Stringrazor

UPDATE: Looks like the Winnt answer file has nothing to do with the problem after all. I'm working with an new series of IBM PCs (M50 - 8189-G1U) which come with a "Hidden Protected Area" (HPA) area on the hard drive that survives FDISK/Format. I believe when XP reboots the first time from it's own boot rec (after starting the process from a Win95 DOS boot), it is intermittently sensing the HPA as another partition, possibly causing the I386 source drive as specified to Winnt (under Dos95) to change. That would explain the "insert CD" msg which should probably say something more accurate like "insert WinXP source media that was specified to Winnt". I ran the exact same install procedure on a previous generation IBM system (M41 8307) which doesn't ship with an HPA on the drive and there were no problems at all. ------------------- The HPA was another red herring. Got enough to start canning by now. There is another difference beween the problematic install and problem-free platforms. The new platform uses an SATA drive whil the older one has a standard IDE drive. The saga continues....

Stranger still, I cleaned out the commented lines and reactivated those statements and the install went smoothly. I just love MS stuff...

Looks like these were the offending statements: [Components] msmsgs=off ;This option tells Setup not to install Windows Messenger 4.6 msnexplr=off ;This option tells Setup not to install MSN Explorer 7. zonegames=off ;This option tells Setup not to install the MSN Zone Games Odd, especially when I'm fairly sure these statements did work in an answer file at least once (though by now I'm not sure of much...).

Used a file from another process that was working. The % parms should have gotten replaced before WINNT was run (maybe they weren't and THAT caused the problem?). Most of the extraneous stuff is commened out. I should have removed them but was concentrating on other parts of the proc and planned to clean it up before release. [Unattended] Unattendmode = FullUnattended OemPreinstall = YES UnattendSwitch = YES ;NoWaitAfterTextMode = 1 ;NoWaitAfterGUIMode = 1 TargetPath = * OemPnPDriversPath = "drv\00chipst;drv\01nic;drv\02video;drv\03audio;drv\04mouse;drv\05mon\crt;drv\05mon\flat;drv\06pcimdm;drv\07usrmdm;" FileSystem = LeaveAlone ExtendOEMPartition = 0 OemSkipEula = yes WaitForReboot=NO DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore [UserData] FullName = "%CNAME%" OrgName = "%DEALERNAME%" ComputerName = "%CNAME%" ProductKey = "key removed for posting..." [GuiUnattended] OemSkipWelcome = 1 OEMSkipRegional = 1 TimeZone = 004 ; Sets the Admin Password to NULL AdminPassword = * ; Turn AutoLogon on AutoLogon = Yes AutoLogonCount = 2 [Display] BitsPerPel = 32 XResolution = 1024 YResolution = 768 ; VRefresh = 70 [Networking] ; When set to YES, setup will install default networking components. The components to be set are ; TCP/IP, File and Print Sharing, and the Client for Microsoft Networks. ; InstallDefaultComponents = No [Identification] JoinWorkgroup="workgroup" ;JoinWorkgroup="WORKGROUP" ;JoinDomain="%LPRO_NTDOMAIN%" ;DomainAdmin= ;DomainAdminPassword= [Components] msmsgs=off ;This option tells Setup not to install Windows Messenger 4.6 msnexplr=off ;This option tells Setup not to install MSN Explorer 7. zonegames=off ;This option tells Setup not to install the MSN Zone Games [Shell] ;CustomDefaultThemeFile = "%WinDir%\Resources\Themes\MyTheme.theme" ;This option sets the default theme that windows will use, this can be a custom theme or another default theme included with Windows XP. This will mean that XP will not boot up using the default Luna theme, but with a theme you set in this option. DefaultStartPanelOff = Yes ;This tells Windows XP to use the Classic Start Menu, and displays the My Computer, My Documents icons as well as others on the Windows Desktop. If set to No, then the default Windows XP Start Menu is used. DefaultThemesOff = Yes ;This tells Windows XP to use the Classic Theme. Note: This option overrides CustomDefaultThemeFile option when set to Yes. [GuiRunOnce] "c:\copyau.bat" [NetAdapters] ; Adapter1=params.adapter1 [params.adapter1] ; INFID=* [NetClients] ; MS_MSClient=params.MS_MSClient [params.MS_MSClient] [NetServices] ; MS_Server=params.MS_Server [params.MS_Server] [NetProtocols] ; MS_TCPIP=params.MS_TCPIP [params.MS_TCPIP] ;AdapterSections=params.mstcpip.all [params.mstcpip.all] ; SpecificTo=Adapter1 ; DHCP=yes

I have traced the problem to the WINNT answer file. I don't know yet which statement is causing the problem but I have just created one that works using a sample that came was on the pre-installed system. I was able to repeat the error when not under batch control (a red herring it seems) and still need to run my automated process from start to EOJ. It looks like I can stop banging my head against this particular wall, though. Thinking on this a bit, it's possible that I coded a statement to install an component that's not in the source. That shouldn't normally be possible but the WinXP source is not from CD. It's from the hidden restore partition on a new IBM PC (I'm re-imaging the same machine with my own process so don't send the FBI..lol). I suppose it's possible that IBM's OEM source left something out and that's why it was asking for a CD during install. I can't imagine what they left out but as soon as I have time to look into to it more, I'll try to figure it out and post back exactly what caused the problem. Right now, I've got more pressing work to do though. Thanks to all who attempted to help me out.

It's not the WIN51 files. I put those on the CD and still get the same results. Any other suggestions? Just noticed it's asking specifically for: "Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 CD", SP1 was slipped into the source (not by me). Why setup pass this point some times but not others?

This is driving me nuts. I'm trying to script a custom XP Pro unattended install & customization procedure. When I run the tasks "manually" (by manually I mean outside of a batch file), everything goes smoothly but once I try to let the prodedure fly on it's own from booting a DOS diskette w/custom CD in the drive, I get this strange error during the 2nd phase of text setup (after the 1st reboot and just after the F2, F6 prompts, and "SETUP IS STARTING WINDOWS" msg). It stops and asks for the Windows CD. Once, after F3 (quit) and a few reboots (I have forgotten exactly what I did) I was able to get it to continue but I can't even duplicate that now. Of course I need the procedure to finish unattended but right now I'll accept a "lightly attended solution". Since 2 CDs are needed (for Winx & apps) I was initially copying the I386 dir from the 1st CD to hard drive and then starting winnt from the hard drive. I've tried putting I386 in the 2nd CD and running winnt from the CD but I get the same results (worked ok when I rena it outside of a batch file but stops asking for the CD under batch control). When I try my procedure with a stock WinXP Pro CD, it reboots at that stage but then stops text install with a prompt showing the list of existing partitions. My procedure does create a FAT32 partition and leave half the disk unpartitioned (hidden partition for PowerQuest PowerRestore will be created later). I had everything working when I stepped through the procedure so the concept should be OK but something is wrong here. Any ideas? I gotta finish this procedure and release it this week!

I've got all the critical patches integrated into my post-install batch file but one, Q814078 (Java) doesn't seem to be getting applied correctly. I don't see any error msgs but after my batch file has finished and the system has been rebooted, QFECheck doesn't show it and Windowsupdate.com says it's still required. Using the same patch file I can apply it manually (silent or with dialogs) to satisfy QFECheck and WIndowsupdate. Any idea why it won't apply in the batch procedure? I used the specified type 2 switches /Q:A /R:N and placed it in numerical sequence with the other batched patches.