Why does my Rescue Media get stuck on Initalizing Windows PE (Press ESC to abort) when booting from rescue media.  When I press ESC it continues and then gets stuck on Loading Networking until I press ESC again.  I have Windows 11 Pro version 22H2.

I had that problem briefly.  I never did figure out what the issue was or why it eventually just went away.

It takes 4 minutes to initialize Windows PE without pressinc Esc and another 4 minutes to load networking without pressinc Es.  I am using Wi-Fi and the ethernet cable isn't connected.  Why?

+x

 

Keith Weisshar - 12 October 2022 5:22 PM

It takes 4 minutes to initialize Windows PE without pressinc Esc and another 4 minutes to load networking without pressinc Esc.  I am using Wi-Fi and the ethernet cable isn't connected.  Why?

WindowsPE doesn't support WiFi -- you must choose WindowsRE  for a base WIM if you want to use WiFi.  And then in the advanced options, I recommend the build options shown below:



Also, do you have either of these options checked when you built the rescue media The options are at the bottom of Rescue Media Builder's screen. 
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If you make any changes, you might have to Force a rebuild of your Rescue Media. If the Build button is not enabled, select Force Build from the pop-down menu that is exposed by holding the Shift key. 

I believe it is the CTRL key that will expose the menu...

You are 100% correct I would correct me original post, but the forum software won't let me edit my post, and it's decided to show my screen shots at full resolution.

This initalizing Windows PE and loading networking issue occurs after booting from Windows RE rescue media that was created after the computer was in-place upgraded. It doesn't occur if I boot from rescue media that was created after the computer was clean installed. The boot.wim on the rescue media is larger if the computer has had an in-place upgrade of Windows. The recovery partition and WinRE.wim are also larger after an in-place upgrade.

I assume you're working okay now that you re-installed Windows. But if not, please tell us what versions of Windows were in place when you built the WinRE that took a long time to load. Also what versions of Reflect are involved? How was Recovery Media (RM) booted? Flash, CD, or boot menu?

As an aside, I also have systems that were win10 and upgraded in place to Win 11. . When I had built RM from the wrong recovery (after a Win 11 version 22H1 to 22H2 update), I had quite a few problems with using that version of RM. But none since discovering and correcting that mistake. Since then, I've not seen any unusual delay in loading WinRE

Here's a few things to consider as possible causes. I must admit I'm almost out of ideas for helping you.

1. During the inplace upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11 the upgrade shrunk your Windows Partition to make room for a new Recovery Partition and you had 2 recovery partitions (of different sizes). The problem this would cause is if WinRE recovery media was built from the wrong partition, possibly because just like me you deleted the wrong recovery partition, thinking the one at the highest address was correct. The command reagentc /info should have pointed to the correct (or only) partition. Rescue Media Builder will show the version of WinRE that is being used at the top of the first dialog.

2. You had selected the option Prompt For Key Press to continue Boot Sequence when the original was built.

3. Your router took a very long time to return a DHCP address via WiFi. (If true, this can be alleviated by selecting the Rescue Media Build Options "Use IP Address and DNS Settings from this PC".)

{There is something wrong with the forum software formatting of this entire post, especially the first screen shot. Since then I can't edit the post, insert another screen shot, or have the Format options displayed at the bottom when creating a post, despite trying two different browsers). So if you'd like to continue troubleshooting, I think it would be best to open new topic.)

WIM size differences between in-place upgrades and clean installs is expected because WIMs do not perform any native cleanup. A similar thing happens with Reflect's consolidation and Synthetic Full operations. A WIM file that starts at State A and is updated to State B will very often not be the same as a WIM that was created at State B in the first place. It is however possible to export images within a WIM file out to new WIM files, in which case that slack will not be carried over. I've done this on WinRE WIM files and ended up with a new WIM file that was 200 MB smaller, despite containing the same image. I actually wrote a PowerShell script that does everything necessary to replace the WinRE.wim file on my WinRE partition with a newly generated replacement.

That said, I don't know if that would have any impact on Rescue Media Builder. I'm pretty sure that Rescue Media Builder extracts the content it needs from a baseline WIM file, adds its own content or modifications, and then packages the new content into a brand new WIM file -- as opposed to directly using the source WIM file, mounting it, modifying it, and then committing changes back to it. But I'm not sure about that.

This happens if I have the Xbox Wireless Adapter plugged in during booting of the rescue media due to mt7612US.sys and FW_ACC_00U.bin being loaded. This driver gets included in winre.wim if I do an in-place upgrade of Windows which is used as a base image for the rescue media. I have to press ESC twice, one during initializing Windows PE and again during loading networking. Xbox Wireless Adapter appears under Network Adapter in Device Manager.