Booting BartPE from flash memory or USB stick

It is possible to boot BartPE from flash memory of USB stick as well, but only when the BIOS of the computer supports booting from these media. Compared to a bootable CD, it takes some more effort to create BartPE on bootable flash memory. The next steps has to be done:

* Install PE Builder and configure BartPE as described above.
* Install the zip-tool 7-Zip (download: www.7-zip.org.
* Create a subfolder srsp1 using the Windows Explorer (File, New, Folder) in the PE Builder location (pebuilder3110a\srsp1).
* Download Service Pack 1 for Windows 2003 server (320 MB!) and store it somewhere on the hard disk (the new subfolder in the previous step can be used as well), right click the file and select 7-Zip, Open. Browse in the archive to the folder I386, and search for the file setupldr.bin (right click the column Name to sort the archive on alphabetically), right click this file, select Copy To and select the newly created sub folder srsp1. Repeat this for the archived file ramdisk.sy_ and close 7-Zip.
* Right click the restored file ramdisk.sy_ in the sub folder pebuilder3110a\srsp1 of the PE Builder location and select 7-Zip, Open. Right click the archived file ramdisk.sys, select Copy To and again select the newly created folder srsp1.
* Download and install the HP USB Storage Format Tool (download: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197, unfortunately no longer available on HP's website). Place the flash memory or USB stick, start the Format tool, select the accompanying disk letter and format it with the FAT file system (ATTENTION: all files on this location will be permanently deleted!).
* In PE Builder select ISO image as Media output and start building the ISO as described earlier.
* Right click the file pe2usb.cmd in the PE Builder location and select Send to, Desktop (create shortcut). Right click the new shortcut on the desktop and select Properties. Add a space and the disk letter of the flash memory/USB stick at the end of the line next to Output:(like ...pebuilder\p23usb.cmd P:) and click OK.
* By double clicking the changed shortcut, the ISO image is transferred to the flash memory. When BartPE USB Installer is finished, the necessary files bartpe.iso, NTDETECT.COM, ntldr and winnt.sif are stored on the flash memory. Restart the computer to boot from the flash memory to start BartPE (make sure that the BIOS is set to boot these media first, else it will be skipped while booting the computer).
* When it is needed to make some changes to BartPE, the ISO file has to be recreated. The next step is to copy the ISO image to the flash memory by double clicking the p23usb.cmd shortcut.

ATTENTION: When the flash memory is booted, a virtual RAM disk is created to temporarily store the ISO image with BartPE. When there is not enough RAM memory available to store the ISO image, an error message is shown that it is not possible to load BartPE. This problem is solved by limiting the number of plugins for BartPE in the PE Builder. If possible, use the write protection option of the flash memory to make sure the stored files can't be deleted or damaged.
Using the bootable BartPE CD

After the CD has been burned, it can be booted on (almost) all computers by placing the CD in the CD/DVD player and rebooting the computer. If the computer won't boot the CD, check the boot order (which is stored in the BIOS settings). As soon as BartPE is booted, the start menu is shown by clicking the button Go:

The BartPE environment.

Change some settings
After BartPE is booted, some settings can be changed. One of the settings is asked for when BartPE is started: if you would like to use network support, it has to be confirmed (answer No when network support is not needed). Another setting is the screen resolution, which is changed by Go, System, Display (there are no wide screen resolutions available yet).

Activating network support after booting BartPE.

ATTENTION: If BartPE misses some features (like an inaccessible hard disk or no network support), then additional drivers have to be added to the CD (how to do this, is discussed later on).

Using the file manager

Like mentioned earlier, BartPE offers support for partitions with the NTFS file system (there are not many bootable CD's which do...). In BartPE, the default file manager A43 File Management Utility is used to read, copy, edit and delete files on these partitions. BartPE offers support for USB sticks and other flash memory as well! The combination of these two properties makes BartPE the perfect tool for copying files to a safe location, especially when it is no longer possible to boot Windows. It is also possible to edit, move and/or delete files which are not accessible within the normal Windows environment because they are occupied by other running processes.

TIP: With the free Windows version of Partition Saving (download: www.partition-saving.com) it is possible to create an image of the Windows partition (which can be stored directly to an external hard disk). The page about creating a system image explains in detail how to do this.