Jethro Bodine

Yea, I read what you said. But for my install the only format that is recognized (that does not error out when the GUI part of the install begins) is when I use the formatting options/screens from the XP install process. (The install fails when the HD is in a USB HDD enclosure attached to another XP system and is formatted as C: and D:). And those screens only allow you to format the drive you are installing into, so there's no way I can get a D drive formatted if I install the OS to C. And they also prevent you from (re)formatting a partition that already has an OS on it. Just so I'm not missing anything, your description above (step1.... reboot ... then pick c:\ and install) means you already have an OS installed om the HD when before you begin, right?

Bump to ask if anyone ever got this to work. I've come to the conclusion that you cannot accomplish this with a raw, unformatted hard drive. At least I could not. For me, whenever I pre-format the HD into two partitions (using for example a USB HD Enclosure and an XP system to do to formatting), the XP install process always fails, with a media read error. It's only when I use the formatting options available off the XP install screens that I do not get this error and can successfully install. And to further complicate this, the formatting options on the XP install screens do not allow for creating and formatting two partitions, you can only format one partition (being the partition you selected to install the OS to).

I think the limit is three primary partitions and one extended partition. I might be a little rusty on this, as I haven't seen that mentioned in writing in a long time.

I'm also curious if this worked for you, as I'm trying to do the exact same thing. The complicating factor for me appears to be how to do it on a drive that is newly partitioned and formatted and therefore has no OS whatsoever, (no DOS, no Windows) present. Have tried several documented ways to do this already, and none have worked. Per a post in another thread, I'm now suspecting the install CD I created is faulty, and that *might* be my problem. Have to do some more trial and error experimenting to find out what the issue is.

From the MSDN CD (1012.1) that contains the installs for the three OSes XP Home Edition SP2, XP Pro SP2 and XP Tablet Edition 2005, I want to make an automated installation CD for just XP Pro SP2, but I don't see what file folders to copy to the new CD. Obviously the directory named PRO_WITH_SP2. But, all the CDs I've made so far fail at the point after the install is done copying all the files to the drive and does a reboot. There's a folder off the root of the MSDN source CD named XPEN, that contains 118 files (mostly *.sy_ files), and a folder named SYSTEM32. I haven't copied that file and I now suspect that entire folder has to be copied, but I'm not sure where it gets copied to. Any insights?