This happens due to lack of drivers for the respective devices. You’re missing drivers when using one of the rescue media and want to add them.
There are two ways to add drivers when using the Windows PE (WinPE) rescue environment:
Option #1: Add drivers upon media creation.
It’s usually advisable to get drivers from the manufacturer’s website. OEMs typically provide drivers for download in a section called Support or Downloads. Driver packages often comes as .exe files that unpack themselves into a folder including files with extensions .sys, .inf and others. Unpack them somewhere. An .inf file is the index of a driver packet. Our software needs necessarily an .inf file to implement a driver.
Alternatively, you can retrieve the drivers from within your Windows:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\
. For each of them that lists a provider other than Microsoft Corporation, write down its name.C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\
(you’ll need to enable display of protected system files in folder options) and search for each filename you wrote down.Option #2:
Alternatively, you can add the drivers after booting from the recovery media. While in the express mode, open Load Drivers, navigate to where you had copied driver folder contents, and select the .inf file. Repeat this for each driver.
This option is useful for ad hoc use or for testing a driver in the WinPE environment.
The rescue environment is installed in a RAM disk. Thus it is non-permanent. After a reboot or shutdown the RAM disk is gone and so are the drivers.
Unfortunately it is not possible to add any drivers to the Linux RCD. If this environment runs into driver issues please use the WinPE environment instead.
If Linux does not boot due to missing drivers it usually keeps hanging permanently showing a grid of coloured lines moving above a harddisk:
This image is shown while the system scans the attached drives and other hardware. This process may take a couple of minutes normally. So please be patient anyway.
HowTos: Paragon, RMB: Linux, RMB: WinPE
Tags: rcd, recovery media, WinPE