Ponch

What's the difference between what you have and what you want ? What about formatting the two partitions ? Is it a 2nd drive in a running system or is it the system drive or is it an empty drive you want to install XP onto ?

I know you said you tried italian before, but in any case, this won't work.

If you put 2 devices with the same IP on the same network and they are both playing DHCP server and "some stuff won't work,... maybe the problem is not hardware ?

Hi, I was replying to your question; I suggested you download SP3 and point to it in nLite, I was not suggesting that you reinstall the complete SP3 on your running system. I think you got confused. If you are making an XP install CD based on italian language original CD, then you need to integrate (only) the italian SP3. I don't know what your running system is (italian as well I guess) but this is not relevant to your nLite operations and you should not uninstall your SP2 nor SP3.

For other than C: drive, you can change them easily after install to match your wishes. For C: drive, you'll have to try to change Bios settings (enable/disable controlers, boot order) or physically disconnecting devices before install. Also the C: drive will always be the active partition on the given disc.

Does it fail like "crash" or does it first crawl then give up ? Does the system hang as well or just the program ? You say you've tried it on 3 different systemes so you can rule out hardware problem ? I mean it's not always the same bit of the same harddisk that's used for that partition. Is the partition big enough ?

You might want to rephrase that one. I guess you have an XP cd, you made a new set of install files using nLite and you want to put them on USB drive to install XP on a computer with that stick. Right ? There is an MSFN subforum called "install XP from USB", all the info and utility is there.

Wow, cheers to the few lucky users escaping the bug since the 10 months that version is out.

That's maybe because your router is trying to be DHCP as well, and its own adress is out the range of the rest of your network components.

Yes, but there is no point. Once it's empty, it doesn't take any place. And as said before, it will be recreated any time you delete something.

When you install a SP on a computer, you don't download the entire service pack, but only the components your computer needs. When you make a Windows disk, you need to integrate all the components, so you need to download the entire SP from MS's site. SP3 is about 300MB. Don't forget to select the proper language at download. search MS's site www.microsoft.com/downloads .

Are you sure it said "PSU" ? If yes, the error is clear to me, your PSU is dying and can't make it long enough for Windows to start. The longer you try, the more likely you'll get corrupted files as well, due to system crash. Windows updates don't turn a computer on. "Wake on Lan" does. Wake on modem, automatic power on at given time, sometimes messing up with USB devices, that's all Bios settings. (honnestly, people, I have seen a bunch of Fujitsu-Siemens from 2006 that power up when you pull off the USB keyboard ! )

Some BIOS have a security setting that keeps the PC from booting removable media (Floppy or CDRom). You might check that. Or... Your XP discs are both DVDs (that would be surprising) and your reader is cdrom. Or, you have a very old and slow CRT screen and you don't see the "Press Any Key to boot from CD" message, or it's off the screen (up). Have you got (and tried) an F12 (Boot Menu) function in your Bios ?

Hi, You need to provide far more info. You are "partitionning" a drive with PM, do you mean a (second) empty drive or "resizing the partitions" on your main drive ? One drive ? two drives ? ATA - SATA ? What PM version ? How big is the drive ? How big the partitions ? What service Pack is your XP running (this is the XP forum, right?) What have you tried to do exactly with PM ? Has it done any work or has it just "corrected something" in a split second ? You say Windows restarts but you were still able to do a checkdisk ... how ?

Messerschmitt, your D drive remains D because the Windows system from which you're looking at it is already installed when you add the new HDD. If you boot from a Live CD for instance, or if you reinstall Windows, then comes IcemanND's "law" ; depending wether the partition on the 2nd HD is primary or extended, it will be D or E and the extended in the 1st drive will be E or D. I hope it make sense. For the rest, as you present it, there will be no difference. I'd make it a primary. Of course you end up with a formatted partition but they are two different steps. Because XP asks you if you want to format the partition after you've created it doesn't mean creating it and formatting is "the same thing". Both HDD are approximately the same size and probably same speed, so this do not matter here.

I'd say... you can slipstream SP3 in your XP Pro CD but it will still remain an upgrade CD. Because that's what you paid for. In an other post, someone thougt of a ...workaround, puting a whole Windows98 on the media to avoid popping the disc at install. But then you'd probably need to use a DVD to fit it all.

Try to do it in one go (SP3 + Ryan's pack, from the fresh source). +"blows up straight away" and "dies" are not very helpfull ddescriptions of what's happening.

This is usually caused by internal card readers. Your post confirms they are "removable" drives. Can you not see them (letters) after install to know what they are ?

Creating a partition and formatting it is not the same. In explorer, you can only format a partition that is already formatted and has a drive letter associated (not the System drive obviously). In Disk Management, you can partition and format.

All your discoveries come from the fact the "normal" way of installing XP is OOBE. This is what Microsoft think you should have: 1) an Administrator account you don't mess with (because they know... profiles sometimes get corrupted and then you're in trouble) 2) a user with admin rights which is the one you create at OOBE and is the one the "user" works with -other accounts if wanted, (and Guest) created or not at OOBE or later (or sooner). When you use nLite and/or unattended, you skip OOBE or you don't get in the shema above (in your case clearly ONE Administrator, two non admin), things become not unpredictable but maybe surprising. +Yes, you can rename "the" Administrator.

"USB Disk Minimum Size of 256MB (dependant on size of PE build)" That's because the typical size of a BartPE is more than 200MB, it's not a requirement of the software. I don't know about NaughtyPE but if it adds sound and other features, it might be quite bigger. 1Gig are beginning to get quite difficult to find. Go for 2Gig, it starts at 5.5€ here (and it's the maximum for PeToUsb).

Does your stick get a drive letter ? (it shouldn't make a difference but just to be sure it is properly recognized by the OS) FAT16 is the system that will be on your stick after PEtoSB has formatted it, not a pre-requisit. On a side note, what kind of PC do you plan to run with that ? Is a dualboot (taking 500Meg of a partition) not doable ? Has it got no HDD at all? It would be 100 times faster. (Is that stick even USB2) ?

nLite doesn't let you create groups, it lets you create local accounts and lets you place them in XP predefined local groups. Local groups can be used with workgroup as well as domain PCs. A domain is different in the way that the domain user's credentials are checked by a Domain Controller. Local users are still to be defined (and credentials checked) on the local computer.

... double post.

You don't have the fastest of computer, apparently some processes are running in the background and taking resources. Check your computer for malware and uninstall unneeded programs that autostart. Also check if your C: partition is not getting full or too fragmented.