Win Vista/7 Boot Process Question

MarcIT

Hi, I have a specific scenario where I am performing a custom lab studying for my Microsoft Windows 7 (70-680) certification and am I wondering if anyone has time to help explain something to me.

I posted this in the A+ section because its a boot process question, and I thought Id have a better chance at getting an answer here.

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I have a WIM file captured from a reference machine's C: drive that I want to deploy to a new system. I boot on the new system using a 'WindowsPE + ImageX' ISO disk.

Before deploying the WIM image, I used DISKPART to create partitions on my new system.

I have created two partitions using DISKPART. One is the System Volume of 100mb, the other is my Windows partition where I will deploy my WIM file. I have marked the System Partition as primary and 'Active'. But the partition where I installed Windows I did not mark as Active, but as simply Primary.

After deploying the image, I used the bcdboot command to create boot files for my Windows partition. Everything works fine and the system boots into Windows but my question is technical...

My question is = Technically speaking, how does the Active 'system partition' I created know how to find these Windows boot files in my specific situation? My C: drive is where my Windows was deployed and it is not my active partition.

Also I refer to the 100mb partition I created as the system partition, but is this really the case - all I did was create a 100mb partition using DISKPART and mark it as Active and 'Label=System'.

Not sure if this was clear enough, if someone needs more info I'll provide.

Thanks,
Marc

Commands I used =

System Partition
>list disk, select disk 0
> clean
> create partition primary size=100 (this is the system partition)
> select partition 1 (100mb system partition)
> format fs=ntfs quick label=system
> active (marks the partition as bootable)

OS (Boot) Partition
> create partition primary (dont use the size parameter if you dont want to limit parition size for the C: drive)
> Select partition 2 (partition just created)
>format fs=ntfs quick label=windows
> assign letter=c (although labeled as C, this is only used in the CMD line and not when the OS boots)

ImageX /apply [filename.wim] [index #] [drive letter]

bcdboot c:\windows