Atheros

was the wim image of the OS partition? if so you are required to generalize the image before capturing. otherwise it will just BSOD and reboot loop. to do this in windows vista you run the sysprep tool found in the windows\system32\sysprep folder. and tick the generalise box. this will remove all installed drivers and main HAL information, this will be rebuilt on first bootup. unsigned drivers will not be re-installed.

ok i will have to reopen this project as i worked on it some time ago. i will see how it goes and let you know on my progress.

normally when a pc does this it means it cannot find an active hard drive partition. are you installing it on another hard disk other than the primary master? boot order can fix this normally. but the best thing to do is to rearrange your disks so that the one your installing to is the first one detected in your system.

are you sure you did them correctly hkey_local_machine\"whaterer you loaded the hive as"\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\usbstor#disk etc etc you may not have the drivers in the pe image. even though in winpe theyre normally copied by default. have a look and see.

did you call the file Autoattended.xml or Autounattend.xml, the latter being the corect file name? [edit] typo [/edit]

this is already accesable if you run the vista dvd and after the language selection there is an option to repair your comupter. with the windows full system backup i think you can only restore and not create.

have you tried the xml file approach? [unattend.xml] in the root of your pe2.0 image. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend"> <settings pass="windowsPE"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-International-Core-WinPE" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <SetupUILanguage> <UILanguage>EN-GB</UILanguage> </SetupUILanguage> </component> </settings> <cpi:offlineImage cpi:source="wim:d:/build-3.rm.01/x86/sources/install.wim#Windows Vista ULTIMATE" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" /> </unattend> don't know if this will work or not. worth a go though right?

you will need to modify/add the following values to your registry. you can only do this when the cd key is not booted. so do it on another machine. open regedit and then load the system.hiv %systemroot%\windows\system32\config modify the following values in the hiv [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\*pnp0a03] "Service"="pci" "ClassGUID"="{4D36E97D-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\pci#cc_0c0320] "Service"="usbehci" "ClassGUID"="{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\usb#root_hub20] "Service"="usbhub" "ClassGUID"="{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\usb#class_09] "ClassGUID"="{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}" "Service"="USBHUB" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\usb#class_08] "ClassGUID"="{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}" "Service"="USBSTOR" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\gendisk] "ClassGUID"="{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}" "Service"="disk" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM.SAV\ControlSet001\Control\CriticalDeviceDatabase\usbstor#disk] "ClassGUID"="{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}" "Service"="disk" unload the hive, boot from the usb key and it should boot up fine. the issue you are seeing is that that windows plug and play is kicking in and loading the driver, dropping the usb key. ususlly with the blue screen of 0x0000007B

create 2 partitons on you hard drive install windows xp first to partition 1 when in windows copy all your xp live files from your USB key to the second partition. in system porperties go to section ---> advanced click button in "Startup and recovery" called settings in system startup section click "edit" add this information below the current information in the boot.ini file multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Live" /noexecute=optin save and exit reboot pc and see if it boots.

you will find that windows pe 2.0 that deploying windows XP wim files isnt as simple as it seems. there is a bug in the diskpart which, causes the boot to fail all the time. there is a lot of info on the board about this and ways around it.

if i had the cash spare i would now move to vista ultimate x64, considering that this is the way forward.

