Build a BartPE disk

Diy-Computer-Repair can help!

Did you ever have one of those days... When you just couldn't build a BartPE disk?

Well you aren't the only one and after messing around with it for two days I came to the conclusion that maybe other people were having problems too.

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Bart has done an excellent job of making this fine tool for us. And his help files are very good. I am not knocking Bart, but it is occasionally hard to find the information on his site. So I will give him a hand because he is busy making all these great tools for us.

Before you sit down at your computer and start building those boot cd's you need more than the pebuilder. You will need:

A Windows install disk for the version of windows you are installing, if it is Win2000 then the Win2000 install disk, XP will need XP, Vista will need Vista. Now if you are in to servers then you may want to use the Server install disk. Here is a catch 22, all versions of windows are backward compatible, yes? But they are NOT forward compatible. That is to say if you build a boot cd using Win2000 you will not be able to access any NTFS drives on say a XP or Vista Operating System install. Nope won't do it. So always try to build your boot cd with the latest version you have. That way when you go to your cousin's house to fix the computer he blew up you will have a boot cd that works, very impressive!

Next the pebuilder comes with a lot of freeware or open source programs, but because this is an open license program Bart can not install any commercial software programs in his program. To you than means if you want say Ghost on the cd you have to have a copy and license to install it on the cd. Be real and stay out of trouble please.

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Ok, gathered all the different software programs you want? Have the latest and greatest install cd?

How about the pebuilder program?

Ok, lets do this - Here are some screen shots I made as I installed pebuilder and built a boot cd.

Start with where you stored the download of the executable:

Then pick the place where you want the program to be installed to, the default path is c:\pebuilder3110a, I put it in the Program Files folder/

From here on most of the screens will be the default settings.

Finished, launch the program.

You have to agree to the License.

Now you have to find the Windows installation files, you can not use the Windows directory where the Operating System is installed on your computer, it has to be the Install CD, click the No button, then brows to the cd, all you need is the drive letter.

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Next you need to decide where to put the boot cd you will be building, I let it build it in the default location. You can change this to where ever you want.

Accept the License for the build of the boot cd.

The build in progress.

All done, look at the last ten lines or so, any errors with the build will show up here.

Once you have the basic boot cd built you can add on options and other programs with the 'Plugins' button. here I will add on ERD 2002. You have to have the program installed to get at the required files.

Highlight the Plugin you want to add to the build.

When you click on the Enable/Disable button you will get the following error if the files for the Plugin are not available. When you read the error you will see a list of files that the program is looking for. If you click on the 'Edit' button it will open the 'inf' file and you can see a list of files there also, makes it easier to see the names of the files and the path where the files need to be to make the Plugin work. Normally the files will be in the path of:

Name of plug in files such as the ERD 2002 Plugin:

c:\program files\pebuilder3110a\plugins\erd2002\files

Once you have the files in the correct location the Plugin will be turned on and available when you build the boot cd.

I want to add Ghost 8 to my boot cd, it is not in the list so I had to click on 'Add' then find the place where the Plugin will go, in addition I had to go to an install of the program on a computer and get the required files, to find what files I needed I read the 'inf' in the Ghost 8 folder.

Read the 'inf'

Create the Plugin.

Once the Plugin has been created then it is available when you create the boot cd.

To learn more about the Plugin process Bart has a great help page here.

Now I have the basic BartPE boot cd and a customized boot cd with ERD 2002 and Ghost 8 installed. My problem is that the ERD 2002 is not forward compatible with XP or Vista, it is a Win2000 program. So next I need to use Barts help page and make the Plugin for ERD 2005 the last version of the ERD Commander.

So there you have it a tutorial on the process of building a BartPE boot disk and the links to his site to get the files you need. Check out the drivers page while you are there, see if there are any updated drivers for the latest and greatest hardware installed in your computer.

Enjoy!

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