SYPREP the image on a bootable CD or USB stick

_{Thursday, October 15, 2009 2:13 PM}

Dear all,

I have sysprep a reference PC.
The deployement of that sysprep image needs to be deliver to each of my customer on a bootable CD or bootable USB stik.
Then on my customer site in case they need to restore the pC image, they juist have to instert the bootble USB device and without any operation PC gets rebuild to its original.

What ia the way to copy that generated sysprep image from my sytsem hard disk to the USB stick in order that it gets bootable ?

Thnaks for help
regards
sergeYour experience is build from the one of others

_{Monday, October 19, 2009 4:20 AM ✅Answered}

Hi Serge,

Here are the rough steps (example for capturing and deploying a 64bit system):

Step 1 Create WinPE disk:

1. Install WAIK on a technical computer.

2. Right-click Windows PE Tools Command Prompt and click Run as administrator.

3. Type the following commands and press Enter.

Copype amd64 c:\winpe

Imagex /mountrw c:\winpe\winpe.wim 1 c:\winpe\mount 

4. Copy imagex.exe from C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\amd64 to c:\winpe\mount\Windows\System32.

5. Type the following commands and press Enter.

Imagex.exe /unmount /commit c:\winpe\mount

Copy d:\winpe\winpe.wim c:\winpe\iso\sources\boot.wim /y

Oscdimg -n -h -bc:\winpe\etfsboot.com c:\winpe\iso c:\winpe\winpe.iso 

6. Burn winpe.iso using Nero and you will get a WinPE with ImageX disk.

Step 2 Make an unattend installation file named sysprep.xml (or other name):

Copy sysprep.xml to the C:\windows\system32\sysprep folder on the reference computer.

Note: you can skip Step 2 if you do not use an unattend file.

Step 3 Sysprep

Type the following command and press Enter on the reference computer:

sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:sysprep.xml

Step 4 Capture and apply image

1. Restart the reference computer and boot into WinPE disk immediately.

2. Run the following command and press Enter:

imagex /capture /compress maximum /check c: d:\enterprise.wim "Enterprise"

3. Copy d:\enterprise.wim to a USB external drive or a network shared folder.

4. Then you can boot into the WinPE disk on the destination computer.

5. Run the following commands and press Enter:

format c: /fs:ntfs /q/y

imagex /apply e:\enterprise.wim 1  c:

wpeutil reboot

Note: e is the drive letter of the USB external drive or the network shared folder.

Hope it helps.

Tim Quan - MSFT

_{Thursday, October 15, 2009 6:41 PM}

Hi,

you will need very huge usb sticks ;-)

Check the following links:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749538(WS.10).aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749538(WS.10).aspx

Greetings

ChristianChristian Groebner MVP Forefront

_{Friday, October 16, 2009 11:04 AM}

Thanks for your reply christian,

I am not so an IT guy unfortunatly but I have to do that work. I have browase though the link you set but I ahve no idea how can place that Win PE combine with my sysprep image..:-(

The idea is that, I have sysprep my reference PS, and my PC has shutdown with a ready dik.
Then the simple thing I need is copy this hard disk image to an external meddia I could boot on and image restore will start automatically from that media.

Is there any step by stpe instaruction how to proceed this simple steps after the image has been created by SYSPREP ?

thnaks for help
sergeYour experience is build from the one of others

_{Monday, October 19, 2009 4:56 PM}

Thnaks for your reply I will give a try but there is a point that I do not catch..

So in the sneario you describe you need 2 physical media :

One which is a  CD fro which your boot WinPE and one external drive which contains your Sysprep Image.
Is that correct ?

If it is, I was thinking that I can get a single DVD for instance with WinPE + Image file on it and I could boot directly from it.
is that possible to do ?

thnaks for your help
sergeYour experience is build from the one of others

_{Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:51 AM}

Hi Serge,

One which is a  CD fro which your boot WinPE and one external drive which contains your Sysprep Image.

Is that correct ?

Yes. You can also use a network shared folder instead of an external drive.

If it is, I was thinking that I can get a single DVD for instance with WinPE + Image file on it and I could boot directly from it.

is that possible to do ?

I have not tried that but I think you may be able to put the contents in the WinPE disk and the captured image into one DVD. Boot from the DVD and then run imagex /apply to deploy the image.

Hope it helps.

Tim Quan - MSFT

_{Friday, October 23, 2009 2:47 PM}

hello Tim Quan,

I run your instruction to create the iso file but I get an error message while executing following commands :

Oscdimg -n -h -bc:\winpe\etfsboot.com c:\winpe\iso c:\winpe\winpe.iso

error is :
 Could not open boot sector file ""
Error3: the system cannot find the path specified

any idea ?

thnaks for help
sergeYour experience is build from the one of others

_{Friday, October 23, 2009 3:19 PM}

sorry typing mistake :-)

By the way is there a way that, when you boot from WinPE disk on the destination computer as described in STEP 4, then the commands :

format c: /fs:ntfs /q/y

imagex /apply e:\enterprise.wim 1  c:

wpeutil reboot

can be executed automatically without having to type them, like placing them in a bat file which is automatically launch and only prompt for the path of the image file ?

thnaks for help
serge

Your experience is build from the one of others

_{Monday, October 26, 2009 1:58 AM}

Hello Serge,

Yes, you can try to use a script to run these commands.

Tim Quan - MSFT

_{Monday, October 26, 2009 9:01 AM}

how can I have this script automatically executed while the CD gets inserted ?
Any sample or tips ?

Is there some kind of olad autoexec or autorun file ?

thanks for help
sergeYour experience is build from the one of others