WinPE — many useful tools in a single package

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BEN’S WORKSHOP By Ben Myers For years, I have been using Windows PE in a variety of forms to carry out many tasks necessary to service Windows compute
[See the full post at: WinPE — many useful tools in a single package]

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dvhirst865, WSGeo, TechTango, Steve S., fisher75, lmacri, AlexEiffel, DLivesInTexas, abbodi86, ribtipbob

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Very informative and helpful article!

You mentioned in your article “designate the folder for the Nirsoft suite as immune to antivirus quarantine” I tried searching how to do this with no joy. Would you please point me in the right direction on how to do it?

Thanks!

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Ben Myers

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I like and respect oldergeeks.com, but I had the same experience today with the bad download of Hiren’s BootCD.  Rufus noted the discrepancies and would not create the bootable flash drive.  Tried it twice, using two separate downloads.  OlderGeeks should never allow this to happen.  They should either make the necessary corrections in their link to the download or delete the software from their site.  Disappointing.

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It’s not mindlessly simple. I’ll go thru the process again only for Windows Defender, make good notes and post how to do it. With another AV package, folks are on their own.

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This page found with Bing via Settings|Windows Security explains better than I could how to keep a folder from being messed with by Windows Defender:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=exclude%20a%20folder%20from%20windows%20defender%20scan%20windows%2010%20site:microsoft.com&form=B00032&ocid=SettingsHAQ-BingIA&mkt=en-US

Other AV packages have a similar capability.

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ribtipbob

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Thank you very much!

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Thanks for this, it’s going to bee very helpfull.

A couple of questions.

I download the ISO from the Older Geeks link in your article (being an older geek, myself) but when I try to add it to Rufus, to burn it as you suggest, Rufus says the file is truncated, the size of the ISO is incorrect and the MD5 and SHA checksums are wrong. You can calculate the checksums of the file in Rufus and they, indeed don’t match.

These are the ones on the Older Geek page:
ISO MD5 BEC7304FE2EB11DE495B9EA7B73C38AA
ISO SHA1 EC7D4EC02A8772A4ECAEE59A9095D65B043AA77D
ISO SHA-256 8281107683E81BE362AFD213026D05B2219BC6A7CA9AF4D2856663F3FFC17BFD

These are the ones calculated by Rufus:
MD5 697759228b432217e00635bce4afa2cb
SHA1 424912e5d1c59d52020e2f0f57bae82de8e2af76
SHA256 275976a6d9cdf8f487fd8ebf6f3e92655fac41c3b9e0e8f71df917c8721ffc35

I downloaded the ISO twice but got the same error. I also tried getting it from https://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ but there is no download available there, at least no button to download.

I get no error when downloading the ISO.

Rufus fails when writing the ISO to the USB drive. In the Rufus log, it says it’s because the file is truncated. I’ve attached a screenshot.

Below is the contents of the Rufus.Log:

Rufus x64 v4.4.2103 (Portable)
Windows version: Windows 11 Home x64 (Build 22631.3007)
Syslinux versions: 4.07/2013-07-25, 6.04/pre1
Grub versions: 0.4.6a, 2.06
System locale ID: 0x0409 (en-US)
Will use default UI locale 0x0409
SetLGP: Successfully set NoDriveTypeAutorun policy to 0x0000009E
Localization set to ‘en-US’
Found 517 officially revoked UEFI bootloaders from embedded list
Found 2351 additional revoked UEFI bootloaders from this system’s SKUSiPolicy.p7b
Found UAS (USB 3.0) device ‘Fantom External HDD UAS Device’ (152D:0562)
Device eliminated because it was detected as a Hard Drive (score 63 > 0)
If this device is not a Hard Drive, please e-mail the author of this application
NOTE: You can enable the listing of Hard Drives under ‘advanced drive properties’
Found USB 3.0 device ‘Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 USB Device’ (0951:1666)
1 device found
Could not get Disk Extents: [0x00000001] Incorrect function.
Disk type: Removable, Disk size: 16 GB, Sector size: 512 bytes
Cylinders: 1881, Tracks per cylinder: 255, Sectors per track: 63
Partition type: GPT, NB Partitions: 2
Disk GUID: {7D1C9593-C331-4098-B9FA-1614C2B5A2E1}
Max parts: 128, Start Offset: 17408, Usable = 15472012800 bytes
Partition 1:
Type: Microsoft Basic Data Partition
Name: ‘Main Data Partition’
Detected File System: NTFS
ID: {4848FE69-D338-4EC8-97FE-26C0AA1E3241}
Size: 14.4 GB (15469912064 bytes)
Start Sector: 2048, Attributes: 0x0000000000000000
Partition 2 (UEFI:NTFS):
Type: Microsoft Basic Data Partition
Name: ‘UEFI:NTFS’
Detected File System: FAT12
ID: {F27BD3F3-D21C-4A91-A57E-03924AF50864}
Size: 1 MB (1048576 bytes)
Start Sector: 30216720, Attributes: 0x9000000000000000
Scanning image…
ISO analysis:
Image is a UDF image
Disk image analysis:
Image does not have a Boot Marker
ISO label: ‘HBCD_PE_x64’
Size: 2.9 GB (Projected)
ERROR: Detected that file on disk has been truncated by 36.1 MB!
Uses: EFI
Uses: Bootmgr (BIOS and UEFI)
Using image: HBCD_PE_x64.iso (2.9 GB)

