porear

No worries about the stick, I've already trashed it. It was fun prying it apart and playing with the insides Thanks for this, I was looking for a way to do that: I have fd0, hd0, hd1, rd Now that I no longer have GRUB in the MBR, for some reason everything points back to teh first sector of the USB stick, which goes through NTLDR to GRUB.

EDITED I formatted the stick and got everything booting using the SETUPLDR.BIN renamed as NTLDR. I then replaced the NTLDR with the GRLDR renamed as NTLDR - and get only a flashing cursor in the top left corner of the screen. I tried the boot.ini method and it works, but so far both of my original menu.lst entries end up booting right back into the stick and GRUB. ?? I'll have to work on this. Even working at the command line, I reboot into the stick. rootnoverify (hd0) chainloader +1 boot and rootnoverify (hd1) chainlaoder +1 boot do exactly the same thing. In other news, wasted some time before I realized my USB stick was fried - formatting kept hanging up. I tried wiping the disk, including the boot sector, and starting fresh, but in the end it was a hardware issue. Had to get another stick.

I edited the previous post to give more detail about what happened when I tried to remove the swap mapping. Without it, rootnoverify (hd0) boots GRUB on the stick, and rootnoverify (hd1) boots to the ntldr loader on the stick. I have tried in vain as well to find any detailed TXTSETUP.SIF documentation. Thanks for the tips about how I've installed my GRUB. I did not know this was an issue. My stick boots fine this way on my machine, but I would rather go with a reliable method that will cause the least problems. I'll try what you suggest, it sounds very straightforward. For creating a stick that boots looking for ntldr, I think all we would need to do is format the stick with PeToUSB instead of the HP tool. Thanks again!!!

I really thought so too - but when I tried the second entry, it boots into text setup on the stick When instead trying rootnoverify (hd0) with no mapping, I reboot back into GRUB. I've been playing the with numbers between all the commas in the TXTSETUP.SIF entries in the [sourceDisksFiles} section. Changing the tenth digit to a 3 stops the file from being deleted, but it also stops it from being copied. One... more... detail...

The key to the file deletion problem should be TXTSETUP.SIF. I'm looking for a definitive description of the TXTSETUP.SIF syntax.

Edit: savedefault was broken in GRUB but is now working after updating to a later version (0.4.2 pre11 dated 10-2006). The following accomplishes the desired toggle. I am not very familiar with GRUB, if there is a more correct way to boot XP from the hard drive on the GUI entry (or the USB boot), someone please jump in. color black/cyan yellow/cyan timeout 10 default /default title Phase 1 WinXP Text Mode Setup map --read-only (hd0) (hd1) rootnoverify (hd1) chainloader (hd1)+1 savedefault 1 boot title Phase 2 WinXP GUI Mode Setup map (hd1) (hd0) map (hd0) (hd1) rootnoverify (hd1) chainloader +1 savedefault 0 boot Item of note: to make things easier, I installed GRUB4DOS using WinGRUB. However, to get the latest version, I downloaded a later version of GRUB4DOS and copied the newer GRLDR file onto the stick. To make savedefault work, it is necessary to copy the file DEFAULT from the GRUB4DOS installation files to the root of the stick. The last issue still eludes me. Attached is a file listing of those files that are deleted from the stick during the text mode setup phase. The newer GRUB honors the --read-only switch. So, Windows setup now says it cannot copy those files - I guess it considers the copy a fail if it cannot delete the source file. The answer to this one will probably be on the Windows side of things. delfiles.txt

Wow. I don't believe it, but I THINK its working!!! This was without migrate.inf. After text mode finished, at the reboot, I went into my BIOS and changed the sequence so the hard drive would be the first boot device, and left the USB stick in. It booted to the hard drive, began GUI setup, found the stick, and did not even prompt me for the \I386 files - it saw them. For now, this seems like the remaining work: 1. The problem still remains that some of the files are deleted from the stick as they are copied during text mode setup. 2. Make another GRUB entry so that at boot you could choose between "Part 1 Text Mode Setup" and "Part 2 GUI Setup" in GRUB to point to the USB stick and the hard drive respectively. (I know its simple but I'm green on GRUB and haven't gotten it to work yet). Bonus: It would be nice to have some type of toggling script on the stick for GRUB4DOS that would boot the stick the first time and the hard drive the next.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. The $WIN_NT$.~LS directory is on the stick, but the stick is removed between text setup and reboot for GUI setup. The sequence is Boot USB stick into text mode setup on USB stick via GRUB4DOS Run text mode setup from USB stick which copies some setup files to C:\WINDOWS on hard disk Remove USB stick Reboot, booting from C: into GUI mode setup from C:\WINDOWS Replace USB stick Failure when $WIN_NT$.~LS\I386 isn't found for more files needed by GUI setup. May have missed the right combination, but was not able to then find the stick by changing the numbers in HARDDISKx\PARTITIONy So either $WIN_NT$.~LS\I386 needs to be copied to the hard drive that Windows is being installed onto at the end of the text mode setup (inefficient and time consuming), or somehow the GUI mode setup needs to be able to acccess the USB stick, which I have yet to achieve. I am not certain if at initialization the GUI setup loads USB drivers or not. My VLM.TXT is attached. Thanks! VLM.TXT

