Beginner's Guide to Creating a BartPE CD with a TI Plugin

Glad it works.

The A43 Utility should not cause any problems. With XPE, you should have the Startup Group plugin disabled.

 

I have a new custom built computer running Vista Home Premium 64bit and a RAID0. Mustang's download instructions for his 64bit script say:

"You will need to copy five True Image Home 11.0 files from a 32 bit system into the script folder before you can use it on a 64 bit system. You must also use a 32 bit Vista DVD or the free Windows AIK as the WinBuilder source."

1 (A) I don't have TI11 installed on another machine. I could install it on my XP machine, is that my only option for getting the 5 files? (B) If I download the script, will it have instructions telling me what 5 files I need to copy?

2. I only have an OEM Vista Home Premium 64bit DVD and there is no 32bit version on that. (I hear the retail DVD has both versions on it.) Is my only option then, to use the Windows AIK as the Winbuilder source, and is there any difference in the quality of my VistaPE build using Windows AIK instead of the 32 bit Vista DVD?

Thanks,
-Doug

 

1. You will need to install TI 11.0 on a 32 bit system temporarily to get the five files. They are clearly specified in the help file. You may want to consider building the VistaPE CD on the 32 bit system using the WAIK. It would be simpler and work just fine to boot your 64 bit system.

2. You will need to use the WAIK. Most people are using the WAIK as the source as they don't have a Vista DVD. There are some issues with using the WAIK instead of a Vista DVD. Some scripts like PeNetCfg need the DVD as a source. TI 11.0 will work fine using the WAIK.

 

Thanks for your quick reply Mustang. To be sure I understand, I should go forward with installing TI 11 on my 32 bit XP system and build the VistaPE 64-bit from there?

My next challenge will be to identify & find the drivers I need for my Vista machine, especially for the raid0. My builder gave me a USB thumb drive with a folder labeled System Drivers, and it has two .exe files that include raid in the title, so I'll guess that I could/should copy both of these over - though not sure if both were actually installed/used.

 

64 bit is confusing you. You do not build a 64 bit VistaPE disk. Both BartPE and VistaPE run on a 32 bit basis. Neither will work with 64 bit drivers. My 64 bit plugins and scripts simply allow you to build a 32 bit CD on a 64 bit system.

 

I'm having a problem creating a disk. I've followed Mustang's instructions up to the point of adding the TI plugin, but it doesn't appear on the list. The plugin I downloaded unzips as xTrueImageH10. The pebuilder list ends with ultravnc, which is the plugin just prior. Anyone know what the problem is?

 

You downloaded a script for use with VistaPE by mistake. Send me a Private Message with your email address and I will send you the plugin for BartPE.

 

I am ready to start building a VPE CD on my WinXP machine, and wouldn't you know it - I incorrectly downloaded Mustang's 64-bit Vista TI 11 plugin. I'll go back and download the standard version (32-bit Win XP) of the plug-in and the winbuilder script.

Question:
Preface: My main 150GB HD is partitioned to C: and D: - Vista is installed on C:, D: is mostly empty now (new) but will be used to install most programs/utilities on. I have 2 other HDs: one is a 2-drive Raid 0; the other drive will be used for storage. I am also going to set up an eSata drive to use for TI Images and archival purposes. I do not have a 32-bit Vista DVD, so I downloaded Win Aik to use as the Vista source.

1. I plan to only image my main, partitioned hard drive. When setting up VistaPE, will I need to include/copy over the Raid drivers? How would I determine if I need to copy/include any other hardware drivers?

Thanks,
-Doug

 

Hi Doug,

I don't like the idea of installing programs in the D: drive. You would be far better off by combining C: and D: into one partition and installing all your programs in the larger C: drive.

All you need to do is make the VistaPE CD and boot it up. If it does't see your RAID array properly, you will know you need to add the RAID driver. You can just use my free script to add the driver to VistaPE.

 

What is it you don't like about having a D: partition? I've read innumerably that it is ideal to have the OS on it's own primary partition

 

That made sense back when we had Windows 3.1 where the programs were independent of the OS. Now it makes little sense. In fact, it can cause problems. True Image is a good example. When you install TI to your D: drive, only the the program files are stored on your D: drive. The portion of TI that is stored in Common Program files goes to your C: (or system partition if it is a different drive letter than C: ). You have no control over this. Most of the program ends up on your C: drive anyways. Now you have the program split between two drive letters and some of the registry entries refer to locations in C: while others refer to locations in D: drive. Some programs get confused about where your system files should go and cause problems. There is really little to be gained but there is high potential for problems. The two partitions can become so dependent on each other that if the D: drive is not present, the system on the C: drive will not even boot. This is very common.

