Note:  This procedure is not appropriate for OEM manufacturers that want to use the Ghost Recovery Kit.  For OEM manufacturers, Microsoft requires you to lock the image to the BIOS and/or hardware.  OEM manufacturers are also required by Symantec to use ghostoem32.exe to perform the restoration of the image file.  Neither of these requirements are addressed within the scope of this document. 

1.  Set up a model computer with all of the customizations you want included on your recovery image.  Capture a disk image of this computer.  For the purpose of this document, the image filename should be image.gho

2.  Create a Windows PE USB flash drive using the Ghost Boot Wizard.  Step by step directions for accomplishing this are located in the Supplemental materials below.

3.  When you reach the "Review" screen in the Ghost Boot Wizard, click the Start Editing button and alter the start.bat file so that it reads as follows:

 x:
 cd \ghost
 rem --- This will create the primary OS drive configuration
 ghost32.exe /setosdrives /blind>>x:\ghost\startlog.txt
 ghost32.exe -clone,mode=prestore,src=1:3\image\image.gho:1,dst=1:1 -quiet -sure
 ghost32.exe -clone,mode=prestore,src=1:3\image\image.gho:2,dst=1:2 -quiet -sure -rb
 
4.  When the modifications are complete, click Stop Editing and then complete the wizard

5.  Once the flash drive has been successfully written, use ghost32.exe to capture an image of it.  This can be done from Windows on the computer that has the Ghost tools installed.  This image will become the recovery partition that your backup image will be restored from.   

6.  Once you have captured the image of the boot package that contains the start.bat modifications listed above, go back to the Ghost Boot Wizard again and create a new Windows PE boot package.  Do not include any modifications to the start.bat file. 

7.  Boot your model computer with the boot package you just created.

8.  When Ghost opens, click OK to the welcome message and then choose the option to Quit Ghost.

9.  When you quit Ghost, you'll be taken to a command prompt, where you can use Diskpart to create the required partitions for Windows 7 and for the recovery environment.  Run Diskpart as follows:

Note:  This example assumes that disk 0 is the internal hard drive that you will be modifying.  If the internal hard drive you wish to install the Recovery Kit on is not disk 0, adjust the command lines accordingly:

 diskpart
 list disk
 select disk 0
 list partition
 select partition 1
 delete partition
 select partition 2
 delete partition (continue this untill all partitions are deleted)
 create partition primary size=100 (This value should not vary)
 create partition primary size=50000 (This value can vary depending on how large the OS partition should be)
 create partition primary
 exit

10.  Use Ghost to perform a partition restore operation of the disk image you captured in step 1 above.  Then use Ghost to restore the recovery environment you created in step 5 above.  You can use GhostCast to restore the image, restore the image locally from an external hard drive that is attached to the model computer, or restore the image from a network share.  It doesn't matter which Ghost method you use to restore the image, as long as the following is observed when that image is restored:

-The 100 MB System Reserved partition should be restored to the first (100 MB) partition on your drive
-The OS partition should be restored to the second partition on the drive
-The Ghost recovery environment should be restored to the third partition on the drive.

11.  After Ghost has restored the three partition images, you need to mark partition 1 as the active partition so that Windows boots properly.  You can use these diskpart commands to do this:

 diskpart
 select disk 0
 select partition 1
 active
 exit

12.  Reboot the computer into Windows with this command:  wpeutil reboot

13.  When the computer is booted back into Windows, copy the "Recovery Kit" folder from the Ghost installation media to C:\Recovery Kit on your model computer.

14.  Create a folder on the third partition.  Name the folder "Image".  Copy the image you created in step 1 (image.gho) into this new folder.

15.  Navigate to C:\Recovery Kit on your model computer and locate the file called srfixmbr.xml.  Right-click on this file and choose Edit.

16.  Scroll to the bottom of the XML file until you find the area where the recovery partition value and the user partition value are defined.  Assign the following values:

Recovery-Partition-Index:  Value=3
User-Partition-Index:  Value=1

17.  Save the modifications you made to the XML file

18.  Open a command prompt.  The command prompt needs to opened with the "run as administrator" option

19.  Enter the following commands to modify your MBR:

cd\
cd Recovery Kit
srfixmbr.exe

When prompted to overwrite the Master Boot Recovery, choose Yes

20.  Reboot the computer and note the message that appears just after the computer begins to start up:  "Press F3 to boot to the recovery partition"

21.  Test the Recovery Kit installation by pressing F3 at the prompt.  If the Recovery Kit was correctly configured, the computer should boot into a Windows PE environment, immediately begin restoring the image, and then restart into the Windows OS after the recovery completes.  The restore process will be completely unattended if the Recovery Kit was configured correctly.