by Dr. Radut

Creating an MDT USB Boot key

Published by Laurie Rhodes -

Creating MDT USB boot keys is extremely easy exercise.

  1. USB Bootable keys must be formatted and made bootable.  From a Windows 7 machine, run the Diskpart utility from DOS.

The following Diskpart commands are required to format and make bootable (i.e. active) a USB Key:

DISKPART> List disk

DISKPART> Select disk (id)

DISKPART> Clean

DISKPART> Create partition primary

DISKPART> Select partition 1

DISKPART> Format fs=ntfs quick

DISKPART> Active

DISKPART> Exit

Files must be copied from the Deployment Share (\\YourMDTServer\deploymentshare$\Boot) to allow a LiteTouch deployment.  The contents of the directories “x64” and “x86” must be copied to your usb key (depending on what architecture of machines you wish to build).

You must also manually create a directory called “Sources” off the root of the usb key.  Into that directory shall be copied the LightTouchPE WIM file for the architecture you have choosen.  That wim file must be renamed to boot.wim.

The disk is complete & may be used to invoke a lite-tough deployment.