cannot assign drive letter in win81pe

Hi, all, sorry for my poor English, I am a beginner  here.
Recently I used the file  Win8.1SE_2014-12-25.zip and have built a Chinese win81pe x64 iso file successfully without any  error.
I copy all the boot files into the usb stick and it boots well perfectly.
Then I test it on a pc , the pc model is hp 6200 .with a
Sate drive.
Test 1: If the seta drive has volume, in WinPE I  plug another new usb hard disk.
Into the computer, I can see the usb drive letter. in explorer. and can access the drives,

Test 2: If the internal drive is blank and has no volume, in WinPE I plug another new usb drive, I cannot see the usb drive letter.

Test 3: If the internal drive is blank, in win81pe I can create a new simple volume and assign the volume letter for one time. but when I delete the volume, and create the volume again,
It cannot assign the new volume letter.

Test 4 the seta hard drive has 2 partitions. In winpe I can use ghost64.exe to back up the entire disk completely.

Test 5 my seta hard drive has two volumes and the gho file is on my usb hard disk
before running ghost64.exe, I can see all the drives at first, then I close all windows and run ghost64.exe, select
Disk from image and it stopped and reported error, then I cannot see the usb drive letter in explorer, and cannot assign any drive letter

Test 6   in win7pe, built by make pe3. Project. I can run ghost32.exe, select disk from image and it works well
I think maybe something is wrong with assigning drive letter. Am I wrong? Any advice?
Thanks and best regards

Hi yfwang0798,

Download Components\FakeDisk plugin from server
(click download button at builder interface right top.... )
see if it helps, let us know the result 

Just noticed Sumatra supports chm files as well. That is useful.

Hi Lancelot, thank you for your help, I follow your advice and download the file named FakeDisk.Script from the website http://win81se.cwcodes.net/projectindex.php ,  rebuilt and retested, mow I can assign the drive letter freely in WinPE, thank you very much
The test results are as following
Test 1 in WinPE, delete the volume and create the volume again, assign the drive letter successfully.

Test 2 plug in a new usb flash, in explorer cannot see the drive letter, use the command diskpart list vol, cannot see the volume
Run “install devices (hwpnp)”, in explorer, I can see the drive letter.

Test 3   I plug in a new usb disk, which has 3 primary partitions.
In explorer, I cannot see the drive letters, use the command diskpart , list vol, cannot see the volumes.
Run “install devices hwpnp”, in explorer cannot see the drive letter
Use the command diskpart and assign the drive letter manually.
Reopen explorer, now I can see the drive. Letter

   Test 4 run ghost64, select disk from image, failed
Reopen explorer, can see the drive letter of the usb disk, but cannot see the sata disk (destination disk)
Am I do something wrong? Thanks

Hi yfwang0798,

maybe a very small thing missing on this new os mode !
FakeDisk fix some part of it, but it seems not all...


Components\Hotplug plugin gives you MountStorPE tool,
 at StartMenu--System Tools\MountStorPE
  to give letters to new disks easly 

ps: we don't use MountStorPE at startup because it has a interesting failure on a very rare / special case.

I hope this helps.

Take some time to check plugins and FAQ, you may find clues to find your way. We all busy with our real life responsibilities...

See You

   Test 4 run ghost64, select disk from image, failed
Reopen explorer, can see the drive letter of the usb disk, but cannot see the sata disk (destination disk)
Am I do something wrong? Thanks

Great testing.  Just wanted to know if any of the hard drives are over 2 tera-bits?  I did several tests
and found out that Ghost crashes with any drive larger than two tera-bits. Check out Atari800xl topic.
http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=1141.0   I am also trying to get Paragon Manager to work correctly
in Win8.1SE.      http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=1068.40

Hi yfwang0798,

please also test with PE mode (Main Configuration-Build Type)

also check if automount enabled ? (and Mark)
diskpart.exe
diskpart>automount


ps: I begin to feel, mounting new letters on Win81SE OS mode maybe disabled or partially broken or .... ;)
at least with fakedisk we know diskmanagement always working properly

Rest is on Chris, JFX and yours hand

See You in Summer 

Hi yfwang0798, Mark,

Just something came to my mind,
ignore previous things if this works, (if not than don't ignore  )


try this attached FakeDisk plugin, crossing fingers so this fixes all your troubles. 

