This happens often & several things can influence it.There are several work arounds,but the best advice when installing is not trying to do everything at once.In your case your trying to come up with the optimal setup so you can just have the computer pull its britches up.There is one not so common element in this installation that everyone forgets & that is extra peripherals.If your not going to do a complete install the afore mentioned copy the XPCD to a directory is the best option.If your doing multiboot options you should have directories for every WINinstallCD OS you intend to have available in a seperate partition(remember your file system is important here).WIN3.1/95/98 can't read NTFS. Now back to the source of the problem.This error is a stickler to complete installs with the Format option.When you boot the WINinstallCD its going to establish the periperal & assign the alpha character for that volume.If its an external peripheral thats not recognized by the CABs the problem is set.As the installation moves on it finds the info for the establishment for the peripheral & mounts it.All the sudden the install devices letter designation goes up however many devices it now sees.The CD still functions,its just changed from F: to G: or whatever.To prevent this unplug all extra devices either before the install starts,& you avoid the problem entirely.Also helps to always examine your BIOS for boot order of devices & prempt the C: drive with you CD drive prior to installation. If you've entered into the install & have hit this cunundrum there is still a work around(your still 3/4s of the way through the install).Hit shift F10.This brings up the DOS shell which is now available at this point in the install.If the error says it cant find F:\ASMS do a dir F:.This will show you what device userped your install CD drive.Do a dir for the next higher device.Write down each device until you find the install CD volume."exit" the shell.Now in the error dialog box change the device letter designator to the one you found for your install CD drive ie... G: H: whatever.Hit return & it should find it.Now you get a "Error can't find F:\NT5.CAB" dialog box.Now that you know the devices userping it you can pull the external devices & do a warm boot.The install disk comes up with the black screen asking "Install from CD?".Do nothing.After a minute install knows to resume an install that was inplace.Game over Hurdle passed over.If its an internal device you'll have to do a shutdown.Remove the device connector & cold boot.The resumption should be the same as predescribed & you should have no problems. As to having an optimized DOSinstaller image you now have better inste to the problems that arise!Good Luck...
