How to put Win PE on a USB Thumb drive?

Question

How can I make a USB Thumb drive (32gb) into a bootable Win PE?

Solution

Check out this tutorial for WinPE 3.0 (Windows 7):

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

Replace ‘#’ with the drive number of your USB drive. Be careful to choose the right disk in 3 because this procedure will erase the whole drive! 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:\

In this example, ‘G:’ is the drive letter of your flash drive.

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.

In another article, he shows how to add tools to the drive, and he also has a list of WinPE compatible tools.

http://4sysops.com/archives/build-a-bootable-windows-pe-3-0-usb-drive-with-rescue-tools-part-1/

For WinPE 4.0 (Windows 8), see this tutorial.

Comments

[Yair]

I'm using windows 8, is that a problem, is it this same instructions?

[ChrisN]

That's for BartPE, not WinPE.

[Yair]

WinUSB_FULL Patcher link is not working

[Yair]

I'm stuck at this point: >>Launch the Deployment Tools Command Prompt and enter this command: I am using windows 8. I don't know what is the name of this program to run. ??

[ChrisN]

I updated my answer for Windows 8 also.

[Yair]

ChrisN, I don't understand what you mean. What I am saying is that I follow your instructions. But at the point where you say "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:" I don't know what do here. Of course using win8 there is not Start Menu. But when I go into the folders where it is installed i don't see anything that is Development Tools app.

[ChrisN]

I just Googled "build windows pe 4.0 flash drive" and that was the first tutorial that popped up...

[jrh]

Note that you can also use a tool like Rufus to make a bootable drive. Also note that the Deployment Tools Command Prompt may be under "Microsoft Windows AIK" instead of "Windows AIK", it looks like at some point this was changed but the docs weren't updated. For me on Windows 7, it's under "Microsoft Windows AIK".