Clearly, you understand that if you ever reinstall Windows you will have to reinstall all your programs. At that point, uninstalls are likely not to work. This forces you to reinstall the programs on top of themselves. That is if you can remember what directory you originally installed them to. True Image is an example of a program that should never be installed on top of itself. I've seen too many crazy things happen by doing this. Keeping data on separate partions does make sense, but I don't think there are any overwhelming advantages of installing programs to a different drive. In my opinion, the disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

 

Thanks for the explanation - point taken. I will remove the D: partition before installing TI.

I have the 64 Bit Acronis True Image Home 11.0 Plugin (that says it will work on 32-bit machine) so I presume I can use this for creating VPE on my 32-bit XP machine. I also presume that I should download the non 64-bit Acronis True Image Home 11.0 WinBuilder VistaPE - correct?

Cheers,
-Doug

 

The 64 bit version was designed to work on both 32 and 64 bit machines. You should not need the non 64 bit version.

 

I've created and burned my VPE and for the heck of it tried it for bootup on my XP machine - it actually got me to a Vista look-alike naked desktop. I will set up my Vista box - deleting the D: partition and if all looks okay, install AT 11 - then I'll test the VPE bootup disk on it.

Minor Comment: on the VPE TI 11 Script that I used, one of the 32-bit WinXP files you list to be copied may have a file name typo, or I simply didn't have it anywhere on my system: Listed: "titsfltr.sys"; Closest I had (and copied) is "Tifsfilt.sys."

Question: Although I downloaded the 64-bit TI 11 Vista Plugin from you - I didn't see where I would use it creating the VPE with Winbuilder. Did I miss something, or is the plugin something I should otherwise use if not for the VPE w/Winbuilder?

Thanks,
-Doug

 

Thanks for pointing out the typo in the instructions. I've fixed it.

I don't know what you downloaded. The VistaPE script is called xTrueImageH11_64. The BartPE plugin is called TrueImageHome11_64. Which do you have?

The instruction for using both BartPE plugins and VistaPE scripts are very clear.

 

Last week I downloaded your "64 Bit Acronis True Image Home 11.0 Plugin" before I read through the "Beginner's Guide to Creating a VistaPE CD." I'll bet I was attracted to the "64-bit" in the title and failed to deduce that it made no mention of VistaPE.

As I finally had time today to deliberately read through the Guide, I figured out that I only needed the "64 Bit Acronis True Image Home 11.0 WinBuilder VistaPE Script" and not the plugin.

My bad for not being a little more careful. But hey, I have no qualm having donated a few more bucks your way; what you have done to help me and others is a much greater value. I've run out of time today to install Acronis TI on my new Vista machine (and I need to also try the new eSata drive that just arrived) - so my real test for the VistaPE and ATI will have to wait till I get back home later this week.

Till next time ...

Cheers,
-Doug

 

Hi, Thanks for all the effort you have put into helping us plebs.

Hopefully you can help me with this one.

I created a BartPe boot disk with XPE and your TI Enterprise server with Universal Restore plugin. The target server has an Intel S5000VSA motherboard which I managed to get started with the PE disk and restored an image from the old server. OS is SBS Server 2003 and the new board has dual Xeon processors.

After the restore I can only start in safe mode, if I try to start in normal mode the windows logo remains on the screen and nothing further happens.

Any ideas? I have managed to install all of the drivers and run a chkdsk /r and still nothing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I need to get this server into production ASAP or I am in the pooh.

Thanks.
Kevin

 

Things to consider:

1. Did you specify the proper mass storeage driver with UR when you made the restore? Just because Acronis claims UR will search for drivers and automatically install them, don't trust that.

2. Did you let the OS that you restored see the hard disk you restored to before you imaged it? If so, you may have a disk signature issue. You can solve this by booting with BartPE and using regedit. Look at HKLM\System\Mounted Devices and delete all the enties. Let Windows rebuild the enties on the next boot. You may want to export the Mounted Devices key and save it before you delete all the enties just in case.

 

1. I specified the correct mass storage drive and made sure it is the correct one by doing a clean SBS 2003 installation with the same driver and it worked. I guess that rules out the possibility of a BIOS problem.

2. Did you let the OS that you restored see the hard disk you restored to before you imaged it? I don't see how I could have let that happen but I'll delete the Mounted Devices entries anyway as I'm getting more and nore desperate.