Hi, all
   Thanks for your help very much. After using the latest file FakeDisk.Script  (thanks for Lancelot’s help)  I have built two versions, build OS in RAM and build PE in RAM. I do not know the different between them, just want to test, perfectly, this time after running install device (hwpnp) once.
In explorer all usb drivers can be accessed, no need to mount them manually.
I retested in two modes, os in ram and pe in ram, my hard disk is only 250 GB

Test 1
Delete volume and create again, success

Test 2
Run ghost64 back up entire disk success.

Test 3
Run ghost64 select disk from image failed
I decode to give up.

Test 4 map network drives, success
   
By the way, I am studying registry, I studied the file acronis._inf (which can be accessed in old version of acronis backup before 11.5.32266, maybe can be accessed in acronis true image home) comparing with the normal os, and I get an idea

There are two important registry locations for disk and volume
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ system\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{4d36e967-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ system\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{71a27cdd-812a-11d0-bec7-08002be2092f}]

They are needed several service, then I go to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\ControlSet001\Services]

Found the service named rdyboost need the file sysmain.dll. And win81pe does not include this file, so I add it manually, I do not know if it can be functioned, maybe it is no use.

Thank you and Best regards

Hi yfwang0798,

Thanks for all your feedback  and good to know that the Fakedisk is really useful for some config

Found the service named rdyboost need the file sysmain.dll. And win81pe does not include this file, so I add it manually, I do not know if it can be functioned, maybe it is no use.

ReadyBoost can speed up your computer by using storage space on most USB flash drives and flash memory cards.
I do not think that this service is useful

For info:
In OS mode which use install.wim system hive, to see the disks if I remenber, the rdyboost service is disabled
RegWrite,HKLM,0x4,Tmp_System\ControlSet001\Services\rdyboost,Start,4
In PE mode which use boot.wim system hive, the rdyboost service does not exist.

Test3, hmmm,
This make me wonder Mark results ...

I had used disk from image from ghost rarely in past, it should be working 

to be more sure (ghost very old),
 another backup utility doing same "disk from image" ...
   Maybe you, Mark or Atari800xl can test with another up to date backup utility 

Hi  ChrisR and Lancelot
thanks for your help, I am not sure if the file is functioned.  I just export the registry from the real os, and import it both into os in ram and pe in ram. So the service is set to 0, which means boot,
I used it from make-pe3 , maybe it is no useful , in the past , I used acronis true image 2012 and acronis backup 11, now I use acronis backup 11. I use them to restore os from external usb disk it works well, so I keeps them . Maybe it will speed up, I hope so, as for ghost64, I only use the version 12, maybe it is too old.
regards
 

Maybe it will speed up, I hope so, as for ghost64, I only use the version 12, maybe it is too old.

I think this is the latest Ghost, here is the link. It is always hard to tell what version of Ghost as
they have a home and commercial versions. Give this a try.   
http://theoven.org/index.php?topic=1141.msg13369#msg13369

Maybe we can make a nice acronis backup plugin with your feedback since there already nice acronis dd and ti plugin we very recently work on (thanks Mark for pushing )

Well, as Chris indicated there never needed such file, acronis works nicely with minimal Gena, no trouble with se, and all without that through many acronis versions ...

Info hot :) why not one more acronis plugin ;)
yfwang0798, mark Pm me required files an info So i can test......

Hi ChrisR
You’re right, now I stop importing the service named rdyboost from real os, the service is no useful, and i rebuild. It works well. Thanks