System Deployment Image: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:28, 5 February 2009

Revision as of 12:32, 8 June 2009

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== Description ==

The SDI file format is often used to allow the use of a virtual disk via mounting Some versions of [[Microsoft Windows]] allow for "RAM [[booting]]", which is essentially the ability to load a SDI file into memory and then boot from it. The SDI file format also lends itself to network booting using the [[Preboot Execution Environment]] (PXE). Another usage is [hard disk] [imaging|Disk image].

The SDI file itself is partitioned into the following sections:

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; Load BLOB : This typically contains [[NTLDR]] and is launched by the boot BLOB.

; Part BLOB : This contains the actual boot runtime (i.e. the contents of the disk image including any OS files) and also includes the [[boot.ini]] (used by NTLDR) and ntdetect.com files which should be located within the root directory of the runtime. The size of the runtime cannot exceed 500 Mb. In addition to this requirement the runtime must also be capable of dealing with the fact that it is booting from a ramdisk. This implies that the runtime must include the "Windows [[RAM Disk]] Driver" component (specified within the boot.ini).

; Disk BLOB : This is flat [hard disk] image starting with [MBR|Master Boot Record]. It is used for hard drive imaging instead of booting. Also only Disk BLOBs can be mounted with Microsoft's utilities.

SDI usually contain either Disk BLOB (HD cloning or temporary SDI) or three other of them (bootable SDI).

[Windows Vista] or [Windows PE] 2.0 boot sequence includes boot.sdi file, which contains Part BLOB for empty [NTFS] volume and Table-of-Content slot for [WIM|Windows Imaging Format] image, which is stored actually not inside the SDI, but in separate on-disk file.

== SDI Features ==