I have installed XP from PE 1.5 for awhile now, but I am running into issues with PE 2.0. I think I am getting confused because of newer image based install now. At the moment I have the basic PE setup

winpe_x86
...............ISO
...............mount
............... other PE related files

I have my XP files already configured I just cant seem to figure out where I need to put the files so they will be on my PE disk when it loads. I know I need to mount the PE image and I have tried putting the XP folder in a variety of places inside the mount folder. Most of the time PE will crash on bootup (0xc0000017 error).

Anyone tell me what basic step I am missing? Thanks.

Using WinPE 2 is going to get a little dicey.

You're going to want to put your files into the ISO folder. That way they'll be on the CD/DVD right off the root.

The problem comes about because in WinPE 1.x, the CD was assigned letter "X:", so you always knew were to find you i386 files. In WinPE 2, the WIM is loaded into a RAM disk assigned to "X:" while the physical CD contents will get the next available physical drive letter. On one machine it could be letter "E" on another letter "D".

When I asked Microsoft about this, they suggested putting a tag file in the root and looking for that (just like we do to install apps from CD here).

It seems that Microsoft is really pushing WinPE 2 as a tool to install over a network (using the BDD of course).

Thanks, that does help. I found my drive on e and it had my files. Thanks again.