Guide to building a 64 Bit UEFI Secure Boot WinPE 5.0 CD or USB Flash Drive running TIHome 2014 with or without Disk Director 12

Mustang,

What a nice gesture on your part and the volunteering of your time to provide 8.1 users help with their Recovey creation issues.

I don't have 8.1 but your Mustange PEBuilder for XP and Win 7 users always has been very versatile and always worked.

Thanks and much appreciated.

As in item #1 above, Before you can begin to make the Mustang CD, you must UNZIP the WINPE.ZIP.
CAUTION: Don't accept the unzip default path as it is usually wrong. The WinPE should not be part of the unzip path. Backspace WinPE from the path.
The unzip path should be
C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE

Upon completion of the unzip, the path should appear as

C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Drivers
as illustrated in below and in the purple box.

Mustang, your guide is really helpful and your work much appreciated!

It is a shame that Microsoft did not include WOW64 in the 64-Bit editions of WinPE under ADK 4.0 or 5.0. The same goes for Acronis, as they are currently only providing a WinPE-64-Bit-plugin for B&R 11.5 but not for Acronis WinPE-Iso-Builder, which is supporting only x86 WinPE 4.0. http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ATIH2014/index.html#8763.h…

That's why your idea is great to implement basic WOW64 functions in 64-Bit-WinPE in order to make the 32-Bit-Acronis-Plugin of ATI 2014 run.

If had been using Mustang plugins since ATI Home 2009 in BartPE up to Acronis 2013-plugin by Mustang ADK PEbuilder for WinPE 4.0. I followed your new guide to the letter and I was able to create a "boot.wim" file which is booting fine from UEFI USB flash drive under UEFI Secure Boot 64-Bit hardware until the mustang car picture is showing up, but then screen goes blank and it reboots (just before the cmd frame would should up to start winpeinit.exe). This has happened even with all plugins and "SetRes" disabled in a different tests, so I assume that your WOW64-implementation still causes a problem (on the same hardware, i can boot a pure 64-Bit WinPE Deployment boot.wim without any issue). The same result has happened with a second "boot.wim" created on a different laptop, both running Windows 8.1 64-Bit and Acronis TI 2014 Premium with bootable media files unzipped and your new ADK 64 PEbuilder 2.

(Sorry for my english, not a native speaker)

Lion2008,

Thanks for your feedback. Here are some suggestions for testing to try to figure out what is causing the problem:

1. In winpeshl.ini replace the last line "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\A43\a43.exe" with cmd.exe. This will try to start WinPE with just a command window open as a standard Microsoft WinPE is started.

2. I don't have a Secure Boot machine for testing. My latest computer is UEFI but does not have Secure Boot. You could try adding the SecureBootCmdlets WinPE package. There are dependencies for this package so you need to add some other packages as well. Just copy and paste the following text to replace the text package1 in AddPackages.ini.

package1=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-WMI.cab
package2=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-SecureStartup.cab
package3=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-NetFx.cab
package4=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-Scripting.cab
package5=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-PowerShell.cab
package6=C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\amd64\WinPE_OCs\WinPE-SecureBootCmdlets.cab

3. Could you try disabling Secure Boot in your BIOS and see if you can get WinPE to work?

Let me know if you have any luck.

I've found the problem. I forgot a step in the guide posted in thread number one. Post one has been edited to add the following:

After Step 3, you need to copy two Acronis 64 bit driver files named fltsrv.sys and snapman.sys to the Acronis BartPE. First, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Drivers and create a new folder called X64 under the Drivers folder. Now copy fltsrv.sys and snapman.sys from C:\Windows\System32\drivers to C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Driver\X64. You will need to provide Administrative approval to copy the files.

After you do this, try again.

Well, were are actually progressing - sort of:

What I found in a couple of tests is that secure boot is not the issue. If it was, i would not have been able to succesfully boot into the .wim file. Nevertheless, I managed to add the respective .cab-files in the AddPackages.ini as you suggested and run it, but it did not change the result.

Furthermore, I am able to boot into a cmd-frame or into A43.exe if I set the winpeshl.ini accordingly. But if I then try to start trueimage_starter.exe, I am always running into a "side-by-side configuration is incorrect" error which prevents me from running Acronis. The same happens even after adding the two drivers into the bartpe\files\driver\x64-folder. This side-by-side error might have been the reason why my very first attempts had failed, as I was trying to directly running Acronis via the winpeshl.ini, which daused a crash with immediate rebooting.

