WinPE sees disk numbers different

[rfaber]

Our company recently approved a new laptop with 2 hard drives as an available standard. When setting it up for OSD we just went thru the normal procedures that we do with all tha approved hardware platforms but we have an issue with how WinPE sees the hard drives.

 

The two hard drives are a smaller one for OS and a bigger one for data. We specified with the manufacture that the smaller drvie is the 1st HDD and the larger is the 2nd. Both are advanced format drives.

 

The OEM install sees the small drive as disk 0, so does DOS, so does Windows, but WinPE sees it as disk 1 and the larger drive as disk 0. Our standard TS specifies Format and Partiion Disk 0 so when we run the TS is formats and parttions the larger drive. If we use the select disk=system command in diskpart it goes to disk 1.

 

Why does WinPE see the disk number different than anything else and do we have to create a new step in the task sequence just for this hardware platform?

[Trevor Sullivan]

It could possibly be due to a difference in the mass storage driver that WinPE is using and the one being used in the full OS. Have you embedded the appropriate AHCI driver into your WinPE boot image? Make sure the driver versions used in your full Windows OS and WinPE are the same.

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers,

Trevor Sullivan

http://trevorsullivan.net

http://twitter.com/pcgeek86

[rfaber]

Trevor , we will check this. For now we have added a second Format and Partition step to the task sequence. The first Format and Partition ignores the new hardware platform based on WMI model and the second applies based on the same criteria. It is working so far but we know this will probably not be the last approved platform with this config and we do not want to change the TS every time if there are other options.