Adding Custom Drivers For Winpe in Ghost Solution Suite 3.x and Deployment Solutions 8.x
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Adding Custom Drivers For Winpe in Ghost Solution Suite 3.x and Deployment Solutions 8.x

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Article ID: 178788

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Updated On:

Products

Deployment Solution Ghost Solution Suite

Issue/Introduction

Adding Custom Drivers For Winpe in Ghost Solution Suite 3.x

Environment

GSS 3.x
DS 8.x

Resolution

I. The first step (For GSS Only ) in finding a driver to work in a WinPE environment is to identify which version of Windows your WinPE environment is using.

NOTE: You are locating a driver that will work for the client pc based on your current WinPE environment, not the version of Windows that is running Ghost, or you intend to deploy. For example, if you are using WinPE 10, you need to find drivers for Windows 10.

Here are the steps to locate which version of Windows PE your preboot environment is using:

For PXE:

  1. Start the Ghost Solution suite console
  2. Click Tools - PXE Configuration
  3. Click on the Boot Menu item you are using
  4. Look at the value in the OS column. 

For Boot Disk Creator:

  1. Determine which Boot Disk Creator you are using
    1. IF you have opened the GSS Console and are using Jobs and Tasks to image, start Boot Disk Creator by clicking Tools > Boot Disk Creator, or icon on the tool bar.
    2. IF you installed Ghost Standard Tools along with Ghost Solution Suite, and are using GhostCast Server, start Boot Disk Creator from Start > Symantec Ghost > Boot Disk Creator.
  2. Click on your configuration, the WinPE version will be visible on the right side.

WinPE Versions (ADKSetup.exe):

WinPE 10 Windows 10 1511 10.0.10586
WinPE 10 Windows 10 1607 10.0.14393
WinPE 10 Windows 10 1703 10.0.15063
WinPE 10 Windows 10 1709 10.1.16299.1
WinPE 10 Windows 10 1803 10.1.17134.1
WinPE 10 Windows 10 1809 10.1.17763.1
WinPE 10 Windows 10 1903 10.1.18362.1
WinPE 10 Windows 10 2004 10.1.19041.1
WinPE 11 Windows 11 RTM  10.1.22000.1
 
 

II. The next step (For GSS and DS ) is to identify which device the client computer has, and download the correct driver.

A) In the following example, the reference computer is a Dell laptop and network adapter that is known to have issues. The following steps can be used for HP, Lenovo or other OEM computers. Additional links to driver packs and other resources that Symantec Technical Support has found helpful in locating drivers can be found at the bottom of this article. It may also be required for customers to contact the manufacturer directly to locate drivers.

Use the system information tool on the client as outlined below:

  1. Go to Start and search for msinfo32.exe
  2. Once the System Information window is open, navigate to "Components->Network->Adapter"
  3. On the right pane scroll down to find your Ethernet adapter, below is a sample of what this looks like.

     

  4. There are 3 specific lines from this tool that will help here:  "Name, PNP Device ID & Driver".  See the below sample for reference.

    Name      [00000007] Intel(R) Ethernet Connection I217-LM

    PNP Device ID         PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A&SUBSYS_221017AA&REV_04\3&42FFD25&0&C8

    Driver      c:\windows\system32\drivers\e1d62x64.sys (12.12.80.19, 369.27 KB (378,136 bytes), 7/9/2015 11:59 AM)

  5. Since the samples above are from a Dell system, based on the above information we are going to be looking for an Intel i217-LM driver for this Dell. A good place to start is navigate to the Dell cab file website and download the driver pack that is relevant to your WinPE environment.  (Note the correct driver may not be present in the Dell Cab files. If this is the case there are additional resources linked at the bottom of this document).

  6. Once these have downloaded, navigate to the download folder and unzip the "WinPE5.0-Drivers-A06-MGRG0.CAB".  Any compression utility such as WinRAR, WinZip, 7zip, etc. can be used.  To download any of these, simply search the web for compression or zip utilities to get a list of websites that provide these.

