Wow it's been busy... Multi-installer Windows USB Flash bootable drive!
In a quick update / nutshell / insane I forgot I had this page update...
My older brother just had his first kid, that's a bit insane, the whole family bit, you know?
I got put on another team at work, enterprise storage and network vendors, oh my!
I finally bought my first USB drive, up until now I've been living off the stupid 512mb - 2GB drives I've gotten free over the years, and I decided that I wanted to try to load multiple OS installers and make a boot menu. I later found that there wasn't an easy way to do that, here is what I have done:
Things you will need:
* Moderate to advanced computer knowledge, specifically some kind of command line experience in anything OS will make things smoother. :)
* GImageX can be found at: http://www.autoitscript.com/gimagex/
OR
* imagex from Microsoft (free! -- More info here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722145(WS.10).aspx)
* Your Windows Vista / 7 media
* Multiple Windows Vista , 2008 , 7 images (your MSDN account helps here)
This section comes in 3 parts:
1) Format the USB drive for booting
2) Export the OS's from the WIMs from the install media
3) Recombine the WIMs into a single WIM and rename it to install.wim
4) Load the installation media skeleton onto the USB key
==============================================
1) Formatting the USB drive for booting
a) Plug in your USB Flash Drive
b) Start Command Prompt as administrator, and run:
diskpart
list disk
c) Select, Create Partitions, Activate and Format the USB disk:
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
d) Insert the Windows Vista / Windows 7 media
cd d:\boot (Assuming D: is the media drive)
e) Use bootsect to make the USB drive bootable
bootsect /nt60 e: (Assuming your E: drive is your USB drive)
Readers digest version from this guy: http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=345 but his is too long, and I just wanted something I could refer to easily.
========================
2) Export the OS's from the WIMs from the install media
More information on the actual WIMs themselves can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Imaging_Format however, from what I can tell there is an XML file that has all the info for each image that is in the WIM file, although I was using GImageX, when I removed a WIM from the main WIM it would remove the XML entries, but leave the data behind, and I've not found a way to re-order the OSes once they have been integrated, so be careful about the way you set that up. You may change the names and such of the images in GImageX
a) Find the images you want to export:
i) From the command line:
imagex.exe /info d:\sources\install.wim
(Assuming that the media is in the D: drive)
ii) From GImageX (OPTIONAL):
- Click on Info
- Put in the Source WIM (d:\sources\install.wim)
- Click Get Info
b) Export the selected image to another directory
i) From the command line:
- Export the WIM to your HDD (into c:\windows_7\)
imagex.exe /export d:\sources\install.wim 5 c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim "Windows 7 x86 ULTIMATE" /compress maximum
ii) Using GImageX
- Click on the Export tab
- Put in the Source WIM (d:\sources\install.wim)
- Select the Image number (If the WIM file has more than 1 image)
- Put in the Destination WIM (c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim)
- Set the compression to Maximum
- Give it a name
- Click Export
c) Repeat these steps for each flavour of each OS that you wish to combine
I chose the x86 and x64 versions of each OS to combine.
========================
3) Recombine the WIMs into a single WIM and rename it to install.wim
a) Using the command line:
imagex.exe /export c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim 2 c:\finished\install.wim "Windows 7 x86 ULTIMATE" /compress maximum
b) Using GImageX:
- Click on the Export tab
- Put in the Source WIM (c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim)
- Put in the Destination WIM (c:\finished\install.wim)
- Set the compression to Maximum
- Give it a name (Windows 7 x86 ULTIMATE)
- Click Export
c) Repeat the above steps on all the OSes you want to integrate into the single WIM file. (c:\finished\install.wim)
========================
4) Copy the installation media files onto the USB drive (E: drive)
a) Copy the autorun.inf, bootmgr, setup.exe files and the boot, efi, support and upgrade directories from the installation media (D: drive) to the USB key (E: drive) (Don't copy the sources directory yet!)
b) Copy the sources directory to the USB drive (E: drive), but OMIT the install.wim file
c) Copy your new WIM file (c:\finished\install.wim) to the USB drive (E: drive) into the sources directory (e:\sources\install.wim)
d) Reboot with your USB key in, go pretend like your going to install Windows Vista / 2008 / 7 and a window will pop up asking you which OS to install, and enjoy!
NOTES: - Your BIOS has to be setup to boot from USB
- Windows 7 will not see Windows 2008 installations. Use the Windows 2008 installation media; this will see Vista, Windows 2008, and Windows 7 WIMs.
- My 8GB USB drive barley fit Vista x86, Windows 7 x86, x64, Windows 2008 x86 and x64.
ACTUAL MILEAGE MAY VARY!
