Windows 10: basic explanations for install and recovery media,INSTALL.WIM, etc.

I've got all these USB sticks with Windows install media and recovery media from various applications but I still don't have a good recovery partition online.

To get me started, can someone explain:
install.wim
install.esd (?)
Win PE
Win RE

Anything else I should know. I'm not quite sure where or how to start. (Sorry for sounding noobish, but for this area, I'm still a noob.)

I've been using Rufus to create a lot of these USB sticks. Is there a Rufus-like utility that will allow me to consolidate all these different install/recovery media onto 1 or 2 different USB sticks. And to set up these different recovery media to all use the same install.wim?

:)

 

difference between windows installiation media and windows recovery drive

As the name suggests,

• WIM or installation media is used to install Windows on to the computer.whereas
• Recovery drive is created to repair your computer in case if it wont start or throw any startup error.

 

Installing Drivers in Recovery M4 SSD

I can't seem to figure out how to install drivers so that can copy my system image to new laptop hard drive. I went as far as to install a new inactivated windows 7 onto the hard drive so I know it works, but when I point recovery at C:\Windows\system32\drivers\disk.sys, I got an error something along the lines of "not relevant to system hardware" (or something like that I forget the exact wording).

I can list the drive in diskpart, and I made sure it is not excluded for copying the image, but after 3 days of fiddling, I still can't get it to work. Where is the driver that I need for recovery to be able to install an image to the new hard drive? I checked crucial website, but they don't seem to list drivers for M4. I assume that since I was able to install a fresh inactivated Windows 7 from a startup disk that the driver I need would be somewhere in that system so maybe I'm just pointing recovery at the wrong file?

 

Windows Installation Media - Nameless WIM


A few months back, I created a Win10 Installation media. I used sysprep/DISM to capture it and, it has been working great. However, I'm testing an AutoUnattend.xml file with it today. Up 'til now, it's only been used for manual installations. When I use DISM to take a peek at the WIM, I get the following:

Code:

Code:

dism.exe /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:"C:\Temp\J_CENA_X64FREV_EN_US_DV5_1607\sources\install.wim"  Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool Version: 10.0.14393.0  Details for image : C:\Temp\J_CENA_X64FREV_EN_US_DV5_1607\sources\install.wim Index : 1 Name : Windows 10 Enterprise v1607 Description : Windows 10 Enterprise x64 - Updated 2016-11-25 Size : 15,894,864,237 bytes  The operation completed successfully.

However, when I boot the ISO, with the autounattend.xml file on the root, it prompts me to select an OS at the select the operating system you want to install screen. That's fine because, if possible, I want to try appending more WIMs to it and have the ability to select from several options in that window. My issue is the only entry in the list - currently - has no name or description when DISM clearly shows otherwise. You guys ever see this?