Hello,
I'm using WAIK 6.1.7600 and WDS on Win2k3 R2 SP2 to deploy Windows 7 in our environment and I cannot seem to get the Windows Recovery Environment to install to a partition other than the Windows partition. As I was reading through the documentation for WAIK, I read about the recommended disk configuration which creates 3 partitions on a disk:
- Partition 1: 300 MB, NTFS, Recovery, 0x27
- Partition 2: 100 MB, NTFS, System
- Partition 3: Expand, NTFS, Windows
I have followed the instructions provided in the documentation for using SIM to set up the partitions and they all seem to get created correctly. This is where the instructions seem to drop off. I am not sure how to get the WinRE (Recovery Environment) deployed to the 300 MB Recovery Partition. I have tried a lot of different things but the setup seems to keep setting the Recovery Environment to boot from a WinRE.wim on the Windows partition. As the documentation suggests, I don't want this; I want it set up on another partition.
I have tried using a step in my autounattend file to apply a data image of a modified WinRE.wim file to the 300 MB Recovery partition, but the Recovery Environment still booted from the WinRE.wim on the Windows partition.
I tried assigning a drive letter to the Recovery Partition and then using a Synchronous command in my autounattend file which copied my modified WinRE.wim to the Recovery partition and then issued a command to REAgentc.exe to point it at the recovery partition. Still, no luck.
To test the Recovery Environment, I first boot to the Recovery Environment by pressing F8 at startup. I then select the option to Repair Windows. This then boots into the Windows Recovery Environment and I know that it is at least set up somewhere. To verify that it is installed on the Recovery partition I then delete the Recovery Partition with diskpart and I try booting in the the Recovery Environment by pressing F8 at boot and selecting the option to Repair Windows. My assumption is that if the Recovery Environment were correctly configured to point to the Recovery partition, I wouldn't be able to boot into the Recovery Environment after deleting the Recovery Partition. My problem, though, is that the WinRE still seems to be using a WinRE.wim on the Windows partition instead of the Recovery partition.
The WAIK documentation is great, but it doesn't have any instructions for how to use SIM to deploy WinRE to another partition. Is there something that I am missing?
Thank you in advance for any help that you can give.
Regards,
John
