Tutorial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

Brian, Raza, KOR! Thank you very much for your suggestions, I need some time to do some tests, even though this seems too much for my limited knowledge. As soon as I can I'll report back.

@ Raza: It is odd their website says it is for all Win versions, but then on their forum they reply to several posters :

"EasyBCD requires the Windows Vista bootloader. It doesn't support XP-only configurations."

"EasyBCD is an app for configuring the Vista/7 BCD.
XP pre-dates the BCD. It uses boot.ini to contain the equivalent information in a simple text file which needs no utility other than Notepad for configuring it.
In your case, that's not an error, just a statement of fact. If you reply "no", EasyBCD will start without opening a BCD.
What are you trying to achieve ?
EasyBCD has no function in XP, unless XP is part of a Vista/7 multi-boot."

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

I think what they mean is that EasyBCD can change/modify Win XP and older windows bootloaders but it requires that you have BCD based windows present on your system. So, as long you have Vista/Windows 7 on your PC then you can use EasyBCD to dual boot XP, win2000 etc.

After you follow the instruction in my post#23, you can then uninstall easybcd v1.7.2 and reinstall the latest version. Then you just need to follow the instructions in my post#1 for booting into WinPE/ISO environments.

Easybcd v1.7.2 is only needed to replace XP's bootloader with BCD based bootloader. And if you are concerned, let me assure you that BCD based bootloader will not cause any harm to your XP. In fact, it is superior to the older NTLDR based bootloader present in XP. But still backup your system drive before making any changes, just in case.

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

Raza it all went very well indeed! This is particularly useful on my XP netbook as It has no DVD player. Basically now all I need is a USB flash drive to store an image and presto! the whole thing starts within the netbook. I can't understand why ShadowProtect doesn't make these features readily available when setting up the recovery CD. The only thing that I couldn't get rid of is the boot menu, even through the control panel it isn't affected, although it only lasts a few seconds.

Thanks a lot for all your input.

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

Glad it all worked out for you.

I believe Shadowprotect does not mind if end users put the recovery environment on usb flash drives or on their hard drives. They just say that such configurations are not supported. If you run into some problem they will only offer technical support if you enter the recovery environment from a CD.

For the boot screen:

See the box is unchecked in the control panel>system>advanced>startup and recovery>settings

Also check if the skip boot menu option is checked inside Easybcd. In v2 and above should be under "edit boot menu". Make sure to save settings. Then check under "view setting" tab on easybcd if the timeout entry is zero.

If the above does not work. Manually open boot.ini file located on your root C: in notepad and change the timeout value to zero. Save the file.

Hope this works.

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

That is good to know. That would solve a few little issues I have with my current setup.

Funny how at first something like that seems so complicated, yet after you spend some time it really isn't complicated at all. I modify my BCD all the time to test things. Well not all the time, but quite a bit when I need to. I was messing with VHDs last month, and I must have modified it 50 times over the course of a couple weeks. I don't know the commands/parameters by heart, but I do have much more confidence than I used to. Practice makes perfect I guess

You are most welcome.

Sul.

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

No, it doesn't work, anyway it is only 3 seconds, nothing to worry about. Cheers.

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

It's do-able. I know because that's what I did on my older laptop. As far as I recall, I just copied bootmgr and Boot folder (usually on a hidden 100 MB partition) from Windows 7 onto my C:\ partition which housed Windows XP Pro (32-bit). I think I also used Bootice (freeware) or bootsect.exe (cmdline tool from Win 7 or WAIK) to change the mbr code from nt52 to nt60. Then I reset (cleared) the existing entries in the (copied) BCD with EasyBCD and added a new default entry that pointed to my Windows XP 32-bit. I actually did this so that I could boot to OS installed on VHDs (something Windows 7 bootloader supports), but I used EasyBCD to add boot entries for Windows XP 64-bit installed on separate partition as well as many ISO files and grub (or NeoGrub per EasyBCD).

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

pajenn thank you, I've managed with Raza0007's workaround. It is however helpful to list different methods, some people might like to try other alternatives.

 

Bootice

@Raza0007
Do you think your method will work on XP with Bootice (without EasyBCD)?

Bootice can convert from nt52 to nt60 and edit BCD. Nice English description here.


In the screenshot above should I change "\Windows\system32\boot\winload.exe" to something else, maybe "\Windows\system32\boot\ntoskrnl.exe" or "\ntldr"?

@pajenn
Do you know is there an English manual for Bootice?

Thanks everyone for your comments.

 

Re: Bootice

I haven't used Bootice myself but keep in mind that EasyBCD and Bootice are just tools that help automate the process. You can even do everything manually using the vista/win 7 built in BCDedit command. So I am sure Bootice will work too.

As I explained in my post#23, the EasyBCD procedure works on win xp. @Osaban has got it working. The only thing that needs to be done is you install .NET v2.0 on xp as EasyBCD needs it. Then install an older version 1.7.2 of easybcd as that was the last version that could replace win xp bootloader with bcd based boot loader. Then follow the instructions listed in the linked article in post#23, the article is from the developer of easybcd. After you have modified the bootloader for Xp you then do not need the v1.7.2. Just uninstall it and reinstall the latest version and carry out the process of booting into a wim/iso file using the instructions in post#1.

 

Re: Bootice

Ok, thanks. It will probably work. Pajenn mentioned Bootice which is single exe, portable, no .NET, so I am going to try to use only Bootice without EasyBCD.

 

Re: Bootice

I first saw Bootice here: http://reboot.pro/8986/
(maybe you can find your answers at the link)

I've only used bootice to backup, restore, replace boot codes (sector 1 of a hard or flash drive), I don't know if it can edit the BCD too.

 

Re: Bootice

Nope, but I will ask questions there if needed.

Yes, you can, as of February, even on XP (without bcdedit.exe). Anyway, thank you for mentioning it.

 

Re: Toturial - Booting into a WinPE recovery environment without using a bootable media

I switched to win7 ultimate x64 recently on my new build. My older Win7RescuePE did not recognize the new NIC, which I need it to. I was going to recompile my PE, but found that project is no longer in development.

I used WinBuilder, and chose the Win7PESE project. Fairly minimal PE. I put my macrium script in place, updated with the latest macrium files. Took a few builds to figure out some changes, like how to get a shortcut in the quicklaunch, but overall simple to do.

I then used EasyBCD instead of grub4dos as my loader. Created an entry to load ISO from RAM, set boot screen to a 5 second timeout. It worked wonderfully.

Next I wanted to make a VHD of my current install. I did get that to work, once. It is a royal pain in the behind. Instead, I made a VHD using the install.wim and a powershell script. This too worked very well, and I can use EasyBCD to create another boot option to "native boot" into the VHD. Lots of options there. I decided to use bcdedit though rather than EasyBCD because it gives more options for booting ATM.

Sul.