As I was assuming a language problem (I am German), I switched my Windows System Language to US-English, uninstalled the German Acronis 2014, rebooted, installed the US-English Acronis 2014 and the US-English Addons, activated Acronis and retried MustangPEBuilder64, but calling trueimage_starter.exe either in A43 or in CMD failed again with a side-by-side error. 

I have run sxstrace in the WinPE and converted the .etl into a .txt file, which does not tell much to me, but you will find it attached.

Any ideas?

Lion2008,

Thanks for your input. I think the side by side error is being caused by a language problem. Lets try this:

Go to C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\Plugins\32Bit\Files and rename Winners.reg to Winners.save.reg. Now run regedit.exe and navigate to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide\Winners. Highlight the Winners key. Now click File/Export and choose C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\Plugins\32Bit\Files as the location and name the file Winners.reg. The new Winners.reg file will be much bigger, but the extra information should not cause any problem. Next open the new Winners.reg file using Notepad.exe. Click Edit/Replace and replace \SOFTWARE\ with \PE_SOFTWARE\ and click the Replace All button. Now the WinPE registry values will match the side by side files copied from your system to WinPE at X:\Windows\WinSxS.

Try building again and see what happens.

If this does not work, check in WinPE to see how many files are at two locations (X:\Windows\WinSxS and X:\Windows\SysWOW64). These are the locations where files from your system should have been copied. There should be thousands of files there. I've used %SystemRoot%\WinSxS and
%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64 to get the files from your system, so it should work.

As of Feb. 10, 2014, a new version is available. The download link is the same.

The only change is that more files have been added to the 32Bit plugin that provides better support for 32 bit apps. running in the 64 bit WinPE. You will notice a change in how True Image runs. In the previous version, when you clicked the Browse button to look for a backup destination or tib file to restore you would not see the descriptions of the drives and folder and you would need to type in the locations manually. Now this is working as it should and you can navigate to the locations normally.

Does this work on 64-bit with SecureBoot turned on? This will likely be the deciding factor on if I should buy TrueImage or not.

I don't have a Secure Boot system to test (only a UEFI system without Secure Boot). It would appear the it will boot with Secure Boot enabled from post #5 above.

Ahh ok. That's good news then.

I just tested this on my laptop and it works with SecureBoot enabled. :)

Alienware M17x R4

Working: All the essentials and even shows proper resolution
Non-Working: Wireless... I think that's it for what I could tell.

Robert,

Thanks for the feedback. That's great news that it is working with Secure Boot. I'll edit the topic to reflect that.

Sorry, but wireless is not supported.

Mustang,

I followed your guide, on the advanced page I selected the drive letter for the USB flash drive. At the end of the flash drive is formatted but when all is done, the flash drive is empty.

Jan

Jan,

I can only guess as to the reason. Did you get an iso file created in the ISO folder? If so, can you burn it to a CD and see if it boots. This will tell us if the WinPE image was created successfully. If it was, the problem is with the USB flash drive. My program is using the MakeWinPEMedia.cmd tool, supplied by Microsoft in the ADK, to make the USB drive. First, are you sure you selected the right drive letter? Second, I don't know exactly what restrictions are placed on the USB flash drives that will work. I just tried it using a 64 GB flash drive and it was ignored completely. What size is your USB drive? Is it a SanDisk Cruzer?

See the troubleshooting section at this link http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825109.aspx .

EDIT:
I succeeded with the 64 GB drive by first creating a 32 GB primary FAT32 partition and leaving the remaining space unallocated.

Mustang,

I create a CD from the ISO folder and can boot from it. I used different USB sticks, noname, Verbatim, OCZ, Sandisk, Transcend and AData, all 4GB or larger. I used USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports. The result is always an empty stick.
I also reinstalled the ADK and MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64, but still the same problems.

I followed the instructions on http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825109.aspx to create WINPE on a USB stick.

I get the following messages:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Deployment
Tools>MakeWinPEMedia /UFD C:\WinPE_amd64 j:
WARNING, ALL DATA ON DISK DRIVE j: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format [Y,N]?Y
Formatting j:...

Setting the boot code on j:...

Copying files to j:...

File creation error - The parameter is incorrect.

Unable to create directory - J:\
ERROR: Failed to copy files to j:\.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jan

I found the solution in this article:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/12712e69-feb6-…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem lies with the MakeWinPEMedia.cmd

After the script partitions and reformats the flash drive, the disk appears offline for about 10 seconds (can be verified if you have Explorer open). This for some reason messes up XCOPY in the way the command is written.

