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ZaForD

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Posts posted by ZaForD

    Multi Manufacturer Pre-Activation

    in Unattended Windows 2000/XP/2003

    Posted

    @ Bezalel, FreeStyler, Severach,

    I'll explain what I was doing, which should answer most of your questions. :)

    I was making two OEM Multi-Boot disks, one for Home and one for Pro. Each image included OEMBIOS set, the PID for that set or the Microsoft System Builder PID, oemlogo, info, wallpapers and themes [if available] :)

    As I added each image to the disk, I tested it in VirtualPC. Which was setup to dual boot, and had the BIOS modifed with the SLP for that OEM. I know its never a great idea to test two different things at the same time, so any problems I found i.e. PID failing, wallpaper/theme not displaying I noted down so I could look i to it later and continued on with the next install.

    All was fine till I tried the Hedy set. Both Home and Pro images installed fine, except the Home preactivated but Pro didn't. Which was strange as the hardware/BIOS were indentical [Dual Boot VirtualPC] I rebuilt the Pro image making sure I used the correct OEMBIOS set and installed it again, with the same results.

    Now my Multi-Boot disks are complete [i think] :whistle:

    I'm going to test them on a real system. I'll start with the Hedy installs and report back.

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    Multi Manufacturer Pre-Activation

    in Unattended Windows 2000/XP/2003

    Posted

    Hi Guys,

    I'm not sure if this a warning or question. :lol:

    I've read a few times in this thread that you can use a Pro OEMBIOS set on a Home install, and vice-versa.

    I myself have used a my Dell Pro set to install Home on an old Dimension testbox.

    Recently, I've been playing with a multi-boot disk, everything seemed fine till I tried the 'Hedy' set.

    They worked with the Home install, but failed on the Pro. Has anyone else come across this problem. :huh:

    I'm wondering, if its a case of the Pro sets will work on all installs, but the Home sets only work on Home.

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    BTS driver packs for multi-boot

    in Multi-Boot CD/DVDs

    Posted

    @ bober,

    I had it working on my Multi OEM Boot disk, till I got the NTLDR problem. :angry:

    This is what I did:

    Copied OEM Pro source files to HDD.

    Updated with RVM's Addon Pack, using the Integrator.

    Added BTS's Driver Pack, using his new Base 6.0.

    Then I used the resulting files as the source for creating my Multi-Boot disk, as per the guide.

    I added a $OEM$ folder in each install folder, for OEM specific files.

    And moved the OEM folder in the root of the disk.

    This worked a 5 or 6 times before I had any problems, so I don't think it had anything to do with RVM's pack or BTS's driver pack. ;)

    I couldn't get it to fit on 1 CD though. :(

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    NTLDR missing

    in Multi-Boot CD/DVDs

    Posted · Edited by ZaForD

    Hi Guys,

    I think this problem might have something to do with the 'txtsetup.sif'

    One my last build 'NTLDR' was in all my UA disk folders, but it couldn't be found on install.

    In the test I just did, the base SP2 build, kept reporting files missing on install. Files that when i checked were in the i386 folders. :no:

    The second RVM build, is still installing and is at T13 now in Virtual PC, without any errors.

    I compared the files in each boot folder and the two 'txtsetup.sif' files and there are very different. Apart from the extra files added by the update pack, the layout is very different.

    Anyway, back to trying to work out where to put my $OEM$ folders. :}

    Thanks for the help. :thumbup

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    NTLDR missing

    in Multi-Boot CD/DVDs

    Posted

    @ bober,

    I notice your menu uses bin files not dat files.

    Is that just the way they're named ? Or do they work differently ?

    I'm begining to think something has changed in the setup between SP1 which the guide covers, and SP2 that i'm using. I'm about to do a little test, by attempting to make two Multi-Boot disks.

    1. With an Orignal OEM WinXP Pro SP2 disk.

    2. With the same disks files, but updated with RVM's pack first.

    I've got a sneaking feeling the second one will work, but the first won't. :unsure:

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    NTLDR missing

    in Multi-Boot CD/DVDs

    Posted

    @ bober,

    By boot menu, do you mean the cdshell.ini ?

    I've deleted and formated over my orginal.

    So i'm using the one from the download section here.

    Unedited incase it was my version that was messing up.

    @ LiquidSage,

    Do you get ntldr errors upon first booting the cd itself or right before install starts from the hd?
    The PC boots, shows the splash screen, displays 'Press Enter to boot from DVD'

    I press Enter, then at main menu press 1 for XP Pro menu, then which ever option I choose I get the NTDLR error.

