just DD10 and let you know results.

> Ok rebuild has been done, it built fine with no errors BUT once I booted from the cd and doubled clicked the DD10 desktop shortcut this is the error I get and DD10 wont load, it just aborts back to the desktop.
> http://img384.imageshack.us/my.php?i...b050319eh4.jpg
> I rebuilt again using the boot from ram (boot.wim), had some build warnings.
> Rebooted with CD and still had the same issue.

Computer is running Vista Ultimate

-ATI 2009 (from a friend) was installed first as I was gonna upgrade.
-DD10 was then installed.
-ATI 2009 was then removed (pc rebooted etc etc)
-ATI 11 was then installed.
-Winbuilder etc was then tried and ISO created.

Thanks.

[sgrb]

My VistaPE can boot., can edit with notepad...go to command line but do not know the commands,
even "help" , can see partitions with A43 File Management Utility , there is a browser icon in
program bar but there isn't a browser installed . What can I have from VistaPe ?
How can test if it has no bug ?
Could you see the attachement , is there something wrong ?

Many thanks.
Regards.

PS - if all is OK I proceed with the procedure.

[tyee]

Hi Guys
I'm new here. Just been playing around with this VistaPE procedure and I got it to work no problem the first time! Thanks for the great instructions!! However, since I am a techie myself I decided to go the last step and create a USB flash disk version also. This is where I am a little hung up.

I followed the grub4dos procedure page but when I reboot to test the flash disk, my computer hangs at the first screen and only the reset button makes it reboot! I have been trying to determine the problem all day and I have finally got it to boot into VistaPE but not using grub4dos, I must do this --

I'm running WinXPsp2 BTW.

Method 1

1. Using the VistaPE DVD I made, boot it and run diskpart.exe to partition/format/make active the flash disk.

2. Reboot computer and everything works, no hang boots right away to VistaPE. Of course I get no grub4dos menu.

Method 2

1. Format the USB flash disk using the HP Format Utility, only Version 2.0.6 works because that version makes the partition ACTIVE (check it out in WinXP disk management). The two newer HP versions I tried did not make the partition active. Now that's really weird!!

2. Execute the command "bootsect.exe /nt60 o:" to create the VistaPE bootsector. o: is my flash drive letter.

3. Reboot and it starts just fine into VistaPE.

Well there you have it. I guess it would be nice to get the grub4dos menu at the beginning just like my DVD gives me but I will need help. I've googled all day and no one else seems to have this grub4dos boot problem.

Anything come to mind??