BDD Standard 2.5 Windows PE continually restarts

[Kevin]

I'm experimenting with BDD Standard edition 2.5. I've run config.hta and
gone through the appropriate steps and I'm now at the stage where I'm
building my lab Windows PE 2004 CD. I can make the ISO and burn it to a CD
but it seems when Windows PE boots it resets the system around the point
where a basic Windows PE installation would present the command prompt.
Sometimes it just resets and I don't see anything other than the desktop
background before it restarts. Other times it flashes a quick error dialog
that says something like "The operation cannot be completed" or something
and then resets. I've tried it on several different systems with the same
results. I've also re-run the "Make Lab CD" button in config.hta just to
make sure it was built properly. My source Windows PE CD (the one I used as
the basis for the BDD customized WinPE) boots to the command prompt just
fine on these same computers.

Any clues as to what's wrong? Is there something I can change to sort of
step through the BDD WinPE boot process to see where it might be going
wrong? I've been unable to find documentation on what changes are made and
this is my first experiences with WinPE so I don't really know where to
start or how to troubleshoot it.

Thanks.

Kevin

 

[Johan Arwidmark]

Make sure you didn't overwrite the mkimg.cmd files that was included
in BDD 2.5 (it contains fixes for source files in pathnames with
spaces in them)

Make sure you add a non-hotfix-slipstreamed XP SP2 CD to the folder
specified as WinPE 2004 source for BDD WinPE 2004.

regards

Johan Arwidmark
Microsoft MVP - Setup/Deployment

 

[Kevin]

Thanks for your reply Johan.

The mkimg.cmd file that I have has a date of 8/5/2005 at 10:12PM. I install
BDD Standard 2.5 on another system and copied the mkimg.cmd file to make
sure I'm using the correct one.

As well, I'm using a copy of Windows XP with SP2 that came as part of our
Open License Value order. I have not made any modifications to the source
files but to be sure, I deleted and copied them again.

I still have the same issue.

Kevin

 

[Johan Arwidmark]

What Nic do you have on the PC which yo are booting the winpelab iso
from? Have you added updated drivers to the winpe image?

Is the network started correctly? Can you do a manual net use to the
server.


regards

Johan Arwidmark
Microsoft MVP - Setup/Deployment

 

[Kevin]

The shipped drivers worked fine when I loaded WinPE from the original
factory CD. I tried integrating the most current NIC drivers but no change.
After reviewing the buildCD.log file I see two entries that I think are the
cause:

Error in copying (2) : C:\Program Files\BDD Standard 2.5\Computer Imaging
System\Source\XPPro\SP2\.\i386\factory.exe ->
C:\DOCUME~1\admin-ke.MM\LOCALS~1\Temp\winpe.tmp\.\I386\system32\factory.exe.
Error in copying (2) : C:\Program Files\BDD Standard 2.5\Computer Imaging
System\Source\XPPro\SP2\.\i386\winpeshl.exe ->
C:\DOCUME~1\admin-ke.MM\LOCALS~1\Temp\winpe.tmp\.\I386\system32\winpeshl.exe.

Not sure why the files won't copy but it might have something to do with the
fact that \.\ is in the source and destination paths. Perhaps there's an
error in the script somewhere? Not sure how to proceed but I'm sure this is
why I'm experiencing this behaviour.

Kevin

 

[Kevin]

So it's now working. Error 2 is "the system cannot find the file
specified". I looked at the source folder "C:\Program Files\BDD Standard
2.5\Computer Imaging System\Source\XPPro\SP2\.\i386\" and the files that are
failing are not there. There were actually 3 files, winpeshl.exe,
factory.exe, and netcfg.exe. Strange thing is, these are WinPE files and
shouldn't be there. I have no idea why they are being sought from that
location. I copied the missing files to the source location that the
config.hta WinPE build process uses and then build the Lab ISO image again.
I then popped the CD in my test system and it boots successfully.

I'm still left with the question of why these files are being pulled from
the XP source media and not the WinPE source folder. Any insight?

Kevin