F6 does nothing...

[rupertg]

I have an Acer V1S laptop (very similar to G1S) with no OS on it, and want to install XP; there is no floppy. It has a Santa Rosa chipset and a SATA HDD.

I've used nLite to create a slipstream XP installation disk from an XP SP2 Professional source, adding some Intel ICH8M drivers according to the instructions at http://forums.vr-zone.com/showpost.php?p=3...p;postcount=368.

All appears to go well, except that pressing F6 at the appropriate moment during XP installation does nothing, and the subsequent install fails to detect the HDD. I have tried many variations following various clues in the forums (most involving the presence or lack of presence of winnt.sif or various things within it, and various settings of the unattended settings in nLite) but absolutely nothing works. I know the F6 key works (yes, it came down to me plugging in an external keyboard _and_ booting from a Linux live CD... it was genuinely painful to see Linux load without a murmur, as it's not an option here), but the installation process ignores it and goes straight onto asking me if I want to press F2.

It's been nearly six hours of frustration and burning coasters. Time is tight.

Any help much appreciated.

R

[Legolash2o]

Enabled "OEM Preinstall" on the unatended setup page

[rupertg]

Tried that (it seemed sensible), and all the other options - got a bit confused when some of the advice seemed to suggest that having that might stop F6 from working with subsequent floppy-loaded drivers, but didn't mention how it would work for the slipstreamed stuff.

Haven't burned so many CDs since the good old days...

R

[NayrYLC]

I had to do the same with mine, if you added the drivers correctly it will detect it without hitting F6. Hope that helps some if any. If anyone wants to help me read my post please and give any advice.