in the folder where the source files for the windows xp pro are, create the following directory structure: \$OEM$ \$OEM$\Textmode \$OEM$\$1 \$OEM$\$1\Drivers \$OEM$\$1\Drivers\ITLMXM In the Textmode and ITLMXM folder dump all of the files from the Intel Matrix Storage Driver (RAID Drivers [iastor.sys, iastor.inf, iaahci.inf, iastor.cat, iaahci.cat, txtsetup.oem]) in your winnt.sif file add the following values to the section specified [section], add the section if it is missing from the file: [unattended] OEMPnpDriversPath = Drivers\ITLMXM; [MassStorageDrivers] "IDE CD-ROM (ATAPI 1.2)/PCI IDE Controller" = "RETAIL" "Intel® ICH8R/DO/DH SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH8R)" = "OEM" "Intel® ICH8R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH8R)" = "OEM" "Intel® 631xESB/632xESB SATA RAID Controller (Server/Workstation ESB2)" = "OEM" "Intel® 631xESB/632xESB SATA AHCI Controller (Server/Workstation ESB2)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801GHM SATA RAID Controller (Mobile ICH7MR/DH)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801GR/GH SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH7R/DH)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801GR/GH SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH7R/DH)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801GBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH7M/DH)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801FR SATA RAID Controller (Desktop ICH6R)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801FR SATA AHCI Controller (Desktop ICH6R)" = "OEM" "Intel® 82801FBM SATA AHCI Controller (Mobile ICH6M)" = "OEM" [OEMBootFiles] IASTOR.cat IASTOR.inf IASTOR.sys IAAHCI.cat IAAHCI.inf txtsetup.oem The names in the mass storage drivers section must correspond to those in the txtsetup.oem file. So modify/remove the names that i have specified if your driver file set doesnt contain them. hope this helps

there is a limitation of windows pe 2.0 that when creating partitions and formatting NTFS 5.2 that windows xp will fail to load. i dont believe they have fixed this yet. your best bet would be to use a 3rd part partitioning tool in pe. (i dont know if you can use the old diskpart from the old pe) hope this helps

about 180-250mb depending on version of vista and what drivers are installed.

this is just a thought. does VLE XP actually support this method of installation. it could be that the 32-bit launcher is looking for an OEM key and not a VLE key. try an OEM pro key and see what that does, (i know its not practical, but would be nice to see if my theory is correct)

have you tried messing about with WMIC? most of the commands in there are out of my league but it looks promising.

this is to do with your network. create a seperate account i use: net use n: \\server\share /user:USER PASSWORD <EDIT> got a bit too far ahead of myself here, i'll read a bit more thouroughly next time </EDIT>

the text is located in textsetup.sif for winpe.

this would be a lot easier if you were to use a WinRE or WinPE cd instead of the original setup disk. or better still deploy WinRE or WinPE to the second partiton. this means that your custom OS disk won't be completely useless on systems that don't have your recovery partition.

add the user information in the unattended file... it is not valid for pass 6.. only pass 5 and 7 e.g <settings pass="auditSystem"> <component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="x86" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <UserAccounts> <LocalAccounts> <LocalAccount wcm:action="add"> <Password> <Value>UABhAHMAcwB3AG8AcgBkAFAAYQBzAHMAdwBvAHIAZAA=</Value> <PlainText>false</PlainText> </Password> <Name>Username</Name> <Group>Administrators</Group> <DisplayName>Username</DisplayName> <Description>Description</Description> </LocalAccount> </LocalAccounts> </UserAccounts> </component> </settings>

i have looked at this before in the past and had no success but i had a concept that could possibly work. use grub loader to mount an image to a drive that acts like the cd with the relevant winbom on it. as you know when you use OSCDIMG you can use the -o option to not put 2 copies of the same file on the disk to reduce the size. let me know if you have any success as i would like to get it working too.

well i have a fancy script boot disk that works on pretty much everything i use except NVIDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <<------avoid using this for NDIS intel 10/100 10/100/1000, marvell, realtek (8167, 8168, 8169, 8137) ETC

check you HDART32.cat as mine current says it is invalid. so this would stop it installing. the only way i know of doing this is to manually install it but when you reseal/audit -generalize it will be wiped out.

the nic drivers would have to be installed during the original setup. i.e. in the OEM folders specified in your unattend.txt. putting more drivers in the unattend.txt and oem folders after the install will not work as this part of the file is processed in the GUI phase of the install. a possible way of getting this to work is to copy the inf, cat, sys and dll's to a folder that exists in your original unattend.txt

Yeah. make sure that you are using vista drivers for the netowrking and are the latest up to date ones. i had a similar issue with foxconn 946GZ's with marvell lan. this was down to the mainboard/lan controller that caused the hanging. i ahve since not been able to fix it and it only applied to this mainboard.