Capture and apply Windows, system, and recovery partitions

Artikel
11/30/2021

When you're deploying Windows using the WIM format, and using customized partitions, a customized system partition or an additional utility partition, learn how to capture the right partitions to apply to new PCs.

Notes:

If you don't need custom partitions, you usually can just capture the Windows partition, and then use files from that image to set up the rest of the partitions on the drive. See Capture and Apply Windows using a single WIM file.
FFU captures the full contents of a drive, so you don't need to worry about capturing and configuring individual partitions.

Capture the customized partitions

Step 1: Determine which partitions to capture

This table shows the types of partitions that you must capture and those that are managed automatically.

If you're deploying both UEFI and BIOS systems, you can reuse your primary and logical partitions across UEFI-based and BIOS-based devices, but not the other partition types.

Partition type	Should you capture this partition?	Can you reuse the same WIM on UEFI and BIOS firmware?
System partition (EFI System Partition or BIOS system partition)	Optional. If only a simple set of partition files is required, you don’t have to capture this partition.	No
Microsoft Reserved partition (MSR)	No	No
Primary partitions (Windows partitions, data / utility partitions that you've added)	Yes	Yes
Recovery partition	Optional. If you haven't customized this partition, you don’t have to capture it.	No
Extended partition	No	No
Logical partitions (Windows partitions, data / utility partitions that you've added)	Yes	Yes

Step 2: Prepare to capture partitions

If you've booted the Windows image, generalize it so that it can be deployed to other devices. For more information, see Sysprep (Generalize) a Windows installation.
Start your reference device by using Windows PE.
At the Windows PE command prompt, type diskpart to open the DiskPart tool.
```
X:> diskpart
DISKPART>
```

Check to see if the partitions that you want to capture have drive letters assigned.

DISKPART> list volume

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     C   Windows      NTFS   Partition    475 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 1                      NTFS   Partition    554 MB  Healthy
  Volume 2         SYSTEM       FAT32  Partition    499 MB  Healthy    System

If any of the partitions you want to capture don’t already have a drive letter assigned, continue:

List the disks in your PC:

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
--------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
Disk 0    Online          127 GB      0 B        *

Select the primary hard disk:
```
DISKPART> select disk 0
```

View the partitions:

DISKPART> list partition

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             499 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Reserved           128 MB   500 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            475 GB   628 MB
  Partition 4    Recovery           554 MB   476 GB

Select a partition that needs a drive letter:
```
DISKPART> select partition=1
```
Assign a letter to the partition with the assign letter command. For example,
```
DISKPART> assign letter=S
```
Type exit to return to the Windows PE command prompt.
```
DISKPART> exit
X:\>
```

For more information, see the DiskPart Help from the command line, or Diskpart Command line syntax.

Step 3: Capture images for each customized partition.

At the Windows PE command prompt, capture each customized partition, for example:

Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:C:\my-windows-partition.wim /CaptureDir:C:\ /Name:"My Windows partition"
Dism /Capture-Image /ImageFile:C:\my-system-partition.wim /CaptureDir:S:\ /Name:"My system partition"

For more information about using the DISM tool to capture an image, see DISM Image Management Command-Line Options.

Step 4: Save images to the network or another safe location.

Connect an external drive, or connect to a network location where you can safely save your image, for example:
```
net use n: \\Server\Share
```
If prompted, provide your network credentials.

Copy the partitions to your network share. For example,

md N:\Images\
copy C:\my-windows-partition.wim N:\Images\
copy C:\my-system-partition.wim N:\Images\

Apply the images

Step 1: Prepare to apply partitions

Start your destination device by using Windows PE.
Connect an external drive, or connect to a safe network location, for example:
```
net use n: \\Server\Share
```
If prompted, provide your network credentials.
Wipe the hard drive and create new partitions.

To apply to multiple devices, save the Diskpart commands into a script and run them on each new device. For examples, see Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions or Configure BIOS/MBR-Based Hard Drive Partitions. Example:
```
diskpart /s D:\CreatePartitions-UEFI.txt
```
Where D: is a USB flash drive or other file storage location.

In these DiskPart examples, the partitions are assigned the letters: System=S, Windows=W, and Recovery=R because these are the letters assigned by CreatePartitions-UEFI.txt and CreatePartitios-BIOS.txt.

If you're using different scripts, change the Windows drive letter to a letter that's near the end of the alphabet, such as W, to avoid drive letter conflicts. Don't use X for a drive letter, because this drive letter is reserved for Windows PE. After the device reboots, the Windows partition is assigned the letter C, and the other partitions won't be assigned drive letters.

If you reboot, Windows PE reassigns disk letters alphabetically, starting with the letter C, without regard to the configuration in Windows Setup. This configuration can change based on the presence of different drives, such as USB flash drives.

Step 2: Apply the partitions

Windows and data partitions: Apply the image(s), example:
```
dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:N:\Images\my-windows-partition.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:W:\
```
where W: is the Windows partition.
System partition: You can either:
- Configure the system partition by using the BCDBoot tool. This tool copies and configures system partition files by using files from the Windows partition. For example:
```
W:\Windows\System32\bcdboot W:\Windows /s S:
```
  or:
- Apply a custom image
```
dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:N:\Images\my-system-partition.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:S:\
```
  Where S: is the system partition
Recovery partition:

a. You can either:
- Copy the Windows Recovery Environment (RE) tools into the recovery tools partition.
```
md R:\Recovery\WindowsRE
copy W:\Windows\System32\Recovery\winre.wim R:\Recovery\WindowsRE\winre.wim
```
  Where R: is the recovery partition
or:
- Apply a custom image
```
dism /Apply-Image /ImageFile:N:\Images\my-recovery-partition.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:R:\
```
b. Register the location of the recovery tools, and hide the recovery partition using Diskpart. You can use our sample script or perform the steps manually:
```
W:\Windows\System32\reagentc /setreimage /path R:\Recovery\WindowsRE /target W:\Windows
```
Diskpart steps for UEFI:
```
set id="de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac"
gpt attributes=0x8000000000000001
```
Diskpart steps for BIOS:
```
set id=27
```

Step 3: Verify that it worked

Reboot the device (exit). Windows should boot.

Note

If the device doesn't boot, (for example, if you receive the error message: Bootmgr not found. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL) check the steps for setting up the system partition:

See BCDBoot command-line options for more info about copying boot files to the system partition.
Use the DiskPart tool to check to make sure that the system partition is set to Active.

Complete the out of box experience (OOBE) as a new user, and check the recovery partition:

Check that in File Explorer that the Recovery partition is not visible.
View the partitions exist, either by right-clicking Start and selecting Disk Management, or by using diskpart (Open a command prompt as an administrator > diskpart > select disk 0 > list partition > exit).

Configure UEFI/GPT-Based Hard Drive Partitions

Configure BIOS/MBR-Based Hard Drive Partitions

BCDboot Command-Line Options

REAgentC Command-Line Options