This does not seem to be a true hard disk drive letter mapping. I've not been able to find the \xpsprtm directory during setup, so I am assuming this is some "virtual" location that may be created on-the-fly. When searching the 'net, I only find instances of this sequence logged as mapped to d:\ ?? At this point the stick isn't even plugged in. The stick was pulled out of the machine when rebooting into the GUI setup, because otherwise we would be booting to the stick and starting text setup over again.We could create another entry in GRUB to get around this and selectively boot to the hard drive, but then we would have to add specifics about the installation to the boot entry, such as which hard drive and directory the text setup installs to. This limits desired flexibility in the install to say that you must always install windows on x drive in y directory so that the GRUB entry will be correct. Our problems stem from trying to jump start an install in the middle of the usual process. Once the GUI setup begins, it assumes that the text setup has created $WIN_NT$.~LS on the hard drive and that any files it needs will reside there. Instead, our $WIN_NT$.~LS is on the stick, but the GUI part of setup running from C:\WINDOWS doesn't know it. I don't know if the GUI setup initially loads USB drivers such that it would see the stick anyway. Does this enumeration scheme begin at 0 or 1? because if it needs to be HARDDISK0 it might also need to be PARTITION0. So I think the tasks at hand are: Find a way for the GUI setup to see the stick Point the GUI setup to the stick for the $WIN_NT$.~LS\I386 directory Find a way to stop deletion of files from the the as they are copied in text mode setup The other question would be whether the stick could be inserted and recognized after GUI setup start, or if we would have to boot around it in the BIOS sequence with GRUB on the stick. Also as an FYI, found this about the signature syntax in boot.ini http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q227704/ Thanks again for all the time and help!

migrate.inf is attached. Not sure but thought maybe winnt.sif or sysprep.inf could play a part... Thanks! migrate.inf

In case it helps here is the setuplog.txt that was created. setuplog.txt

Hello, cdob, welcome. Well, I tried the revised boot entry, but got this: I also tried mapping (hd0) to (fd0) without specifying the partition as in (hd0,0) but still got Error 26.I tried map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) rootnoverify (hd1) chainloader (hd1)+1 but that did a double swap (or maybe no swap at all? same result) and I ended up booting my hard drive instead of the USB. However, when I tried (this is where it gets interesting) title Boot WinXP Setup from USB map --read-only (hd0) (hd1) rootnoverify (hd1) chainloader (hd1)+1 boot it made it. I booted successfully from the USB setup, files were copied, the machine rebooted, and the GUI part of setup began. Unfortunately it stopped soon after, and a dialog box popped up looking for files and the list box was pre-populated with the only other choice in the list box was A: So, I could not continue at this point. Next interesting thing: The boot.ini contains [boot loader] timeout=1 default=signature(76c076b)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] signature(76c076b)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect Lastly, the files are still being deleted from the USB stick as they are copied.

Still stuck with the same two issues. I'm using GRUB4DOS now (great tool!) but when I tried the boot entry you suggested, I still got a boot.ini that pointed to the wrong disk, and the files were still being deleted from the USB stick. I think the --read-only switch only applies to grub-install, but the loader didn't complain about it being there. I have also tried various permutations of mapping map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) with no success. Although GRUB will recognize this re-mapping for booting, won't the Windows setup still always assume that it is being run from HD0 regardless? I have not yet experimented with the batch files for re-writing boot.ini. Thanks!