SOLUTION:

Open MakeWinPEMedia.cmd using notepad ( notepad "C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Assessment and Deployment Kit\Windows Preinstallation Environment\MakeWinPEMedia.cmd" )

REPLACE:
xcopy /herky "%WORKINGDIR%\%TEMPL%" "%DEST%\" >NUL

WITH
xcopy /herky "%WORKINGDIR%\%TEMPL%\*.*" "%DEST%\*.*" >NUL

notice the \*.* at two places, thats what somehow makes XCOPY wait for the disk to be ready and then copies the files.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jan,

Nice work finding this. I'm glad it worked for you. Unfortunately, I can't fix it here. Each user having this issue would need to fix it at his end by editing MakeWinPEMedia.cmd. I will insert a note in the first post telling people to see your post if they are having this problem.

Thanks for your hard work.

Edit:

Just a note to add to Jan's post #16 above. You'll need to notepad as administrator to edit MakeWinPEMedia.cmd.

Mustang,

Thanks.
Google is my best friend.

BTW if you are changing the first post, there is a typo in the second
C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Driver\X64
it should be
C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Drivers\X64

Jan

Mustang,

Sorry, but since the last ATIH 2014 build (6673), building a 64 bit UEFI Secure Boot WinPE 5.0 CD and following your guide step by step doesn't work.

I always have the side-by-side error when running X:\program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\trueImage_starter.exe program from the CD.

I also created the new winners.reg from my registry but the program doesn't work (side-by-side error).

Do you have any idea what is causing my problem?

Configuration:
Windows 8.1 64bits on ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen3 motherboard. 16Go Memory.
No secure boot machine
ATIH 2014 premium version + Media add-on installed + WinPE.zip unzipped.
Windows 8.1 ADK from Microsoft
MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64 v3.3.8.1

(Winners.reg = 12817Ko, winners.sav.reg = 2425Ko)
WinSxS = 2227 folders \ 8365 files
SysWOW64 = 58 folders \ 1080 files

Nota: the previous CD created from ATIH 2014 build 6614 and WINPE 4.0 runs well.

Sorry for my English (I am french).

Sorry, I don't have any ideas. Build 6673 is working fine for me, so I can only think this may be a language problem. Are you using a French version of True Image? It is very strange that build 6614 worked and now build 6673 doesn't.

Hello,

Yes I am using a french version of True Image.

Build 6614 worked fine but was made Under Windows 8 (64 bits) and WinPE 4.0 if I remenber well.

Now, I am using Windows 8.1 64 bits and Windows ADK for Windows 8.1

abbreizh

Open C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Drivers\Microsoft.VC80.CRT\Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest and see if the text is in English or French.

Microsoft.V880.CRT.manifest is in English.

Mustang - thanks for this, you've made it quite simple. Yesterday I upgraded from 6614 to 6673 and made the attempt. It was successful, but I made a few stupid errors first:

1) I extracted WinPE.Zip using the zip extract using folder for file name (by habit) which adds the WinPE folder to all the paths.
2) When I ran adksetup it said I was up-to-date. Unfortunately, that was the 8.0 ADK, so I had to uninstall that and download the 8.1 version.

I had been delaying the upgrade to 6673 since everything was working smoothly, but I kept getting that nagging feeling to update. I did the update without a prior uninstall - there were no problems. Finally it seems that the Acronis install/uninstall process is getting fairly robust.

I have ATI Home 2013 and an Acer ultrabook with pre-installed 64 bit Win 8 updated to Win 8.1. I do not have a cd/dvd drive and want to be able to boot from a usb flash drive in case of catastrophe. Over the years, I have had various issues with different versions of ATI Home and I'm not ready to update to 2014. My question: Does Mustang's procedure work with ATI Home 2013 or must I be able to use files that are only in 2014?

My thanks to Paul Larini for taking the time to figure this stuff out (I couldn't do it even with infinite time) and sharing it. Several versions of ATIH ago, I used his Bart PE plugins to solve problems that Acronis couldn't/didn't.

Thanks for the kind words.

I haven't written a TI 2013 MustangPE plugin for building a 64 bit WinPE, so you can't use the procedure in the first post. However, you can use MustangPE to build a 32 bit WinPE with TI 2013. Just follow the link in my signature and download the ADK version of MustangPE and the TI 2013 plugin.

iamwhoiam,
Unfortunately, 2013 and 8 or 8.1 are not compatible.

