Windows 7 / Getting Started

Booting from a Hard Disk Drive

Although it might seem strange to be booting Windows PE from a hard disk drive, you can do this to perform refresh installations of Windows 7. By loading Windows PE onto the hard disk and booting it to RAM, you can repartition your systems disks and install the new Windows 7 image.

To boot Windows PE from a hard disk drive, perform the following steps:

  1. Boot your computer from prepared Windows PE media.
  2. Using DiskPart, prepare the computer's hard disk for installation of Windows PE. Use the DiskPart commands shown in Table below.

    Preparing a Hard Drive for Windows PE
    CommandDescription
    select disk 00 is the primary hard disk drive.
    cleanRemoves the current partition structures.
    create partition primary size=sizesize is a partition size large enough to hold the Windows PE source files.
    select partition 1Selects the partition created by the previous command.
    activeMarks the new partition as active.
    formatFormats the new partition.
    exitQuits DiskPart.
  3. Copy the Windows PE files from your Windows PE media to your hard disk.
    xcopy /chery x:\*.* c:\
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In this tutorial:

  1. Preparing Windows PE
  2. Exploring Windows PE
  3. Capabilities
  4. Limitations
  5. New Features of Windows PE 3.0
  6. Setting Up the Environment
  7. Installing the Windows AIK 2.0
  8. Configuring the Build Environment
  9. Removing the Build Environment
  10. Windows 7 Working with PE
  11. Creating Bootable Media
  12. Booting from a Hard Disk Drive
  13. Customizing Windows PE
  14. Automating Windows PE
  15. Automating with Unattend.xml
  16. Adding Images to Windows Deployment Services
  17. Using Windows PE with Microsoft Deployment Toolkit