You're right. I apologize, I'm trying to be as correct as possible in working this out but I keep making errors. The best I can guess is that maybe I left migrate.inf in place and it somehow took care of the drive mapping, but not sure. At least this seems to be a problem that won't be too hard to overcome. Thanks very much for the help and the tips, I'll give the batch file and the Grub4DOS ideas a look. I've been trying to read up on TXTSETUP.INF to see if somewhere in all the ,,,,s in the syntax of the [sourceDiskFiles] section there is a setting that would prevent file deletion after copying, but have not found such yet. The read-only mapping might be the thing to do. This stick doesn't have a hardware write lock switch on it. Thanks again, I'm still on the job...

Ugh. I am trying my best to only vary one thing at a time but somehow another detail slipped through, and I'm not sure how I got past it before. When setup copies the files from the USB to the HD, it sets up the next boot from the HD for the GUI portion of setup to continue. This is done in boot.ini on the HD. When installing from the USB stick, it thinks the USB is HD0, and that the HD being installed to is HD1. So, the new boot.ini entry is multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" when removing the USB stick to reboot for Windows GUI setup, your HD becomes HD0, so the boot.ini entry needs to be multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" for it to work. Another minor detail. I would think this could either be fixed by 1. config setting during setup to explicitly state what the boot.ini entry should be, or 2. at the end of text setup run a simple batch or command file that edits boot.ini, or 3. use a USB drive boot manager to make sure the HD on which Windows will be installed is always seen as HD0 by the USB drive, which can then be assigned HD1 (or HDx) I don't know which of these are possible or which would be simplest. I truly believe this issue and the USB setup file deletion at copy are the last two hurdles (but I could be wrong?)

Thanks I might give Grub4DOS a shot. I've used BootitNG for multibooting USB before and was expecting to try it. I was trying to establish a working standalone project before adding the other boot loader, but maybe I should go ahead and add that piece now. Thanks!

Getting close. First, some info. The format and info for winnt.sif is indeed the same as for unattend.txt. Oempreinstall is not really valid for what we are trying to do. It is used during unattended install to setup other vendor and install-specific programs and drivers during install. These are placed in a setup $oem$ folder. From the deployment tools help file, I followed the steps again from the previous post, only this time I removed migrate.inf, but not winnt.sif 1. Run a setup by E:\I386\winnt32.exe /noreboot /makelocalsource 2. Format USB drive with PeToUSB (but did not copy any build files - format only) 3. Copy directories C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT and C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS to the USB drive (takes a while) 4. Copy the following from C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT to the USB root \ TXTSETUP.SIF NTDETECT.COM SETUPLDR.BIN 5. Rename SETUPLDR.BIN on the USB root to NTLDR 6. Delete migrate.inf from \$WIN_NT$.~BT on the USB drive Things work fine. The problem now is, that during install, as the extra files created in step 1 by the /makelocalsource switch are copied to the hard drive, they are deleted from the USB stick. I am sure there is a switch to prevent this, but for now I've got to run out to dinner. It looks like the solution will lie in the TXTSETUP.SIF file.

Think we may be on to something but I'm in the middle of a long file copy so I will catch things up here while waiting. Excellent references. Currently all new info to me and over my head, but I plan to go back and look at these in more detail. You may be right about the migrate.inf. It seems that to boot the CD installation, you must either use the original NTLDR or SETUPLDR.BIN renamed to NTLDR, since the boot sector is looking for NTLDR. The problem with the original NTLDR is that it wants an associated boot.ini that points to where the boot should continue. When booting to an NTFS file system, the ARC naming convention must be used, e.g. multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1). When booting to a DOS boot sector, the drive letter can be used, e.g. C:\BOOTSECT.DOS="Win98". I do not know how to reference a USB stick for either of these scenarios or if it is possible, since you won't know what drive letter the target machine will assign to the USB stick at boot time (I am sure this can be controlled somehow). This leaves the SETUPLDR solution, which seems to assume that you have already performed stage 1 of a setup, and have created an info store (migrate.inf) that will tell the setup how to continue. The oempreinstall switch seems to be for unattended operations, and goes in a file called unattend.txt which I don't have since I'm not doing an unattended install. However, in my case I do seem to be utilizing the winnt.sif file, which looks like it is analogous to unattend.txt for my situation. I do not know if oempreinstall is a valid switch for winnt.sif but I will certainly be investigating this angle. Yes, I was able to install to C:, and the USB was assigned drive F: (my CD ROM is E:, and my HD0 is partitioned C: and D: ) you would "fall" in method #3, won't you? I believe the method so far has been a bit of a combo of 3 and 4 since I was trying the FlyAKite usage of the stage 1 setup along with SETUPLDR.BIN. You're right though, if I could get this simple CD copy to work it would be much more in the #3 category. However, I've given it a shot, and ran right back into the problem that without migrate.inf, the installation will not continue and prompts for the setup CD, even if all the WIN51.IP tag files are in place on the USB. Thanks for hanging with me on this one. It really does seem like what we are missing is only a simple switch somewhere. I believe the stick setup boot process is obtaining data per this flow: Boot sector - NTLDR (copy of SETUPLDR.BIN) - TXTSETUP.SIF - WINNT.SIF and migrate.inf I'll be back when there's more to tell after the file copy.

