Factory recovery - Create a Custom Recovery Partition  

SIW2 said:

yes.

Cheers.

SIW2 said:

@Kari, you could do this: then you just need to type in the driveletter e.g. F in the red bit

Thanks @SIW2, that's a good idea. Don't understand why I didn't think about it in the first place.

Edited tutorial, changing the batch file to ask drive letter. However, as I wanted to make it a bit more "elegant" , I added some visual eye candy and made a simple check to assure user has entered a correct drive letter.

New, edited batch:

Code:

@ECHO OFF
TITLE Add Recovery to Windows boot menu
:SETLETTER
CLS
ECHO.
ECHO             ###################################################
ECHO             #                                                 #
ECHO             #   This batch file creates recovery environment  #
ECHO             #        adding it to Windows boot menu.          #
ECHO             #                                                 #
ECHO             ###################################################
ECHO.
SET /P DRIVELETTER= ^-- Please enter drive letter for your custom recovery partition (without colon): 
IF NOT EXIST %DRIVELETTER%:\sources\boot.wim ECHO. & ECHO No valid Windows image found on given partition %DRIVELETTER% &ECHO. & PAUSE & GOTO :SETLETTER
ECHO.
bcdedit /create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk"
bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice partition=%DRIVELETTER%:
bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi
for /f "tokens=2 delims={}" %%i in ('bcdedit.exe /create /d "Recovery" /application OSLOADER') do (set guid={%%i})
bcdedit /set %guid% device ramdisk=[%DRIVELETTER%:]\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
bcdedit /set %guid% path \windows\system32\winload.efi
bcdedit /set %guid% osdevice ramdisk=[%DRIVELETTER%:]\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
bcdedit /set %guid% systemroot \windows
bcdedit /set %guid% winpe yes
bcdedit /set %guid% detecthal yes
bcdedit /displayorder %guid% /addlast

Kari

simrick said:

Okay, good to know. But then I would have to make sure to keep it updated on a regular basis, (twice a year), because a repair install has to be at least the same version as you're running...or am I getting myself confused?

In the same way you have to create a new install media for each new feature upgrade, you must create a new recovery environment for it.

Once created, you don't have to run the batch file again. When Windows will for instance be upgraded to version 1809 late this year, you just do the Part One from tutorial capturing new image. Then, delete contents on Recovery partition replacing everything with contents of version 1809 ISO image, and finally replace the install.wim or install.esd file in its Sources folder with your custom install.wim.

Might take 10 or 15 minutes of your time twice a year but is worth of it.

Kari

Kari said:

In the same way you have to create a new install media for each new feature upgrade, you must create a new recovery environment for it.

Once created, you don't have to run the batch file again. When Windows will for instance be upgraded to version 1809 late this year, you just do the Part One from tutorial capturing new image. Then, delete contents on Recovery partition replacing everything with contents of version 1809 ISO image, and finally replace the install.wim or install.esd file in its Sources folder with your custom install.wim.

Might take 10 or 15 minutes of your time twice a year but is worth of it.

Kari

Thank you, Kari. Appreciate that explanation.

Fafaxx said:

Should it not boot from the the recovery parthtion automatically using setup.exe. Perhaps my ISO was created wrong.

The recovery option in boot menu, when recovery partition is setup correctly as told in this tutorial, boots to this:



On the other hand, if boot media is a normal WinPE media (tutorial), it boots to Command Prompt and runs wpeinit command to enable networking.

Sounds to me that you boot to WinPE.

Kari