FireGeier

What kind of message you've got, when you were trying to boot the diskpart prepared stick? Martin

Hello Deman! Have you build your AutoUnattend.xml with WSIM or manually? Which Versions of WAIK and Vista you're using? Martin

Hello Innocent, first you need to know, if your stick is able to boot on your system. If BIOS is not able to boot your stick, than you'll not able to get it working. I know that there are a lot of boards around, where you've the options in BIOS menu to boot from USB, but at least nothing happens, if you realy try out. To find out, if BIOS allows you to boot your stick, you should try to prepare your stick with diskpart - like discribed in WAIK walkthrough "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD". But there is an important thing I've found out for my stick and my system: When I was trying to use diskpart within from a Windows Vista command prompt or from Windows XP command prompt it wasn't listing the USB-Stick. But the USB-Stick was recognized by the system. Background: Some UFDs are recognized as a Disk, what allows you to create diffrent partitions like on a HD, but some sticks are recognized as removable media. These Sticks you can't prepare like a disk from within Windows XP and it seems to be it's the same with Windows Vista. So I was building a basic Windows PE 2.0 CD, booted the system and started diskpart. Windows PE was recognizing the same stick on the same system as HD. So I prepared the stick like discribed in walkthrough, and than used xcopy to copy all files from Windows PE 2.0 CD to the prepared stick. Now I had to do the strange steps posted above (disconnecting HD) and it was working. What kind of message you get, when you're trying to boot from your stick? Martin

$OEM$ can be in any root directory of any removable Media, too. It's very convenient to have it on UFD. Makes it easier to change things instead of burning new DVD all the time. Martin

For WinPE 2.0 you have to use command line tool peimg /inf to integrate .inf-based drivers. Everything you need to load into WinPE 2.0 Image is done by peimg. Look in WAIK-Help for peimg. It's listed under Technical Reference for Windows PE. There is an Help file just for PE, too. You will find there all informations to integrate stuff to peimg. Martin

BCD is designed for Vista Operating Systems and later. If you wanna boot from older OS BCD will still handle ntldr and needs a boot.ini file than - as far as I understand - but I'm not a BCD expert. You can find some more usefull information about BCD on the following Microsoft Tech Sites: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platf...rmware/bcd.mspx http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista...3.mspx?mfr=true Hope that will help! Martin

UPDATE: OK.. Problem is "fixed" or better, I know what's causing the problem now. Like I've expected my BIOS USB Stick combination is behaving weired. I redid everything from "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD" walkthrough. It was still not booting from stick. So I turned off my test system and disconected the HD. Turned system back on... and surpirse... it was rocking from the stick. After endless time of booting I turned system off again, reconnected the HD, turned it back on... and still booting from stick. Wiped out everything from Stick, followed walkthrough again, put stick into testsystem - HD still connected - and it was booting from HD instead of stick. Turned off system, disconnected HD, turned back on... booting from stick. Turned off system, reconnected HD, turned back on... booting from stick. Hope, everything is clear now guys! Thanks for helping! Martin

Problem solved partly... That's wrong! You have to replace "partition=c:" through "boot". After that BCDEdit commands will run fine. Thank's MS for some further wasted days!!! However USB-Stick is still not booting WinPE. But I guess that has something to do with combination of BIOS and Stick. Martin

Hello Jazkal! Thanks, for your reply. Cause I'm sure this would be the next trap I would run into. But if I understand that right, this will help for line three of the second part. Right? Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID path \windows\system32\winload.exe Wouldn't it be a solution here to change the path to \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe instead of moving all the files? My problem is that line one of second part gives the error allready. However I'll try out your solution. Thanks again! Martin

I'm using the newest available WAIK and trying to boot WinPE2.0 from USB-Stick. I was following the steps from WAIK-Walkthrough "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD" Everything went fine expect that UFD was booting on Testsystem. NOTE: The Testsystem is able to boot from UFD generally and I've prepared BIOS settings for it. I'm able to boot from this stick generally, too. But it does not boot WinPE. I've read in the newest Readme.rtf of newest WAIK that you've to follow the BCDEDIT Steps from WAIK-Walkthrough "Boot Windows PE from Harddisk" and replace all "partition=c:" entries through "partition=boot". Here are the advices from the Walkthrough: Bcdedit –createstore c:\temp\BCD Bcdedit –store c:\temp\BCD –create {bootmgr} /d “Boot Manager” Bcdedit –store c:\temp\BCD –set {bootmgr} device boot Bcdedit –store c:\temp\BCD –create /d “WINPE” –application osloader Bcdedit –import c:\temp\BCD Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID osdevice partition=c: Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID device partition=c: Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID path \windows\system32\winload.exe Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID systemroot \windows Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID winpe yes Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID detecthal yes Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –displayorder GUID -addlast The first part till BCDedit -import is running fine. But the first command of second part - I've replaced GUID with the long number - Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID osdevice partition=boot gives me the following error: I've no clue what to do now and the help of BCDedit is not realy helpfull. Any help would be highly appreciated! Martin

Hello raffa! Could you try to tell a little bit more about your problem? Martin

The problem with MS .chm files is, that they are not clearly arranged allmost. So it's easy to overread something. If MS-Docs would be clearly arranged we would not need this site here. Martin