However, if you have 8 or 8.1 and 2013 and act before the April 1 deadline,
you can get a free upgrade to 2014.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/50750

Mustang wrote:

Guide to building a 64 Bit UEFI Secure Boot WinPE 5.0 CD or USB Flash Drive running TIHome 2014:

IMPORTANT: This will only work on a Windows 8.1 64 bit system.

1. You must have the Premium version of True Image Home 2014 installed on the system you build from. You also need the free plugin "Media add-on" downloaded from your Acronis account and installed. You also need to unzip the WinPE.zip file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE.

2. Download and install the Windows 8.1 ADK from Microsoft. http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=39982

3. Download and install MustangPEBuilder 2 ADK 64 from my website. http://www.mechrest.com/plugins/MustangPEBuilder/Downloads/Files/Setup_…

4. You need to copy two Acronis 64 bit driver files named fltsrv.sys and snapman.sys to the Acronis BartPE. First, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Drivers and create a new folder called X64 under the Drivers folder. Now copy fltsrv.sys and snapman.sys from C:\Windows\System32\drivers to C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE\Files\Drivers\X64. You will need to provide Administrative approval to copy the files.

5. Run MustangPEBuilder64.exe from C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64 and click the Create WinPE ISO button to generate a WinPE 5.0 ISO at C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\ISO.

6. If you want a USB Flash Drive to boot WinPE, click the Advanced Options button and choose a drive letter where the USB flash drive will be created.

7. Burn the file winpe_amd64.iso at C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\ISO to a CD.

It's that simple! Because it's a 64 bit WinPE, it will be UEFI bootable.

When booted into WinPE, you will start with a file manager open. This is the WinPE shell, so do not close it until you are done. Closing it will issue a reboot. To get to True Image Home 2014, navigate to X:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome and double click on TrueImage_starter.exe. You may minimize the file manager, but do not close it while you're working in True Image.

Some insight. The WinPE will be built using the standard 64 bit WinPE 5.0 supplied in the ADK. Files will be added to the WinPE from your 64 bit system in order to add support for running the 32 bit version of True Image supplied by Acronis. I was able to add enough of WOW3264 to get True Image to run. Unfortunately, not all 32 bit programs will be able to run. BSExplorer used in the 32 bit version of MustangPEBuilder will not work properly. It will start, but the links do not work. Hence, I'm using the file manager as the shell. If you would prefer to have True Image start immediatele (instead of the file manager), you can open C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\winpeshl.ini and change the last line from "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\A43\a43.exe" to "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\TrueImage.exe".

My web pages have not been updated to include the 64 bit version. In the meantime, it will only be available to download from the above link.

Edit:

As of Feb. 10, 2014, a new version is available. If you downloaded prior to that date, please download again and reinstall. See my post # 7 below for details.

Edit Feb. 22, 2014:

If you end up with an empty USB drive, please see the solution provided by Jan Loef at post #16 below.

[quote=Mustang]

Guide to building a 64 Bit UEFI Secure Boot WinPE 5.0 CD or USB Flash Drive running TIHome 2014:

IMPORTANT: This will only work on a Windows 8.1 64 bit system.

1. You must have the Premium version of True Image Home 2014 installed on the system you build from. You also need the free plugin "Media add-on" downloaded from your Acronis account and installed. You also need to unzip the WinPE.zip file in C:\Program Files (x86)\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE.

Thank you for your excellent work and your willingness to share it. I had one difficulty (if there is a way to misunderstand directions, I will find it). In instruction 1 above, I initially unzipped WinPE.zip to WinPE. When my directory structure in BartPE didn't quite match your instructions, I just created folders to match (I added Files\Drivers\X64 to BartPE). I also didn't understand that I should create a bootable usb flash drive at the same time as I created the .iso. Even though I unzipped WinPE.zip to the wrong place, I still got an .iso. I created the bootable flash drive manually, using diskpart (your automated approach is much easier). The computer booted from the usb, but there was no TrueImage_starter.exe. It took a while, but it finally dawned on me that I didn't unzip winPE.zip to the right place. Once I put the files where they belonged, I recreated the .iso, creating the bootable usb at the same time. Having a bootable usb flash drive is very important to me since my Acer S3-391 doesn't have a cd/dvd drive. The bootable usb worked with no problems. I hope this helps someone else who has difficulty figuring out where the winPE.zip files go.