    What are you using as the boot menu? CDshell, easyboot... etc
    I'm using CD Shell 2.1.6
    Are you trying to tidy up you folder structure by hiding files?
    On this attempt the only tidying i've done is to remove the 'unattended.txt' 'bootfix.bin' 'txtsetup.si_' 'setupldr.bi_' and '.bak' files, as per the guide.
    Are you using something like RyanVM's updates or nlite?
    My original build had RyanVM's pack included, this one has nothing.
    If you delete the $OEM$ folder, does the AIO cd boot correctly again?
    Can't check this as the Multi-Boot CD with the $OEM$ folders have been deleted.
    Are you sure winnt.sif is correct for all options?
    Again, no winnt.sif in this attempt.
    Are you making sure to omit ISO 9660 version number when compiling?
    I'm not sure what this means, I made a .bat file which has the ISO info copied from the guide.
    Double check all the setupldr.bin's
    I've double checked my old ones and created new ones.
    try replacing ntldr and ntdetect.com with the win2003 or win2003sp1 versions
    I'll see if I can get hold of them.

    Thanks for the quick replys guys. Its the only good thing thats happened on this Multi-boot all weekend. :D

    0

    Media Center 2005 runs fine on 7y old pc

    in Windows XP Media Center Edition

    Posted

    Hi flupke,

    I've been using MCE since the 2002 version, and as ScubaSteve said, it like XP will run [slowly, but still run] on pretty low spec boxes. The only parts of MCE that you'll have problems with are DVD Playback and Live TV. Both of which are very heavy on CPU load and use hardware decoding and encoding in real MCE boxes.

    FYI, I have MCE on old Thinkpad 570 PII366, 128mb RAM, 6Gb HDD. It dosen't play any TV or Video but works perfectly as a remote media hub / RDC terminal for the other PC's here.

    Plus, booting straight to the MCE GUI makes it look very flash too. B)

    0

    NTLDR missing

    in Multi-Boot CD/DVDs

    Posted

    Hi Guys,

    This is really starting to drive me nutz now. :crazy:

    I have three UA disks, all OEM Pro and all work prefectly.

    I thought i'd get abit flash and have a go at making a Multi-Boot CD of them.

    So I followed the Multi-Boot DVD guide and ended up with three working UA disk on one CD. I then started working out where to place my $OEM$ folders, when I first got this error on booting.

    CDBOOT: Couldn't find NTLDR

    It seemed strange as the files i'd just changed were in the $OEM$ folders, but didn't worry about it and created another ISO. Which also failed, as did the next 5 or 6. :huh:

    Anyway to cut a long story short:

    Over the last two days, i've since scraped the whole thing twice, then I started again on a newly formated PC, and started again on a differnet PC. Using the same Orignal OEM CD for formating, installing and the Multi-Boot CD, again following the guide to the letter. After these failed with the same error, I tried using my Retail CD and downloading all new files from the links in the guide, but I still keep getting this same error. :wacko:

    I've seached through this forum, but most of the threads are about Win2K3 having these problems not XP Pro SP2. Has anyone got any answers ?

    As I said earlier its driving me nutz.... :crazy:

    0

    CD Key Rejected

    in Unattended Windows 2000/XP/2003

    Posted

    DarkAsHell,

    The easiest solution is to use the version provided by your laptop manufacturer.

    Make your UA disk using that version and use your OEM key in the winnt.sif.

    It can be done using your Upgrade disk, but its alot more work and you have to edit some system files. ;)

    Theres also some disupte as to whether we can tell you which or how to edit those files. :unsure:

    0

    Media Center Edition?

    in Unattended Windows 2000/XP/2003

    Posted

    Hi affiray,

    I've had no problems making an MCE2005 unattended disk, you just add the contents of the second disk to your root folder, make your winnt.sif and burn it to disk.

    The place where i have had problems is updating the disk, both nlite and RVM's pack brake my MCE install.

    So i use the /inetgrate switch as discribed in the Guide, and then RunOnceEx for Rollup1 and the April Update.

    Hope it helps. B)

    0

    Running win XP 32 with 64 bit System?

    in Windows XP 64 Bit Edition

    Posted

    First off, theres no panic about these drivers, guys. :)

    The system in question is quite happy running under 32bit XP Pro, I was just testing an eval copy of x64.

    The MoBo is a Gigabyte K8NS Ultra 393 w/ Sil 3512 Controller.

    I found 64bit drivers for all the hardware except SATA, I had to use the 3514 [i think] drivers which worked 99% of the time.

    The printer is a HP PSC 1215, HP only released a 64bit driver for this in march of this year.

    HP [as fair as i'm aware] still don't have Win2K Server or Win2K3 drivers for this printer. Fortunately one of the guys here was able to modify HP's Win2K drivers. ;)

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