Ponch

PCs began to boot USB starting ~2004. If unlucky, check "Plop Boot Manager", if you can still boot from a cd or a floppy, it could let you boot from USB via a new menu (it's fairly simple).

but is probably "slim line" with a different connector. Why not turn to " install from USB " ?

Sorry you lost a minute because of me. I should have taken a few days off and pass by your house. Instead I just read your post, searched the net for your motherboard's manual, went through it, searched the relevant items, and type a very short note about them. Lazy me.

Can any DVD, of the same media you are using, be read from your desktop's drive ? Or maybe the disc needs to be closed or something (long time I haven't burned DVD RW). Is it burned on the laptop ? Can it be read on any other PC ? Clearly this is not an nLite issue.

Have you tried to enable "Reset Configuration Data" (Boot options) after your change, before rebooting ? Is Plug&Play OS on "Yes" ? In the "Advanced" menu, are "Ressources controlled by" ...Auto ?

You don't need a driver for your hard disk, you need one for your SATA controller, so it's not Seagate you need to search but your motherboard's manufacturer's site.

Yes of course. Search the forum for "updates". Or, on the very first page, you can already see a thread named "win-x.co.cc Back Online Windows XP Post SP3 High-Priority Updates for nLite" An other way is using "update packs" like RyanVM's providing it was updated late enough.

1) nLite needs the install cd to make a new one. 2) Legally, you can't sell the XP licence without handing over the ORIGINAL cd. In other words, you can't sell "XP" to someone and sell the media to someone else,... which you haven't done, ...but you've "lost" it, so you can't sell it... Buy one on eBay. +You can't sell a cd created with nLite as nLite is "for personal use only".

Did you follow the instructions ? For most USB devices that have additional drivers (not included in the OS), those have to be installed before the device is plugged in.

Just for info, as this post is quite fresh, we've just receive 3 new Dell laptops that are shipped with a "Recovery" partition that is only meant to start a REPAIR (WinRE). The Wim file is ~155 MB. . The partition is ACTIVE by default but is not assigned a drive letter in Windows. So you can still boot and try to repair from it when you've butchered your system, but there is not enough in there to completely rebuild a PC. New fun! Comes in time when I just scratched my head for days reinstalling my in law's 3 years old Inspiron1720 which was shipped at the time with 4 primary partitions (yeah Dell, go go go !). 1DellDiag, 2Recovery(real one), 3System and 4(extended)Dell/Roxio Media Direct. Icing on the cake was Vista. And of course I had to change the HDD. Nothing works now

Some more: -the key that has been entered at installation of the system that is running now will only work in case of hardware change or if Windows was reinstalled and never activated (and passed the 30 days deadline). Your friend really holds the key to this problem, you'll save hours asking him what really happened. ->from what cd (label) was Windows installed ? -was a key manually entered at install (or included automatically)? -what key (sticker on the machine or sticker packed with CD)? -was it ever activated? -was Windows reinstalled just before problem happened ? -did any hardware change occur ? Those are very simple questions. And as Submix8c says, swapping the hard drive won't change the fact you don't boot from cd. It normally tells you what key to hit to get into Bios...Try to hit "Del" at boot, or F1, F2 ?

I don't understand your question. nLite creates an install cd, Ghost copies an installed Windows (or other OS/partition/disk). nLite can integrate programs in the Windows install, but it's not as quick/simple as imaging a finished install. Ghost can copy everything, but will not have it run nor activated on every hardware. Please give a more precise idea of what you want to do. Imaging or installing, you can't have both.

1) yes. As far as I know, the only difference is that an upgrade will ask you to pop the former version in the cd drive at some point during Windows Setup (if clean install is performed). 2) yes, but it is not needed. SP1a is only needed on a running system. You can integrate SP3 directly to an install cd.

In case you haven't read the entire thread, may I point you to the fact nLite's EULA says it is for personal use only, so mixing it with Sysprep, WDS server, all that stuff and asking for help is a bit itchy.

Have you checked this part of the forum (and its "read me first" thread)?

Registration and activation are not the same. To my knowledge activation is only needed once (while registration is not even mandatory), unless there is a "significant" change in hardware (read this for more precision). Other possible cases are ... -your friend installed a Service Pack (update) that detected the use at the time of a now blacklisted activation key. -a repair involving different versions of Windows XP discs (different versions of Internet Explorer integrated) has been performed. I conclude you haven't heard the whole story and there is probably a reason why the computer was out of service. Or someone might come with an alternative potential explanation. As for adding a network card (they are dirt cheap indeed), providing the drivers are included in XP (not too recent) and the card can connect to your LAN with default values, it might work. Even better if MS was clever enough to let you fix that connection. Good luck. +You might want to edit question 3) because it steps on forum rule "1a".

You posted this in Windows Customization forum already. Please don't double post.

I understand the nLite context but as this file is written by XP installation process and is not configurable through nLite (other than using your own cmd file), you could find more help in the the Unattended forum, searching for "boot.ini" in the threads title, it seems you need to use "bootcfg". See here and here. Also I don't know what you intend to do with what you call "Windows Menu" (get into Safe Mode ?) but it is none of my business.

Was there no (MS-XP)firewall involved ?

Plus exactly what media are you starting with?

Fully automated/Unattended and OOBE are not exclusive (you can have both).

You also need to check Forum Rule 12.

So are you OK now ? It is one thing to create an account through unattended section of nLite and an other to create one through OOBE. Enabling "Skip OOBE" equals disabling OOBE (you get me confused here writing "was previously disabled"). Users created through nLite remain created even past OOBE.

I don't have nLite in front of me and can't remember what "AdvTweaks" stands for (in your Last Session.ini). Problem is, for any reason, your XP tries to autologon "Administrator" when that account doesn't exist on your machine (yours is named "Beheerder"). Did you change anything to that account ? Was it "Beheerder" out of the box ? Speaking of "Out of the Box", if you do not skip OOBE (that is the part where XP asks you to create accounts and set up Internet connection), did you add any user (I can't remember if it is possible not to) ? Can you check which accounts you end up with ?(in Mijn Computer /Eigenschappen/ Advanced/Gebruikers...???.).

I had that a few times but unfortunately, it was also a long time ago and I can't remember what the cause was. Few ideas; -using nLite more than once on the same source (nLite assumes the source is original, especially suppressing/modifying/recreating non standard accounts is not supported). -using same computername as owner name ??? (I know that one causes trouble and one is blank in your screenshot). -bypassing the obligation to have an "eigenaar" for XP HOME, either through user creation or OOBE. Please attach your Last sesion.ini and (removing personal data) last session_u.ini and state exactly what media you are starting with. Edit; I think I remember now... I was integrating a french SP3 to an SP home and I never got it to work properly because of that problem. I ended up adding SP3 after Windows install. Not very proud of that obviously.