Well, its working, but I don't think its correct. I'll post what I did and then my concern. I was using a Windows install CD in my drive E:. 1. Run a setup by E:\I386\winnt32.exe /noreboot /makelocalsource 2. Format USB drive with PeToUSB (but did not copy any build files - format only) 3. Copy directories C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT and C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS to the USB drive (takes a while) 4. Copy the following from C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT to the USB root \ TXTSETUP.SIF NTDETECT.COM SETUPLDR.BIN 5. Rename SETUPLDR.BIN on the USB root to NTLDR 6. Delete WINNT.SIF from \$WIN_NT$.~BT on the US drive This last step is not necessary but otherwise the product ID and other info you provide in step 1 will always be used. Very simple. The problem: does not work if you delete \$WIN_NT$.~BT\migrate.inf, and instead prompts for the install CD, even if the WIN51.IP tag files are placed on the USB drive. migrate.inf is created in step 1 and seems to contain an enumeration of the mounted devices that setup sees when it is ran. My concern is that this then ties the installation to a specific hardware configuration and will not work on other machines. It works fine for re-installing from USB upon the machine for which migrate.inf was created. How can this dependency be removed such that migrate.inf is either not needed, or is generic for all situations (not likely)? Thanks for the help! I think I'll try simply formatting, copying the CD to the stick and perform steps 4 and 5. This takes out creation of and need for the migrate file.

Wow that looks very promising. I'm off from work today, I'll give it a shot. Thanks very much for the tip. Also have read some things that lead me to believe that copying SETUPLR.BIN to NTLDR may provide the appropriate NTLDR needed without doing the whole PEToUSB copy. Will post results... fingers crossed.

So, so sorry guys. Still a step away. I just tried a full run through and got all the way to where setup would start copying files to the hard disk, and got the message "Setup cannot access the CD containing the Windows XP installation files". This is right after you pick a partition to install to. My successful run must have been before I renamed the two directories on the hard disk. Something in the setup is still pointing there. So close... any help? Again, I apologize profusely on jumping the gun calling total success. Also sorry jaclaz, I didn't address your post. Yes, I had these files on the root earlier during my first try, but it didn't seem to be looking there.

Of course, for all I know, this may get you to the exact same place as making a DOS bootable stick, copying the setup disk to it, and running winnt.exe...

