Creating A Ghost Boot Disk

1

Format the USB flash drive to NTFS. In order to make a flash drive bootable, it must be properly formatted and equipped with the necessary boot files. Disk formatting can be done through the command prompt in Windows. Do not unplug the flash drive from the computer until formatting is complete.
Launch the DiskPart utility by typing 'diskpart' into the search box of the Windows start menu and
press enter. Then type the command 'listdisk' to locate the drive number of your flash drive.
Use the commands below to format the drive. Press enter after each command and wait for each step to complete before moving on to the next. Be sure you replace the example number '2' with the number that appeared next to your flash drive in the 'listdisk' command.
select disk 2
clean
create partition primary
select partition 0
active
format fs=NTFS
assign
exit
2
Use the bootsect utility in Norton Ghost to make the USB flash drive bootable. In the same command prompt that was used in Step 1, type in the following commands, replacing the drive letter 'g' with the correct letter of your flash drive.
cd 'C:Program Files (x86)Norton GhostAgent'
bootsect /nt60 g:
When finished, close the command prompt.
3
Copy the contents of the Norton Ghost recovery disk. If the recovery disk is on a CD, insert the CD and copy all of its files to the bootable USB flash drive that you just created. If the recovery disk is an ISO image file, mount the ISO with a virtual drive program and then copy the files from the ISO image to the flash drive.
4
Test the finished Norton Ghost bootable USB flash drive. Restart the computer and enter the BIOS boot options menu. Select your USB flash drive from the list and hit enter. The Norton Ghost recovery environment should now load from your bootable USB flash drive just as it would from a standard recovery CD.
Learning has never been so easy!

This goes over how to create a boot disc for Symantec Ghost (or anything else really) based on WinPE from Microsoft's WAIK toolkit.

14 Steps total

Step 1: Download and install the WAIK toolkit from Microsoft.com

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=5753

Step 2: Start WAIK

Go to Start>Microsoft Windows AIK and right click Run as administrator the Windows PE Tools Command Prompt.

Step 3: UAC

If prompted by UAC, click Yes.

Step 4: CopyPE

In the command prompt window that pops up, type in the following: copype x86 C:GhostPE

Step 5: (Optional) Clear Your Workspace!

After the scrolling lines stop, type cls and hit enter to clear the screen.

Step 6: Mount with ImageX

Next, enter the following command: imagex /mountrw C:GhostPEwinpe.wim 1 C:GhostPEmount. This will mount the WIM image so we can edit it.

Step 7: Add Your Files

Navigate in explorer to C:GhostPEmountWindows and paste the Ghost32.exe file and/or any other files possible needed for a custom boot disc.

Step 8: Open the StartNet file

Next, the startnet.cmd file must be edited for startup programs to start automatically. In a text editor, open the file C:GhostPEmountWindowsSystem32startnet.cmd.

Step 9: In the file..

It is crucial that wpeinit is the first line in this file or drivers may not load properly. At the second line, type in the name of the program that needs to be started (e.g. ghost32). Save and exit.

Step 10: (Optional) Adding Drivers

If any drivers need to be installed, enter the command: peimg /inf= C:GhostPEmountWindows.

Step 11: Unmount and Commit

After all changes are complete, go back to the command prompt and enter the command: peimg /prep C:GhostPEmountWindows & imagex /unmount C:GhostPEmount /commit & copy C:GhostPEwinpe.wim C:GhostPEISOsourcesboot.wim. You will be asked to type in the word yes. After doing so, the new image will be compressed, have changes applied, committed to the WIM file, and added the ISO source. This may take some time.

Step 12: Create your *.ISO

Finally, to create a bootable ISO, enter the command: oscdimg –n –bC:GhostPEetfsboot.com C:GhostPEISO “%UserProfile%DesktopGhostBootDisc.iso”. This may take a few minutes. Re 4 walkthrough.

Step 13: Burn baby, burn

Burn the GhostBootDisc.iso file that is now on your desktop to a disc and test it out.

Step 14: (Optional) Cleanup

Delete the C:GhostPE folder.

That should just about do it. There are a few different steps for the newer Win7 version of WAIK (which I will be creating a separate how-to on). I also will be creating a tool that will be available as a script on Spiceworks once I complete the project. (http://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/1547-waik-boot-disc-builder#script_screenshots)

3 Comments

  • Sonora
    user7992 Jan 14, 2014 at 06:14pm

    Great write up.
    Symantec has a doc now with batch files that will asssist in automating the building of the Pe 4.0 disk.
    http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO93846
    cheers

  • Cayenne
    Josiah.Kerley Jan 14, 2014 at 06:18pm

    I also built a tool that makes this whole process much easier:
    http://community.spiceworks.com/scripts/show/1547-waik-boot-disc-builder

  • Pimiento
    deltonrowe Jan 13, 2015 at 11:23pm

    How do I run the script that Josiah Kerley provided? Is there some scripting utility I need?