Booting from ISO

Hi, I built a Win10PE using Windows 10 2004, it work's fine booting direct from USB or ISO in virtualbox. Ive been using a custom menu built with Syslinux with other tools and a like to add the this ISO to it. For other ISO like AOMEI Backuper i use this:

find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /MULTIBOOT/tools/AOMEIBackupper.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /MULTIBOOT/tools/AOMEIBackupper.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)

However on the PE ISO for Win10 it boots but don't mount the disk Y: where the applications are.

I look around and find information about the WiN7PE using  a custom INI to remap the disk where the iso is to be mounted, but nothing for Win10PE .

Hi lothricprince87

I assume you still have a working Win10PE-Builder to rebuild the .ISO.
Make sure 'Tweaks\ImDisk Ramdisk' is enabled, also enable MountPEMedia
Look for Build\CdDrive - X: - Y: and select it, and click enable or activate button. Click MountPEmedia and read.
After Rebuilding, On boot now, MountPEMedia will look for the .ISO, and then use Imdisk to load the .ISO to Y:\
****************************************************************************************

If the above does not work for you.
Open explorer to the (Win10XPE build folder), yours may be named differently.
Navigate to ?:\(Win10XPE build folder)\Custom\Win10PESE\
Right click, select New Text Document, Rename it to LoadISO.cmd
Copy below everthing from @Echo ON, and paste it into LoadISO.cmd, exit and save it.
make a new build, and then run LoadISO.cmd in the PE to Load the .ISO to Y:\
LoadISO.cmd should now be built inside of the Win10PESE.ISO.
You do not have to re-build LoadISO.cmd inside of the PE.
You can try LoadISO.cmd on your booted Win10PESE as-is,
as long as it has Imdisk.exe present in the Win10PESE at X:\Windows\System32\Imdisk.exe.

Change the 'Set ISO=' below to the actual name and location of your .ISO
If you are running from USB and ISO is at root of drive, Set ISO=Win10XPE_x64.ISO
If ISO is in a folder Set ISO=Foldername1\Foldername2\Win10XPE_x64.ISO etc.
Imdisk.exe must be in X:\Windows\System32\imdisk.exe in Booted Win10PESE

Regards
RoyM

@Echo ON
Set ISO=10XPE1x64\Win10XPE_x64.ISO
for %%x in (C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Z) do (pecmd IFEX %%x:\%ISO%,EXEC %WinDir%\System32\imdisk.exe -a -f "%%x:\%ISO%" -m y:)
REM WAIT 5000
pecmd TEAM IFEX KEY Y:\CDUsb.y|MESS Y:\CDUsb.y  FOUND *2000
goto EOF

Hi RoyM


The first option "Tweaks\ImDisk Ramdisk" is not available in my WinPE Builder so I used your second suggestion;
I created a "LoadISO.cmd" with the adjusts to my ISO and put it in "Win10XPE\Custom\x86\AdditionalFiles\Windows\System32\"
and build the ISO again, once it booted I manually run the script and the letter Y: was mounted;
then to make it run at the start o the boot process, I add it to the "pecmd.ini" file before the "//LetterSwap" section

//LoadISO
EXEC %WinDir%\System32\LoadISO.cmd   

Now everything works, the shortcuts and programs are correct set to the disk Y, I tested this in 3 computers and all of them it boot properly.

So in all actually you are Mounting Y into system memory to have access to Y/Programs
is that not the same as writing all programs to ram and having access via X/program files
The ISO is not writable media - so any program trying to write to Y will fail

I see, I tested the softwares and all of them worked fine, but what you are saying is correct.
The shortcuts on the desktop point to Y: which is not writable. Without the LoadISO.cmd the boot wont put any shortcuts to the desktop,
will be a RamDisk mapped to B: but with nothing inside and Boot on X: which contain the OS.
With the LoadISO.cmd the shortcuts are placed in the desktop and the ram disk B: now has a folder with the programs, but the shortcuts are still maps to the ISO on Y:

Simply using Imdisk to load the .ISO to Y:\

Merry Christmas
RoyM.

I just make a few more tests here and after using the "Run ALL programs from RAM", it solves the problems where I need to use the LoadISO to make the PE work. The final ISO that I'm using has 674MB and uses ~1GB of RAM to boot, and even boots with only 1GB on VirtualBox(Will be very slow if i try to run any program, but don't crash, small programs like autoruns runs fine)

When I use this option the PE ISO is fully loaded to the RAM? The Boot partition that appears has the full Windows file system inside with the apps inside Program Files, but says that has only 2,5MB of used space and ~1GB of free space.

Since I'm only adding small programs to the PE, running all the programs from RAM appears not to be an issue, but if i make a larger ISO, like 3GB I will need the 3GB for the ISO file system plus the Cache (is 1024MB now) to be able to boot?

I also using ImDisk to create the RamDisk on B:, the ram disk is dynamic allocated? It has 1GB in size of empty space but appears not to be using any RAM.


Kinda late but, I hope you guys have had a Merry Christmas