Update edit - still not fully working yet, see post below. I GOT IT!!! I am successfully running a Windows XP SP2 installation off of my USB stick. I don't really know what I am doing, so this is a brute force method, but it works for me. Please help me to make it more elegant. For this procedure you need: Your USB drive Your Windows installation source and CodeBeetle's PeToUSB from http://codebeetle.com/page.php?al=petousb For the steps below I am assuming you are working from a PC with windows loaded on C: 1. Make a copy of your C:\boot.ini to boot.bak 2. Navigate to your windows installation source and run a noreboot setup. For me from my CD it was Start->Run and type E:\I386\winnt32.exe /noreboot When prompted, choose Installation Type "New Installation" At Setup Options - Advanced Options Check the box for "Copy Setup Files" to directory \WINDOWS At Get Updated Setup files choose No Thanks to FlyAKite and gosh at http://flyakite.msfn.org/ for this part. Once all of the installation files have been copied. the installation will simply stop without a reboot. You will now have two new hidden directories on your PC, C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT and C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS . If you can't see them, go to Tools->Folder Options->View in Windows Explorer and choose to show hidden and operating systems files. 3. Once the installation has finished, delete C:\boot.ini and rename C:\boot.bak to C:\boot.ini 4. Build with PeToUSB as follows Insert your USB stick Start PeToUSB In PeToUSB, choose your USB stick drive, Make sure Enable Disk Format is checked, and Point Source Path to your installation source (for me it was my CD drive, E:\) then Click Start, Yes, Yes to run PeToUSB. 5. When PeToUSB is finished, delete everything off of the USB stick EXCEPT NTLDR NTDETECT.COM WIN51 WIN51IP WIN51IP.SP2 Your WIN files may vary depending upon the service pack level of your install source. Yes, even delete the \minint directory. All we really obtained from this build is NTLDR, this is where someone smarter than I could simplify the process and save some time if they could help obtain a proper NTLDR another way. 6. Copy the directories C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT and C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS onto your USB stick 7. Create a directory \minint on your USB stick 8. Copy C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\TXTSETUP.INF to the new \minint directory on your USB stick Steps 7 and 8 are another place where a proper NTLDR file that does not point to \minint would help create a more correct method. 9. Delete the following files from the \$WIN_NT$.~BT directory on your USB stick (thanks again to FlyAKite): BOOTSECT.DAT migrate.inf winnt.sif 10. On your PC hard drive, rename C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT to C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT.OLD and C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS to C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS.OLD We're hanging on to these files for now in case there are any problems, but we need to change the names. Otherwise when running from your USB stick you may actually be copying the setup files off of your hard disk instead of the stick. I found this out when one time I pulled out my stick during installation - and it kept running! 11. Try it! It if works, delete the two directories in step 10 to clean up. Hope this works for you, please give it a shot. Any suggestions and improvements are more than welcome, I could really use help with the NTLDR issue so that the time-consuming PE build would not be needed. I'll be glad to answer any questions I can, but like I said, this was a blind squirrel/acorn "hit and miss" for me! Pat

Greetings. I feel I'm verrrrrrrrrrry close on this one, but that may be naive confidence. I believe I've reduced it down to an issue of pointing the right part of the setup to the location of the setup files on my USB key. Forgive me if I'm actually way off. I'm using WinXP slipstreamed with SP2 and most of the subsequent hotfixes with the command script found at http://smithii.com/node/12. My flash drive is a Lexar Firefly 2GB. Steps taken: 1. Run the smithii command script and build the slipstreamed installation and burn to a CD 2. Copy CD contents to a working directory C:\WINSET on my HD 3. Follow Flyakite's instructions at http://flyakite.msfn.org/ to copy installation files to C: by running C:\WINSET\I386\WINNT32.EXE /NOREBOOT 4. Copy installation boot directory C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT created in step 3 to C:\WINSET 5. Delete winnt.sif, migrate.inf, and bootsect.dat from C:\WINSET\$WIN_NT$.~BT 6. Use CodeBeetle's PeToUSB from http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb to format and load my USB stick by pointing it to C:\WINSET Results: The stick boots, Windows Executive and the drivers load, and I make it all the way to the "Press Enter to install/press R to repair" screen. When I press Enter, I am prompted to "Insert Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 CD". It doesn't see the setup files on the stick. Troubleshooting: I've tried modifying the TXTSETUP.INF file in both the \minint directory that PeToUSB creates (its the I386 files from the setup CD) as well as the one in \$WIN_NT$.~BT to point the SETUPSOURCEPATH to \minint. Same result, asks for the CD. I've also tried hex editing the SETUPLDR.BIN file in both \minnit and \$WIN_NT$.~BT to replace i386 strings with minint. Asks for the CD. Conversely I've tried editing the two SETUPLDR.BIN files to replace instances of minnit with I386, and renamed the minint directory to I386. Got a message that TXTSETUP.SIF was missing or corrupted, so obviously the boot sector created by PeToUSB wants that file (or chain via SETUPLDR.BIN) to be in the \minint directory. The first time I tried all of this I forgot to delete the 3 files in step 5. Instead of asking for the SP2 CD, I got an error message that installation files were not found where setup thought they had been copied, so one of these files must point to where a continued installation would expect to find them after reboot. Next Step(s)?: How can I correct the problem of setup asking for the SP2 CD and not knowing that the setup files are on the USB stick in the \minint directory? I am considering not deleting the 3 files in step 5, and instead copying the C:\$WIN_NT$.~LS directory created by the setup in step 3 to the USB stick. Perhaps it will then consider this a continued installation and find the setup files. Any ideas? Be gentle on the rookie...