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Would someone be able to explain to me the best way I can use Bartpe to format my hard drive into 2 partitions, C and D, with D being 4 gigs, and C being the rest of the drive, and then immediately automatically install my unattended slipstream and Norton Ghost on the C partition all in one unattended step? Thank you. If this is not the best way to accomplish this, and you know of another way, I would be happy to give it a try.

Ok, I thought about this, and here is what I really want to do: I would like to create a cd that will automatically partition my harddrive into 2 partitions: C and D. The D drive will be 4 gigs, and the C drive will be the rest of the drive. Windows will be installed on the C drive as well as ghost. I have a slipstream copy already, but I don't know how to have ghost automatically installed. I don't want to automatically create a ghost image because I may want to tweak around a little after the unattended install before I make an image. So, I would put the cd in, it would reformat the drive into C and D automatically, and then proceed to install the slipstream copy of windows and ghost on the c drive, all unattended. If someone could get me started on this I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

I don't care about pre activation unless I can make a "dell" unattended cd that works on all dells, and an hp that works on all hp's, etc. Can this be done? If not, I just want the product key to be able to activate without calling.

Thanks, Mordac85. I understand what you did. How do I incorporate this into something that will autostart when I insert the cd, and then install my unattended setup? I don't care if it has to reboot. It will still be unattended, right? I would also like to add the installation of ghost itself to the c drive, and, if possible, have the unattended install make a ghost image from the c partition and save it on the d partition. I think I need some type of batch file with bartpe that will instruct the pc exactly what to do, but I'm not sure how to go about this. Thanks.

ok, I did some research and I now know what winpe and bartpe are. I do own a copy of ghost and gdisk. Where can I find instructions on how to do what you stated above? I would like to partition the drive into 2 partitions, c and d, with d being 4 gigs and c being the rest, run unattended install with ghost installed, and have the unattended also create a ghost image of the c partition on the d partition, and hide it. I am new to all of this, but I pick things up pretty fast, so if someone could point me in the right direction, I'm sure I could figure it out. I already have the unattended install created, I just need the batch file, or whatever is needed in the begining to start the whole process. Thanks.

How is this done? I have ghost and would like to create 2 partitions: C: most of disk D: only 4 gigs

Forgive me, but I don't know what winpe is! Right now what I normally do is manually create 2 partitions with my unattended install (it's unattended except for creating partitions), and then when it is done I install ghost on the c drive where windows is, and create an image and store it in the d: partition. Whenever I want to reformat c, I just run ghost from windows and it restarts in dos mode and reformats. As long as the image is not on the C drive you can do this. Why do you say you can't? I have done it many times.

I created a slipstream unattended installation cd for xp home. I do a lot of reformatting for people, and often times it is the same people over again. What I would like to do is have the unattended install automatically partition the hard drive into 2 partitions: C and D. I would like the D partition to be 4 gigs, and C to be the rest of the disk. I would like the unattended install to automatically install Norton Ghost on the C partition. Then, once the install is done, I would manually ghost image the C partition to the D partition so that when that person calls me to reformat again, I can simply restore the ghost image, which takes 10 minutes as opposed to a lot more time. Can this be done? Thanks.

Bezalel, In your multi-manufacturer cd, you do not change the product key for each manufacturer. Does this mean you can have one slipstream cd that will work across all pc manufacturers? How will it be activated?

I quickly read through what you recommended. Does this mean I need to create a slipstream cd for each pc manufacturer? Let's say I make a dell cd, hp cd, compaq cd, gateway cd, etc, and then I use each one on a pc made by that brand. Will this eliminate the activation? Doesn't the hardware still have to be the same? For example, I make a gateway slipstream cd. I use it on a gateway pc to reformat. Will it always work on every gateway, or does the hardware still have to be the same? I am confused. I used to be able to run my dell slipstream on any pc, and then simply type in the product key on the side of the pc, and it would work. That doesn't work anymore. I have to call now, which takes time and explaining which I would like to avoid. Thanks.

Are you saying that if my friend has an hp with windows xp pre loaded, that I can never activate it online with a slipstream cd? What if I have a volume license or hacked copy of xp? Does it also reject these? I don't have either, but I am just wondering if it will reject everything except it's own that it came with.

I created an xp slipstream with my dell oem cd last year. Since then I have reloaded windows on many of my friends machines without a problem. I always had to reactivate, but I simply put in their product code from the side of their pc and activated right over the net. Recently, I have had to call microsoft on 2 occasions. Does anyone know why this is happening? Is there a way that I can avoid calling, and just activate over the net like I used to? My slipstream is fully automated. I use a generic product key given by microsoft, and at the end of the install, it asks me to activate. I plug in the product key, and it says thank you for activating. Did microsoft do away with this option? I don't want to have to call every time. I want to be able to enter the product key and be done. Thanks.