1. Create a bootable USB drive
Before you get started, you have to make your flash drive bootable. I have already described this procedure in my post about the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. For your convenience here is the command sequence, which you should run on a command prompt with admin rights:- diskpart
- list disk
- select disk #
- clean
- create partition primary
- select partition 1
- active
- format quick fs=fat32
- assign
- exit
2. Copy the WinPE 3.0 files to the USB drive
WinPE 3.0 is part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7, which you can download here. Once you have installed the WAIK, you’ll find a folder of the Windows AIK on the Windows Start Menu. Launch the Deployment Tools Command Prompt and enter this command:-
copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe_x86
- Then, copy winpe.wim to the correct folder:
copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim
- Now, copy WinPE to your USB drive:
xcopy C:\winpe_x86\iso\*.* /e G:\
Now you should be able to boot from your WinPE 3.0 USB drive. In my next post, I will outline the interesting part—that is, how to prepare your USB drive so that you can add new tools without starting again from scratch.