compressed ntldr

[Stefanie Niefer]

Hi KM,

sorry for that late answer, but I was a little bit busy.

Did you try another copying tool - robocopy (2K/XP Resource Tool kit)?

I havn't tried it yet, but I'm going to test it in the next days.
Currently, I'm fighting with the registry filter, wich has more
priority.

I see. If I understand correctly, you cannot use a localized version of WinPE, that will handle particular language fine including
file name and etc., because on the same recovery DVD you are going to have multiple images with different languages, right?

Yep. I'll include almost any eurpopean language available. But russian
is one of that wich is most wanted.

If so, you've got yourself a problem if you are using WinPE 1.x (in WinPE 2.0 you can add additional language packs). Pretty much
any tool you use that deals with file system it may fail to copy files that include non-english characters if you use English WinPE.

I think so, yes. Currently russian is our only Image with none unicode
characters. Maybe I need a single solution for that.

Some ways how to fix the issue:
- Use disk imaging software (this will include some not free licencing though)
- Use WInPE 2.0 (AIK). Really nice improvement to PE 1.x. In fact, almost different OS. However, I dont know what the licencing
is there.

Difficult to say. But since everyone can download it, I think it
should be possible, to distribute it. I'm goging let that check.

- Create recovery bootable CD/DVD that will boot to XPe. Here you can add whatever locales, language packs, etc. you may need.
XPe is way more flexible than PE. Thoughts on licencing here - see below.
- Use a small ("hidden") partition on the target storage where you can store SDI file temporarily to expand it on the main
partition. Note: you can always extend the main partition later to cover the entire disk with "diskpart extend" command. More
details below.
- Write your own disk imaging tool. This, btw, is not a big deal if you only going to stick with partition data (in other words,
partitionng you leave to diskpart). You will just have to do CreateFile on the partition to get to raw data.

Bah, as I told, I can write batch files. I cannot even handle APIs
correctly, then you tell me, to write an own imaging tool... Sorry, no
way! ;-)

Sorry, my bad. This issue slipped my memory.

No problem. It seems to slip some MSDN authors also... ;-)

Yup. Although you could always "trim" the image (there have been some posts in this NG where we discussed possible solutions to
this). However, it'd probably involve a bigger effort that what you are doing now.
However, you can zip the SDI file. With all the zero's it will becompressedto only data content or smaller.

Yep. But actually, I cannot see any solution how to handle it. My
Image is about 450MB (compressed NTFS). And it has to fit on a 512MB
CF-Card to hold backward compatiblity. CF-Cards have been much more
expensive a few years ago... ;-)

The beatity of the SDI is that it is free disk imaging tool for XPe. In other words, you don't have to deal with additional 3rd
party software licencing.
Disk imaging would help you to avoid any problems with files names and such.

Yep. As I told. Ghost is working fine.

Here is a possible scenerio [only theoretical one since I never tested it here]:
- Launch recovery CD with PE
- From within PE you launch you batch script that will do the following:
- partition the local hard disk. Use diskpart to create two partition.
- format and mount the second partition that will temporarily hold the SDI file - copy of the first golden partition. (don't
mount the first partition)
- copy required SDI file from DVD to the second partition drive. SDI file can be zipped or cab'ed here. You just create the
second partition big enough to hold the uncompressed SDI.

Yep. See the problem above. I can make a 450MB partition, but I only
got about 45 MB left to expand it... ;-(

If you're only going to use that XPe image for the purpose of recovery of your main XPe image you don't need to buy additional
licenses.

In wich license agreement is that stated? Actually, I cannot read
anywhere that this is legal. I may use PE, that is clearly stated in
Additional Licensing Provisions for XPE runtime, or in WinPE license
papers. In fact I think, the coa has to be fixed on that embedded
device, and you are not authorized, to use that software without a
coa. Hmm. I don't know. But it are two different devices. One is a
thin client and one is a recovery tool for thin client. Wich will lead
to the need of an additional license, since the function of the device
will be a complete different and not that one that it is original sold
with.

I'd recommend you to consult with your XPe distributor. They should let you know the legal aspect of it.

I'm going to let that check with distributor.

Steffi

 

[KM]

Stefanie,

....>

Yep. See the problem above. I can make a 450MB partition, but I only
got about 45 MB left to expand it... ;-(

Actually the above was not related to trimming the SDI file. Here you just deal with the 450M SDI and expand it from the temporary
partition on the device (temporary partition saves you from the "read-only" issue of the SDI).
The final "expanded" primary partition is initially going to have the size 450M as well but then you should be able to expand it
with diskpart expand command.
Did you try to use the *expand* command of the diskpart I mentioned in the previous post? http://support.microsoft.com:80/kb/325590

In wich license agreement is that stated? Actually, I cannot read

Sorry, I am just a dev and I am not going to go into the legal discussion here.
I personally don't think it is a good idea to just google for all this stuff if you are going to come up with a production unit. I
always leave the final legal stuff to someone more experienced in the legal aspects of the agreements and such.

The internals here is that you are only going to use XPe here for the recovery scenerio of your own XPe devices that are provided
with stickers and etc. I recall there was a post from someone from Microsoft confirming that. You may want to search this NG
archive.

 

[Stefanie Niefer]

Actually the above was not related to trimming the SDI file. Here you just deal with the 450M SDI and expand it from the temporary
partition on the device (temporary partition saves you from the "read-only" issue of the SDI).
The final "expanded" primary partition is initially going to have the size 450M as well but then you should be able to expand it
with diskpart expand command.
Did you try to use the *expand* command of the diskpart I mentioned in the previous post?http://support.microsoft.com:80/kb/325590

Well, I understand that extend command from diskpart. But I cannot
exactly follow the procedure before. So I havn't tried yet.

I got a 512 MB flash. My SDI will be about 450m just to hold my image.

booting pe.
starting diskpart script - making 2 partitions (?MB and 450MB). I
mount and format the second one
copy my image to it
expand my image using sdimgr rec.sdi /writepart:0 ? (is that the
right command?)
than this will result in a partition, that will hold my image, wich I
can boot from - after it has been activated with diskpart?

Am I right this way (I don't think so)?

Thx,
Steffi

 

[KM]

Stefanie,

Well, when I proposed that solution I was under impression you've got enough space there to play games with the SDI image.
If you barely have space for the image itself the whole idea of creating a temporary partition that will hold the image is useless.

Just for the record.
If you'd have a hard disk or a storage card big enough - at least two size of your image - it could work.
The diskpart' "extend" command would be of use for you when you destroy the temporary partition and try to expand the only partition
left to cover the entire flash.
The steps would be as follows:
- Boot to PE
- Run the diskpart script to crate 2 partitions (450M and leftover), format the second one/
- Mount the second partition
- Copy the SDI file from CD to the second partition
- Expand the image using SDIMgr (assuming sdiaut.dll is registered)
- Delete the second partition
- Use diskpart's "extend" command on the first partition (the only partition now) to extend it to cover the entire flash storage
- Reboot

The above is definitely not going to work for you since you only have the 512M flash.
Sorry to waste so much time on this. Only hope it will be useful to somebody else who runs into a similar issue.