Check out this tutorial for WinPE 3.0 (Windows 7):
- Create a bootable USB drive
Before you get started, you have to make your flash drive bootable. I have already described this procedure in my post about the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. For your convenience here is the command sequence, which you should run on a command prompt with admin rights:
diskpart list disk select disk # clean create partition primary select partition 1 active format quick fs=fat32 assign exit
Replace ‘#’ with the drive number of your USB drive. Be careful to choose the right disk in 3 because this procedure will erase the whole drive! 2. Copy the WinPE 3.0 files to the USB drive
WinPE 3.0 is part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7, which you can download here. Once you have installed the WAIK, you’ll find a folder of the Windows AIK on the Windows Start Menu. Launch the Deployment Tools Command Prompt and enter this command:
copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe_x86 Then, copy winpe.wim to the correct folder: copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim Now, copy WinPE to your USB drive: xcopy C:\winpe_x86\iso\*.* /e G:\
In this example, ‘G:’ is the drive letter of your flash drive.
Now you should be able to boot from your WinPE 3.0 USB drive. In my next post, I will outline the interesting part—that is, how to prepare your USB drive so that you can add new tools without starting again from scratch.
In another article, he shows how to add tools to the drive, and he also has a list of WinPE compatible tools.
http://4sysops.com/archives/build-a-bootable-windows-pe-3-0-usb-drive-with-rescue-tools-part-1/
For WinPE 4.0 (Windows 8), see this tutorial.