WDS – Unattended file – Removing /Formatting Drive Partitions

KB ID 0000490 

Problem

Over the last couple of years I’ve done a lot of imaging of School PC’s I don’t know why but they come with a myriad of different drive and partition configurations. Even big vendors like HP and Dell ship their machines with recovery partitions these days.

If you are imaging with WDS this can cause a problem so what I usually want to do is remove all the partitions, create one big one that takes up all the drive, and format it as NTFS.

Solution

Before you begin make sure you are clued up on working with WDS unattended files, run through my instructions here.

The following procedure needs to be added to the WDS Unattended file NOT the unattended file for the image, (again run through KB0000180 if you are unsure.)

1. While editing your Unattended answerfile you need to locate, “Microsoft-Windows-Setup_neutral” and add “DiskConfiguration” to the “1 windowsPE” component.

wds disk configuration

2. Right click it and add a disk > Set Disk ID = 0 > Set WillWipeDisk = true.

3. Right Click > Create Partition > Set Extend = true > Set Order = 1 > Set Type = Primary.

wds create partition

4. Select Modify Partitions > Set Active = true > Set Extend = false > Set Format = NTFS > Set Label = SYSTEM > Set Letter = C > Set Order = 1 > Set Partition ID = 1.

wds extend partition

5. This procedure will add the following to your unattended file.

WDs remove all partitions

 

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Author: Migrated

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