PXE image convert to boot.wim?

Random question, I just bought the latest version of Parted Magic and noticed that they have a PXE boot version… A thought came to mind, this would be fantastic if I could boot a computer into this from WDS (windows deployment server). For WDS to work, this would need to be (or look like) a boot.wim and I was wondering if anyone every found a way to convert from pxe to boot.wim.

Why? I use Parted Magic all the time to zero out disks before putting a new image on them. Yes I know diskpart --> select disk --> clean works and I do this a lot as well. But I’ve also run into problems where this doesn’t work and I end up booting Parted Magic and zero out the disks. Then everything goes smoothly.

Having this on my WDS would make it much more likely to be used the first time around. And there are other uses too. Would just be a handy way to boot this tool.

Typing this while I wait for an image to be created and thinking it is going to fail. Couldn’t use Clonezilla because it said the disk had a mixed GPT/MBR scheme which means that somewhere in the past, I messed up. So now if this image fails, it is back to square one and install from disk again. I’ve forgotten how long it takes to create a .wim image on some of my machines! I’m an hour in at 29% of a 30gb image (with MS Office things get huge).

Maybe I am not understanding the question your are asking, as that is what WDS does allows you to create a windows image and install it via PXE. One thing to point out when building images is ignore MS recommended disk sizes. Load a copy of Windows 7 or later, install all your apps you want in your image and get the total diskspace used. Then either resize or rebuild the drive round up to within 1GB. This way you keep your image as small as possible. It can always be extended later, and don’t forget to sysprep and generalize.

No, I’m hoping there is a way to make a non-windows OS into a .wim and specifically into a boot.wim. I don’t think there is, but worth asking in case anyone found a way to hack it into being.

So something like this?

Thanks, that might do the trick. I’ll have to get a VM spun up and give this a try.