I just did an in place upgrade with the SBS 2003 CD and its still the same. I slipstreamed SP with the SBS2003 disk because the OS on the old server has sp2 installed.

I'm wondering if this hasn't got something to do with the dual quad core CPUs in this server. Could that cause it to only start in safe mode do you think. I checked Device Manager and its says its an ACPI Multiprocessor PC but the 8 CPU cores don't show that they are Xeon's, just says Intel Processor. Maybe its because the system is in safe mode.

I would really appreciate your further assistance in solving this problem.

By the way, does your Acronis Disk Director 10.0 - Full Version Plugin support the server edition of Disk Director? If so I will need it to resize the partitions on this server.

 

Mustang or anyone who can help.

From my immediately preceding posts - I've created my VistaPE CD on my XP machine. Tonight I installed TI 11 on my 64-bit Vista machine, but did not create an image file, strictly completed the base install and let TI install on my C drive. When I boot with my VPE CD, as it am coming up onto the desktop I get:

1. An Audit Error saying it can't find the schedhlp.exe. Do I need to change a path or two in Winbuilder because the ATI 11 install path on my XP machine isn't identical to my Vista machine which installed ATI in C:\Program Files (x86)\ ... and there is no "x86" on my XP machine? If so, which ones?

2. When I do get onto the desktop after selecting the LiteStep shell, there is no Acronis Icon (just the A43 File Mgmt & Total Commander Icons). I can navigate to the Program Files (x86)...folder tree to find TrueImage.exe. When I click it I get a Runtime Error: [lists path to trueimage.exe] "..this application has requested to terminate in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information." Anyone know what that means and how I can correct this?

Thanks,
-Doug

 

Doug,

Looks like using the 64 Bit version to build the CD on a 32 Bit computer did not work properly. I'll email you the 32 Bit script to use on your XP computer.

I'm going to discontinue selling the 64 Bit versions since they seem to be confusing people and require too much support. Lack of sales tells me that 64 Bit computers are not very popular anyways.

 

Hold your horses! (Sorry, Mustang, I couldn't resist)

Making a few coasters in the process, I managed to get what appears to be functional VPE boot disks, one each, using your 32-bit & 64-bit scripts and Win AIK. I am reasonably confident that my problem with the x64 script was a path error, and I discovered the 5 files that I copied from Windows were missing when I checked on them, so I recopied them. Shezaam - now I have what appear to be two working versions of VPE.

Couple of questions:
1. How do I best test VPE & ATI without doing a full restore? I have not yet made an image of my 150GB C: drive that has Vista and will contain all of my installed program files. I have booted using VPE; that desktop has ATI and a couple other functional program icons. I've opened ATI and by clicking on Tools > Create a new drive, I could verify that all my hard drives (including my RAID drive- your driver script works!) and my e-Sata drive that I will back-up/store my image(s) on all show up.

2. Is there a way to create VPE on a thumb drive? Could I simply copy the files from the VPE CD (seems too simple) or is there another way? (I use Nero v7.x.)

FWIW - you may not yet be getting many requests for x64 versions, but it's coming...we all know that 64-bit systems will become commonplace and replace 32-bit as the standard. It's not if, just when. I haven't used it long enough to say how I really do or don't like it, but I'll bet the complaining is just louder than those who are working with it without major headaches. (Of course I do reserve the right to change my opinion.)

Thanks!
-Doug

 

At least make sure you can successfully validate your image when booted to VistaPE.

See my guide here.

I agree. If nothing else, the 3GB memory limit will soon force everyone into the 64bit world.

 

Thanks, MudCrab. I'll play with this info. over the next week or two.
-Doug

 

Hi, I'm trying to read this very informative thread as fast as I can, but I'm under a bit of time pressure and I hope you'll forgive me if I'm repeating something that's been asked.

The problem I am having is that I need to make a DVD and BCD is not completing the ISO and saving it in the TEMP directory.

I thought BCD would save the ISO to the temp directory, and then I could burn it to a DVD with ImgBurn. Unfortunately, that's not what is happening. Instead, when it detects that the data is too long for a CD, it reports that "cdrecord returned an error" and then it aborts, "removing ISO file "C:\docume~1....\Temp\bcd.iso." And indeed, there is no corresponding ISO in the TEMP directory.

I am using BCD version v1.1.1 (the latest version on BartPE's site). I would really appreciate if someone could explain how I can get BCD to save the ISO so I can burn it to a DVD, or if there is some other workaround I can try.

Many thanks.