Recovery Disk for Multiple Devices Unable to Load Network Adaptor

[Austin_Gish]

Good morning,

I've been trying to set up a recovery disk for a small number of computers here at work using SSR2013 R2. We planned on storing the disk on a single USB-connected hard drive. I've gone around to each of our computers and used the Customize Recovery Disk option to add their drivers. We use an NAS for storing backups, so at the very least I need each computer's network drivers. However, after getting all of the drivers, I now can't access our network in the recovery environment of a computer that was able to connect previously (it gives the unable to find network adaptor error).

To perhaps clarify, the USB drive does not just contain iso files, it is itself the recovery disk.

Is there any way I can ensure the correct drivers are loaded for each computer? Could it have something to do with multiple versions of the same driver being on the recovery disk?

Thanks for your help!

[Markus_Koestler]

Do you really load different versions of the same driver?

You could try to load the drives by hand, just putting the files on the SRD ?!

[Austin_Gish]

Not sure what you mean by the first question. I'm sure I only need one network driver for a given computer, but there are several computers I want to be able to boot with this SRD (some of which aren't up-to-date, etc.). So, there ends up being several similar drivers on the SRD--we have a lot of similar Dell PCs.

I definitely wouldn't mind just loading them from the SRD, but it seemed like I couldn't access the files on the SRD after loading the recovery environment. It boots up fine, but it doesn't seem to be treated as a hard-drive after that (so I can't seem to load any other files on it).

[Markus_Koestler · Accepted solution]

Yep, you need to package the drivers into the WIM file, or attach a seperate USB device with the drivers and load them from there.
 

[criley]

Try manually loading the drivers to see if this works. If it does, you know you have the right driver.

Once you know you have the right driver, you can then add this/these driver(s) to the SRD.

Please note that the SRD uses WindowsPE so the drivers you are loading need to be compatible with the version of WindowsPE you are using. What version of Windows did you use to create the SRD?

[Austin_Gish]

Now, you can't actually customize the SRD on a USB drive, right? It only ever overwrites the previously created one?

I've been creating and testing SRDs on Windows 7 exclusively.

[criley]

Yes, I believe you should be able to customize your existing USB SRD.

But as I said before, the key here is to test you have the correct drivers for your hardware (ensure that the drivers you have work inside the recovery environment/WindowsPE). Once you know you have the correct drivers, then add them to the SRD. So start with manually loading the drivers from inside the recovery environment to see if they work or not.

[Austin_Gish]

Sorry, I should've also said that I have been testing manually loading drivers with a new SRD. I know which drivers should be loaded, now.

When you try to customize an existing USB SRD, the Customize Existing Recovey Disk dialogue actually warns you that the previous one will be overwritten. From what I tried earlier, that kind of seems like the case... Anyway, I attached the warning that is displayed.

[criley]

OK, I guess I have not tried to modify an existing USB SRD then.

So the drivers work when manually loading inside the recovery environment? And those same drivers do NOT load automatically when booting the SRD? That sounds like something that needs further investigation - are you able to open a support case for this issue?

[Austin_Gish]

I'm guessing it was just that my USB SRD was getting overwritten and not customized when I was working with it earlier. I had ignored the error message, since it wasn't very clear to me from the documentation and online help that USB SRDs can't actually be customized--which is a bit unfortunate. Thanks for your time, though!

I'll go ahead and mark a previous answer as a solution since manually loading drivers for multiple computers seems like the only solution (and I'm not inclined to spend time with support on what probably was user error).