Add i-life Windows OS re-installation payloads to E2B

i-life produce a range of laptops including the ZEDNotes.

It is possible to download the full OS re-installation files + firmware update software (e.g. ZEDNOTE 11.6.rar, 4.5GB) from the appropriate Support page for your particular i-life notebook...

The large OS+Firmware download is here.

SOP = Standard Operating Procedure (AFAIK! We are apparently supposed to know that no matter what language you speak).

Instructions for making a Bootable USB Drive can also be downloaded.

The instructions in the .docx download basically say:

1. Make a Windows-bootable MBR UEFI NTFS USB drive from the Winpe_x86_auto.iso file using Rufus
2. Extract all the files from the large 'Firmware Download' .rar file onto the root of the USB drive
3. MBR-boot from the USB drive

The only problem is that i-life do not seem to provide the Winpe_x86_auto.iso file!

After a bit of Googling, I found a 290MB version here.

The \sources\boot.wim file inside their Winpe_x86_auto.iso file contains a startnet.cmd file which will find and run the \scripts\main.cmd file which was originally extracted from the 'Firmware Download' .rar file.

The main.cmd file will then partition and format your notebooks' internal drive (which could be a 32GB eSSD) and then install the files from the Windows .wim file and add the recovery.wim file, etc. If the system came with a Dual OS, it will set that up too. It may also update the firmware too.

Problems when making the USB drive from the ISO

Tip: Try the 290MB ISO first from here which seems 'cleaner'.

I also found a 198MB specimen here which gave me a problem when creating the USB drive. Rufus gave an error:

Extracting: H:\System Volume Information\IndexerVolumeGuid (76 bytes)

  Unable to create file: [0x00000005] Access is denied.

To work around this, I used 7zip to extract all files and folders except the \System Volume Information folder from the ISO onto the USB drive after Rufus aborted. I then checked that the \boot and \sources folders and all other files were present, before extracting the large .rar file contents onto the USB drive.

If you prefer, you can use an ISO editor to delete the \System Volume Information folder from the Winpe_x86_auto.iso file itself, and then you can use Rufus to make the USB drive without getting an error.

Add to E2B

Once you have tested the USB drive to ensure it works, you can convert the USB drive contents to an NTFS .imgPTN file by simply dragging-and-dropping the USB drive letter\icon onto the MPI Tool Kit MPI_NTFS Desktop shortcut. Then add the .imgPTN file to your E2B drive and make it contiguous as usual.

If all files are below 4GB in size (including the \images\*.wim file) you can use the MPI_FAT32 shortcut instead of the MPI_NTFS shortcut (to support UEFI-booting which requires FAT32).

>4GB .wim file?

Note that if the .wim file in the \images folder is larger than 4GB, you must use the MPI_NTFS shortcut rather than the MPI_FAT32 shortcut.

If all files are below 4GB, you can use the MPI_FAT32 shortcut and the resultant .imgPTN may then also support UEFI-booting too if it contains UEFI boot files.

The main.cmd file is usually written to look for a .wim file. This means that if you split the .wim file into .swm (split wim) files so you can use a FAT32 partition image, it will not work because the main.cmd script will not be able to find any *.wim file.

If you need UEFI-booting, you can use one of the Methods 2-5 detailed on this E2B web page.