My older brother just had his first kid, that's a bit insane, the whole family bit, you know?
I got put on another team at work, enterprise storage and network vendors, oh my!
I finally bought my first USB drive, up until now I've been living off the stupid 512mb - 2GB drives I've gotten free over the years, and I decided that I wanted to try to load multiple OS installers and make a boot menu. I later found that there wasn't an easy way to do that, here is what I have done:
Things you will need:
* Moderate to advanced computer knowledge, specifically some kind of command line experience in anything OS will make things smoother. :)
* GImageX can be found at: http://www.autoitscript.com/gimagex/
OR
* imagex from Microsoft (free! -- More info here - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722145(WS.10).aspx)
* Your Windows Vista / 7 media
* Multiple Windows Vista , 2008 , 7 images (your MSDN account helps here)
This section comes in 3 parts:
1) Format the USB drive for booting
2) Export the OS's from the WIMs from the install media
3) Recombine the WIMs into a single WIM and rename it to install.wim
4) Load the installation media skeleton onto the USB key
==============================================
1) Formatting the USB drive for booting
a) Plug in your USB Flash Drive
b) Start Command Prompt as administrator, and run:
diskpart
list disk
c) Select, Create Partitions, Activate and Format the USB disk:
select disk 1
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
d) Insert the Windows Vista / Windows 7 media
cd d:\boot (Assuming D: is the media drive)
e) Use bootsect to make the USB drive bootable
bootsect /nt60 e: (Assuming your E: drive is your USB drive)
Readers digest version from this guy: http://kmwoley.com/blog/?p=345 but his is too long, and I just wanted something I could refer to easily.
========================
2) Export the OS's from the WIMs from the install media
More information on the actual WIMs themselves can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Imaging_Format however, from what I can tell there is an XML file that has all the info for each image that is in the WIM file, although I was using GImageX, when I removed a WIM from the main WIM it would remove the XML entries, but leave the data behind, and I've not found a way to re-order the OSes once they have been integrated, so be careful about the way you set that up. You may change the names and such of the images in GImageX
a) Find the images you want to export:
i) From the command line:
imagex.exe /info d:\sources\install.wim
(Assuming that the media is in the D: drive)
ii) From GImageX (OPTIONAL):
- Click on Info
- Put in the Source WIM (d:\sources\install.wim)
- Click Get Info
b) Export the selected image to another directory
i) From the command line:
- Export the WIM to your HDD (into c:\windows_7\)
imagex.exe /export d:\sources\install.wim 5 c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim "Windows 7 x86 ULTIMATE" /compress maximum
ii) Using GImageX
- Click on the Export tab
- Put in the Source WIM (d:\sources\install.wim)
- Select the Image number (If the WIM file has more than 1 image)
- Put in the Destination WIM (c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim)
- Set the compression to Maximum
- Give it a name
- Click Export
c) Repeat these steps for each flavour of each OS that you wish to combine
I chose the x86 and x64 versions of each OS to combine.
========================
3) Recombine the WIMs into a single WIM and rename it to install.wim
a) Using the command line:
imagex.exe /export c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim 2 c:\finished\install.wim "Windows 7 x86 ULTIMATE" /compress maximum
b) Using GImageX:
- Click on the Export tab
- Put in the Source WIM (c:\windows_7\win7_ultimate_x86.wim)
- Put in the Destination WIM (c:\finished\install.wim)
- Set the compression to Maximum
- Give it a name (Windows 7 x86 ULTIMATE)
- Click Export
c) Repeat the above steps on all the OSes you want to integrate into the single WIM file. (c:\finished\install.wim)
========================
4) Copy the installation media files onto the USB drive (E: drive)
a) Copy the autorun.inf, bootmgr, setup.exe files and the boot, efi, support and upgrade directories from the installation media (D: drive) to the USB key (E: drive) (Don't copy the sources directory yet!)
b) Copy the sources directory to the USB drive (E: drive), but OMIT the install.wim file
c) Copy your new WIM file (c:\finished\install.wim) to the USB drive (E: drive) into the sources directory (e:\sources\install.wim)
d) Reboot with your USB key in, go pretend like your going to install Windows Vista / 2008 / 7 and a window will pop up asking you which OS to install, and enjoy!
NOTES: - Your BIOS has to be setup to boot from USB
- Windows 7 will not see Windows 2008 installations. Use the Windows 2008 installation media; this will see Vista, Windows 2008, and Windows 7 WIMs.
- My 8GB USB drive barley fit Vista x86, Windows 7 x86, x64, Windows 2008 x86 and x64.
ACTUAL MILEAGE MAY VARY!
Comments