Are you doing all this under Vista? If so, have you shared your Vista-DVD folder? Martin

Well Chris, I hadn't got it perfectly. Don't expect to much from a stupid German Kraut. However, now I've got it! Please add the following code to the Windows-Setup section of your AutoUnattend.xml: <ImageInstall> <OSImage> <InstallTo> <DiskID>0</DiskID> <PartitionID>1</PartitionID> </InstallTo> <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> <InstallToAvailablePartition>false</InstallToAvailablePartition> </OSImage> </ImageInstall> Explanation: The Diskconfiguration part is ok now on your AutoUnattend.xml. The reason why setup is asking you where to install Vista is, that you have not "told" so far where to install it. The OSImage/InstallTo MUST be insert into AutoUnattend.xml to get Vista Setup unattended. Sorry, that I didn't recognized this in your first Autounattend.xml post allready. Germans allways do it in the extra time... Now let it rock! Cheers, Chris! Martin Martin

Well, if you get a prompt with the language option, than you should change en-UK to en-US. This has nothing to do with the Diskconfiguration? Or have I missunderstood anything? Martin

Could you please tell me what the result of this unattended is? Does it give you an error during setup or what happens exactly? The disk configuration in your case, should look like this: <DiskConfiguration> <WillShowUI>Never</WillShowUI> <Disk> <CreatePartitions> <CreatePartition> <Order>1</Order> <Type>Primary</Type> <Extend>true</Extend> </CreatePartition> </CreatePartitions> <DiskID>0</DiskID> <WillWipeDisk>true</WillWipeDisk> <ModifyPartitions> <ModifyPartition> <Active>true</Active> <Extend>False</Extend> <Format>NTFS</Format> <Label>SYSTEM</Label> <Letter>C</Letter> <PartitionID>1</PartitionID> <Order>1</Order> </ModifyPartition> </ModifyPartitions> </Disk> </DiskConfiguration> Martin

AFAIK there is no special UK-Language-Pack you could use for this setting. Check out the Document "Supported Language Packs" in Unattended.chm. Replace UK through US, you should be able to change the keyboard layout. But I'm not 100% sure... Martin

Once you have all your Vista-DVD-Files in one directory of your HD, copy your AutoUnattend.xml to this directory - directly into this directory, not in any subfolders. Open a command prompt (Start\Run\cmd) and use oscdimg to create an ISO file: oscdimg -n –m -bD:\MyVistaDVD\boot\etfsboot.com D:\MyVistaDVD\ D:\Vistax86.iso Note: If you're handeling a 64bit Vista-DVD than use efisys.bin instead of etfsboot.com! You have to replace D:\MyVistaDVD\ with your Path to your Vista-DVD files. The last part - D:\Vistax86.iso - just attaches a name to the ISO file. Burn this ISO to a DVD using third party software. Let it rock... Martin

That's right. It's realy a shame that the docs of WAIK a such a piece of cr.... partly! Nearly everybody I know - and me, too, was caught by this DiskConfiguration trap. Note: If you've just one partition on your Disk and all you wanna do is formating the partition before installing Vista use the following code in your AutoUnattend.xml: <DiskConfiguration> <Disk wcm:action="add"> <ModifyPartitions> <ModifyPartition wcm:action="add"> <Active>true</Active> <Extend>false</Extend> <Format>NTFS</Format> <Label>Vista-OS</Label> <Letter>C</Letter> <Order>1</Order> <PartitionID>1</PartitionID> </ModifyPartition> </ModifyPartitions> <DiskID>0</DiskID> <WillWipeDisk>false</WillWipeDisk> </Disk> <WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI> </DiskConfiguration> Martin

That's not the truth completly. You are still able to use the $OEM$ folder structure "the old way". All you need is the following tag in your Autounattend.xml: <UseConfigurationSet>true</UseConfigurationSet> Place it into the Windows-Setup-Section. And copy the $OEM$ folder structure to the root of Vista-DVD or other removeable media (I use an USB-Stick). But it's right that MS favorit method of doing this is the DATA-Image thing. Hope that'll help! Martin

What you were doing at this point exactly? I don't understand remaked iso by myself... Martin

Was it ever working with the new WAIK or do you have the problem since you're using the newest WAIK? Where all .wim files created / edited with the same WAIK Version? Do you use German and English WAIK - which would cause problems - or just English? How did you upgrade from older to newer WAIKs? Martin

NOTE: If you don't want to set an option in Autounattend.xml, look that the setting is removed from AutoUnattend.xml. AutoUnattend.xml don't like empty entries. I guess that you don't have used WSIM to make your settings. I highly recommend to use it, cause it helps to avoid a lot of syntax errors and it will remove empty entries automatically. So all you need to set should be the entry Urie posted allready. Martin

Do you use Vista RTM with the newest WAIK available from MS here? Martin

Your filling up the remaining space of drive with the following command allready: <CreatePartition wcm:action="add"> <Extend>true</Extend> <Order>2</Order> <Type>Extended</Type> </CreatePartition> So there is nothing left to extend when using Modifiy command. With the Modify command you're just attaching a drive letter to the drive and formating it in this case. You're welcome! Martin