Updating PXE Image for GHOST

By | December 11, 2015
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Prerequisites

  1. A technician computer running Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2
  2. Download and install Windows ADK for Windows 8.1
  3. Find the boot.wim for winpe-512 in C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common\winpe-512\sources.
  4. Extract the contents of boot.wim using a utility like 7zip.
  5. From the 2 directory of the extracted boot.wim, find the ghost folder and startnet.cmd from the Windows/System32 folder. Save these for use in the next section.

Build PE

  1. On your technician computer, click Start, and type deployment. Right-click Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment and then select Run as administrator.
  2. At the command prompt run the following commands to copy WinPE (x86, not amd64) and mount the boot image. 
    • copype x86 C:\WinPE_x86
    • Dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"C:\WinPE_x86\media\sources\boot.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"C:\WinPE_x86\mount"
  3. Using the files saved in Prereqs step 5 above, copy the following files and folders:
    1. Copy the ghost folder to C:\WinPE_x86\mount
    2. Copy startnet.cmd to C:\WinPE_x86\mount\Windows\System32, overwriting the previous file
  4. From C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common\winpe-512 on your GSS Server, copy the ghost and pxe folders to C:\WinPE_x86\media
  5. Add drivers if needed (not likely if using Windows 8.1)
    • Single Driver (recommended)
    • Dism /Add-Driver /Image:"C:\WinPE_x86\mount" /Driver:"C:\GhostDrivers\driver.inf"
    • Multiple Drivers
    • Dism /Add-Driver /Image:"C:\WinPE_x86\mount" /Driver:"C:\GhostDrivers" /Recurse
  6. Save and unmount the PE boot image 
    • Dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:"C:\WinPE_x86\mount" /commit

Copy to GSS

  1. On your GSS server, open Symantec Ghost Boot Wizard
  2. Make a copy of WinPE-512 and name it WinPEv50
  3. Select OK until WinPE is copied and then Cancel out of the Wizard.
  4. Find the folder for WinPEv50. On Vista and Server 2008 or later it will be located in C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common
  5. Delete everyhing in C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common\WinPEv50 except drivers.manifest.txt, manifest.txt, and pci.manifest.txt
  6. Copy everything from C:\WinPE_x86\media on your technician computer to C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common\WinPEv50 on your GSS server
  7. Open mainfest.txt and delete the unattend and checkDrivers steps and save (you have have to copy the file to your desktop, edit, save, then copy back to the WinPEv50 folder). The unattend step is the one that fails on Windows 8 clients and shouldn’t be needed if your network is DHCP. GSS can’t check the drivers in the PE we are creating so we also need to remove this step or tasks will fail.
  8. Select WinPEv50 as the PreOS on a test machine and test.

Issues

Any changes have to be done manually. They cannot be made using the Ghost Boot Wizard.

Bonus Extra

You can use the boot.wim from C:\WinPE_x86\media\sources to create a boot image in WDS.

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