TeraByte Unlimited

I have read through the Terabyte WinRE Builder tutorial, and I would like to get clarification on a few points in order to make it. I have a machine on which the primary operating system is 64-bit Windows 7 Professional, and it is this one for which I want to build the program. I have the latest version of IFW/IFL (v. 2.81) installed on it in the default location, like so:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\TeraByte Unlimited\Image for Windows\V2\imagew.exe"

1. My first question relates to the point about supplementary drivers. You stated that "... you may need to include USB 3.0 drivers or NIC drivers." I do in fact have an external Toshiba 3 TB USB drive that I use for storing the backup data. It is attached to this machine directly on one of its USB ports. When I purchased this device, there was no CD with drivers or other software provided, and when I connected it to the machine, it was plug-and-play ready to go. There was software already installed on it, which activated automatically when it was attached. The software on it was for making backups and restoring, and it did install another program for that purpose onto the Windows on this machine. However, I never used it because I have IFW/IFL; so I just removed it. I don't know whether any drivers were installed elsewhere (i.e., system32), but I have never noticed any problems with Windows recognizing the full size of this device.

Therefore, I suppose my question about it is, do I need to acquire some drivers for this so that it will work during the WinRE process? I can tell you that when I have used the IFL CD environment on this machine, IFL had no problem with it; but I am not sure that WinRE would also do as well. Of course I could try building the Terabyte WinRE without any special drivers for it and then give it a test to see how it goes, but I would not want to do so if you think there is a possibility of corrupting the file system, as your tutorial mentioned.


2. When running the TBWinRE script, I intend to make use of the option to create a TBWinRE ISO file, from which I can later make a UFD or CD as needed. How big would the USB drive need to be for this procedure? Also, in the tutorial, this point was made:

"Note: When the script is unmounting the winre.wim file it may take several minutes. Some anti-virus programs may cause a slow unmount or an unmount error."

I do not understand this matter. Would you explain it to me further?

3. Did I understand correctly that it would be necessary to redo this build procedure whenever there is a newer version of IFW/IFL released? Likewise, are there any situations when a major update of the Windows OS itself would warrant a rebuilding of the TBWinRE program too?


4. Either I was confused about the discussion in "Appendix 3 - Advanced Options", or there is a mistake or omission of some sort. At the beginning of this section it stated, "Four options can be set in the TBWinRE script (TBWinRE.cmd)." However, it appeared to me that immediately after this statement there are in fact "five" options described.


5. I would like to change the resolution from the WinRE default of 800x600 to 1024x768. The tutorial stated in Appendix 4 that this can be done by using the "ChgRes.exe" program after WinRE boots. I am not clear on how to make use of it. Would it be done after selecting "Repair Your Computer" in the Advanced Boot Options? If not, exactly when or how do I do it? Thanks.

1. The USB 3.0 drivers would be for the board or add-on USB 3.0 cards. For example, it may be the Intel USB 3.0 drivers or ASMEDIA USB 3.0 drivers. If the drivers are not included in the build and you plug a drive into one of the ports it will either run a USB 2.0 or not be recognized. It's not going to corrupt the file system. Depending on your system, the drivers may already be included in your WinRE. However, if using the base WinRE/WinPE, USB 3.0 drivers are not included.

2. The UFD can be quite small, but you would probably need 256MB or larger. I would recommend at least 512MB. Not many that small these days, though. When you run the script and MakeDisk comes up you can browse to the TBWinRE\ISO folder (in Explorer) and see its size.

There were some issues with anti-virus software trying to scan when unmounting and it would delay it or cause an unmount error. This problem does not occur on all systems. I've seen it more in the past than currently. The error is not fatal and the build will still be valid.

3. If you want your TBWinRE CD/UFD (or built-in) to be current with the updated version of IFW you would need to run the build again and update your media. A Windows update shouldn't trigger any need to update TBWinRE (the WinRE files won't have changed). If you update a Windows version (e.g. 7 to 8) you would want to update TBWinRE to use the new WinRE.

4. Correct. It should be "five" options.

5. The default resolution for TBWinRE is 1024x768. There is no need to adjust this if that's what you want. 800x600 (the default for WinRE 3.0) is too small. The ChgRes program is run automatically to adjust the resolution when TBWinRE boots up. However, if you wish to change it to a different resolution you just need to specify the new options in the script (the "screenresolution" variable). If you need to find out which resolutions are supported on your system you would need to run ChgRes after booting into TBWinRE (at a Command Prompt, run: chgres -l). You can also run "chgres" with no options to get usage information.