It's a shame that Acronis does not provide the capability you have. I have used ATI since 2009 and have had problems with every version. Eventually, Acronis  fixes most of the problems (or I find help like this in the forums), but I didn't volunteer to be a beta tester, especially when I'm paying for the product.

Apparently, not all usb flash drives will boot. I did create a bootable USB flash drive on an old 2GB Kingston traveler I had, but it made me nervous to have just one old bootable usb flash drive. So I bought two inexpensive 4GB (smallest they had) house branded flash drives at Micro Center. I couldn't get either one to boot or to be seen as a bootable usb by my Acer S3-391. I thought I might have made an error somewhere, so I tried the install on a Sandisk 8GB. It worked fine and booted with no problems. Lesson learned - use a decent name brand usb flash drive. Don't use the Micro Center house brand. They might be OK for file storage, but not for booting.

Normally, it is the SanDisk brand which causes the issues and it is one I avoid due to its inherent partition structure. Kingston, PNY, are a couple which work very well. The 4G are plenty ample.

Thanks for the viruses! My antivirus detected three known trojans in the following files: C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\Plugins\TIHome2014\TIHome2014.exe
C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\Plugins\A43\A43Utility.exe
C:\MustangPEBuilder_2_ADK_64\Plugins\PENetCfg\PENetCfg.exe
I'm surprised out of 30 posts nobody else has spotted this issue...

I think these are false positives.

A lot of rescue operations need to resort to 'risky' behavior and get noticed by these kinds of scanners.

Which antivirus are you using?
Norton Internet Security updated to the latest version does not find a problem.

I've been programming for many years using the AutoIt3 language. Every now and then this issue has arisen. It is usually a free antivirus program that creates a false positive because they can't see into AutoIt3 files. If you provide the name of your antivirus program, I'll attempt to contact them and offer to send them my files for inspection.

It's GFI Vipre. The worrisome thing to me is that it was detected as a known trojan, not a generic potentially unwanted program. The argument that Norton does not detect this is insubstantial to me because Norton doesn't detect a lot of things...

I want to believe that this software works well, and I appreciate your time spent on creating this tool. I just can't risk installing a virus on a work machine.

I trust Norton Internet Security.

Well thank you for the quick replies and the helpful tools, I'll have to pass on using this at work though.

I've submitted a request for help on this to VIPRE Antivirus support. Here is a copy of what I sent them:

I offer software through the Acronis forum. Here is the link to the thread providing the download link to the software: https://forum.acronis.com/forum/54130

A user reported VIPRE Antivirus detected know Trojans in the files. Would you please download the software and investigate. Please let me know if you need anything from me to resolve this issue.

Thank you,
Paul Larini

Eric,

VIPRE Antivirus support has asked for some information from you.

1. Name of the Trojan detected.

2. VIPRE Definition version.

3. VIPRE Software version.

Would you please supply this information so I can forward it to them.

1. Surprisingly, it doesn't say the name of the threat, but does say that it is "known."

2. 28690

3. 6.2.5530

Here is the XML version of all the information I could get:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>

Thanks Eric. I'll pass that on and see what they have to say.

Thank you. I appreciate the help with this, it will be nice to have a 64 bit UEFI capabable WinPE for Acronis.

Eric,

Good news. VIPRE support has informed me that the files will no longer be detected as a threat if the definitions are updated to version 28802 or higher.

Paul,

Thank you for working on this. I updated to version 28890 of the definitions, but it is still detecting C:\MUSTANGPEBUILDER_2_ADK_64\Plugins\TIHome2014\TIHome2014.exe as a generic trojan "Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT"

We're almost there!

Eric,

Thanks for the feed back. I've let them know.

Eric,

They say try again with definitions updated to version 28902. I'm sending them TIHome2014.exe again to make sure they have the exact version from the download. Let me know what happens.

Why in the world do we even need to do this? When I bought True Image 2014 (not True Image 1998) I sort of figured they had an idea this new fangled product called Microsoft WINDOWS 8 came out a week or so ago... (note my sarcasm.) I moved to this product because it was supposed to do what I need it to...

Eric,

New definitions 28,982 or higher should work.

Robert,

I think there's a licensing issue with providing this out of the box, but I'm not sure... Anyway the Linux (default boot environment) usually works great.

Paul,

Thank you for working on this and for providing an easy to use tool. It now passes the scan on version 28988.

Eric,

You're welcome.