Computing hash for ‘C:\BIN\Make a Windows PE\Hiren’s BootCD PE x64 v1.0.2\HBCD_PE_x64.iso’…
MD5: 697759228b432217e00635bce4afa2cb
SHA1: 424912e5d1c59d52020e2f0f57bae82de8e2af76
SHA256: 275976a6d9cdf8f487fd8ebf6f3e92655fac41c3b9e0e8f71df917c8721ffc35

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The ISO on the Hirens page is at the bottom, next to “Filename”.

cheers, Paul

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The download linked to in the email, at Oldergeeks.com, will fail. It is necessary to go to Hirens site directly to get the correct file.

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Thanks Paul T,

I downloaded it and was able to create the Boot USB.

As Ben noted, it’s the newer version. Seems to work fine.

Russel

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As for the “Classic” 32bit version of Hiren’s BootCD, there is a newer version on the Hiren’s site (ver 15.2) than the one linked in the article (ver 15.1). It has some added tools and is a year newer. https://www.hirensbootcd.org/old-versions/

 

Moderator Note: This post was caught in the spam filter, but is now rescued!

 

Win10 Pro x64 22H2, Win10 Home 22H2, Linux Mint + a cat with 'tortitude'.

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Ben Myers

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Thank you. I will download it and replace the older one.

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And, hardly more than 48 hours since my article was posted, I received notice that Hiren’s BootCD PE x64 (v1.0.3) based on Windows 11 PE x64 is available. And so I downloaded it. Gotta try it.

Also, apologies for the Hiren’s at OlderGeeks. I verified the Hiren’s download link there, but neither downloaded it nor used Rufus to create a bootable USB flash drive.

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And now Hiren’s BootCD PE x64 (v1.0.4)!

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ribtipbob

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Just built my first Hiren’s WinPE and have a question before I use it.

Question: Why are the Hiren’s and the article’s RUFUS setup different?  I’m going to add some programs and I would like to know if the differences are significant. Thanks.

• I will be using the stick on two Win11 desktops and one Win10 laptop. The stick is a 32GB USB3.0 drive. The stick I built is from a Hiren’s compliant setup.
• USB setting [GPT versus MBR]?
• Target system [UEFI [nonCSM] versus BIOS or UEFI]?
• File system [NTFS versus FAT32]?
• I built a Hiren’s WinPE using an ISO v1.0.4 that came from the Hiren’s site link on Feb 10.
• The build seemed to go as advertised.
• I have not tried adding anything beyond the drive build.

Win11 Pro desktop [2], XPS 8950 23H2/22631.4169, Optiplex 7090 23H2/22631.3880

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You’re running Win 11 and late versions of Win 10, so I have to guess that the drive format on all your systems is GPT and the BIOS is set to UEFI. Either FAT32 or NTFS formatting will work. AS I did, you can add your favorite portable programs not already there to the flash drive, and you will be able to find them.

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desertdad wrote:

Just built my first Hiren’s WinPE

Different author do it differently. Both work.

MBR is my preferred for maximum compatibility.

BIOS or UEFI, ditto.

FAT32 is my preference but it doesn’t matter.

Boot all your machines to make sure they work. If not you can change some of the above, or ask here.

cheers, Paul

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desertdad

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This is a really indispensible set of programs and instructions. Thanks, Ben.

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I am trying this as of late December 2024, and I find Hiren’s BootCD PE x64 (v1.0.8) and Rufus 4.6.2208(Portable).  When I follow the process using Rufus, I receive (as others have) this error:

—————————
Revoked UEFI bootloader detected
—————————
Rufus detected that the ISO you have selected contains a UEFI bootloader that has been revoked and that will produce a “Security Violation” screen, when Secure Boot is enabled on a fully up to date UEFI system.

– If you obtained this ISO image from a non reputable source, you should consider the possibility that it might contain UEFI malware and avoid booting from it.
– If you obtained it from a trusted source, you should try to locate a more up to date version, that will not produce this warning.

I tried the .ISO files from both the OG and Hiren’s sites; both produce the warning.  My UEFI BIOS has a CSM provision, so I miss that in Rufus, as well.

Any suggestions for next steps that will work would be appreciated.  TIA.  DVH.

 

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This is to prevent vulnerable bootloaders being used – see this newsletter article.

Hirens PE should be using the W11 PE which has a valid bootloader. Are you sure you have not used the old Linux boot version instead?

cheers, Paul

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These were current downloads, done today.  I was surprised to get the error, given the dialog I reviewed in the forum.  I’ll try again.  Thanks.

 

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