Erwan's Blog

About SystemRescueCD :

Description: SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, …) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It can be used for both Linux and windows computers, and on desktops as well as servers. This rescue system requires no installation as it can be booted from a CD/DVD drive or USB stick, but it can be installed on the hard disk if you wish. The kernel supports all important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

Now as you have understood by now, whenever I can, I skip burning CD/DVD’s and will at worse use a USB stick or at best use PXE Boot.

Lets use TinyPXE Server + iPXE.

First lets prepare our iPXE script (save it to rescue.ipxe)


#!ipxe
set boot-url http://${next-server}
kernel ${boot-url}/sysrcd-4.1.0/isolinux/rescue32 dodhcp netboot=${boot-url}/sysrcd-4.1.0/sysrcd.dat
initrd ${boot-url}/sysrcd-4.1.0/isolinux/initram.igz
boot


Then lets prepare our files

Extrat the content of SystemRescueCD iso to /sysrcd-4.1.0, next to TinyPXE Server.
You can use 7Zip for this operation.

Now, lets setup TinyPXE Server

Now, lets boot !

There are times where you may not have a dvd drive or media available, or else, you may also want to perform some tasks before triggering the windows setup.

Agenda

• Prepare winpe with QuickPE
• Prepare the ipxe script
• Prepare the PXE server with TinyPxe Server
• Boot to winpe and Install windows
• Reboot and complete the installation on the local drive

Prepare winpe with QuickPE

You can either use MS WAIK (winpe3), or MS ADK (winpe4) or an existing windows setup DVD or ISO file.
Launch _run_me.cmd and make your choice.

Prepare the ipxe script

The following will attach an iscsi drive and will boot your winpe


#!ipxe
dhcp net0
set boot-url http://${dhcp-server}
initrd ${boot-url}/images/winpe4.iso
kernel ${boot-url}/memdisk iso raw
boot


Prepare the PXE server with TinyPxe Server

Use ipxe-undionly.kpxe as « boot file name » and the above script (name it install.ipxe) as « filename if user-class=iPXE »

Boot to Winpe

Now lets network boot (pxe as first device in the bios).
Computer will pxe boot, load ipxe, then load your script.
The script will boot into winpe.

Now we are ready to perform the installation : map a drive thanks to PeNetwork (in the tinyshell launchbar) and map a network share containing your windows installation files.
You could eventually script this part (in batch file) :

net use \\servername\sharename /user:username password
\\servername\sharename\setup.exe


Note1 : CloneDisk can also mount a virtual dvd drive from an iso file (only in winpe4).

Note2 : Rather than launching the setup.exe from the windows DVD, you can also apply a wim file to the target drive using imagex (or clonedisk).
If so, then remember that you need to prepare the drive (partition active, boot sector …).
Example code using imagex (we’ll assume the partition has been made active already) :

Imagex /apply \\servername\sharename\install.wim 1 c:
bcdboot c:\windows /s c:
bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr


Launch the windows setup and let it run.

Reboot to local drive

Windows should the complete the installation, and reboot one last to your windows desktop.

See below a video demonstrating the above steps.