  7. Once the CAB file is decompressed you will see multiple folders and drivers located inside the folder. The best way to find the needed driver is to look up at step 4 above. The last line "driver", states that the adapter uses the "e1d62x64" driver. The driver name in this case is systematic:
    Driver Name, OS, Chipset

    Let's break this down for further explanation. Other drivers may not be setup with this naming convention. 

    Driver Name: E1D
    (You might also see E1C...)

    Operating System:

    62 : Windows 7 / Winpe3
    63 : Windows 8 / Winpe4
    64 : Windows 8.1 / Winpe5
    65 : Windows 10 / Winpe10

    Chipset: 64bit (the last bit of the driver name signifies the chipset bit, either x64 or 32) 

    Examples:
    E1D62x32 is the "E1D" driver for OS 62 (Which is Windows 7), 32 bit.
    E1D64x64 is the "E1D" driver for OS 64 (Which is Windows 8.1), 64 bit. 
    E1D65x64 is the "E1D" driver for OS 65 (Which is Windows 10), 64 bit. (This is the most commonly added driver.)

  8. If you are still not sure which driver file is appropriate you can use Windows Search to find the PNP Device ID of that you found in step 4 above to check if the correct driver is available on your system.  
    Use only the first part of the string right before any &&REV including the characters through SUBSYS_xxxxxxxx as in the following example:

    PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A&SUBSYS_221017AA

  9. If a potential driver exists the search results will show something similar to:

  10. In the screen shot above notice the search returned E1D62X64.inf as a result.  Right-click this and open file in a text editor such as notepad or notepad++.  Once in the text editor, press "ctrl+f" to open the 'Find' dialog and search for the PCI String previously search for to verify the string actually exists. If the string in present, then this driver may work.

Sometimes a driver doesn't exist in the manufacture provided cab files. In this case we suggest getting an additional driver from the manufacturer website.  You have 3 options:

    1. Search the internet for the model of your machine, plus the word "drivers" - make sure you only go to the original manufacturer website.
    2. Go to the manufacturer website, selecting with model of computer you have and the operating system of your PE environment and looking for the network adapter. (Make sure you do not let the website choose the OS based on what is installed on that PC, choose the OS based on your version of Windows PE.)
    3. Links to OEM driver packs are listed at the bottom of this article.

B) For Storage driver

  1. Use the system information tool on the client as outlined below:

    1. Go to Start and search for msinfo32.exe
    2. Once the System Information window is open, navigate to "Components->Storage-" Depending if the storage is RAID device > SCSI. If standard storage device > IDE
    3. On the right pane scroll down to find your Storage adapter, below is a sample of what this looks like.

4. What is important here  is the Name ,PNP Device ID, and Driver

5. The Winpe Storage drivers in the same ddrive pack the network drivers are located

6. Open the inf file and search for the PNP Device ID value PCI\VEN_15B7&DEV_5006   ( storage device drivers do not need to match down to subsys level as network drivers do ). Go to the bottom of the inf and you should see the name of the device the driver supports. This name should be the same as in the msinfo32 information

 

III. The last step, once the driver has been identified and downloaded, would be to add the driver to your preboot configuration.

  1. For DS, zip up the folder the driver is in and import it through the SMP console. For GSS, open bootwiz and point to the inf file to import

NOTE: if having issues with importing the driver, KB 180718 goes over that procedure. 

OEM WinPE Driver Packs:

Microsoft Driver Catalog (Only viewable in Internet Explorer) - https://catalog.update.microsoft.com

Dell Driver Packs - https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000107478/dell-command-deploy-winpe-driver-packs
HP Driver Packs - https://ftp.ext.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HP_WinPE_DriverPack.html
Lenovo Driver Packs - https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht074984

NOTE:  This information is provided as a guide only.  It is meant to assist our customers with finding, often difficult to find, drivers for network adapters that are needed to leverage network communication in a Microsoft Windows PE environment.  Ultimately the existence of drivers for your specific adapter is completely up to the manufacturer of the network adapter and/or the OEM who built the system the network adapter is in.  Symantec can make no warranties or assurances that a NIC driver exists or works with your specific adapter in any environment. 

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