weird "cant format drive" issue

[aschwartz]

I have a working RIS server, with one image that works perfectly. network boot to fully installed and patched with no user intervention. Its a beautiful thing, and I couldnt have done it without help from this site thats for sure.

But now I have an issue. I want to create a few new "images" for install and that are listed on the boot menu. here is what I did.

Under remoteinstall\setup\english\images, I took the folder of my image (called WinXPSp3_1) and copied the folder. renamed the copy to Vanilla XPSP3_1, and then went in and modified the \i386\ristndrd.sif and i386\templates\ristndrd.sif file to reflect the new name, as well as a few other changes (a different runonce file, etc)

The first image works same as before, but the new image, when selected from the F12 boot menu, starts the install, and then when it sees the drive and goes to format it, it goes to 20% then 100% then this message comes up:

Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk may be damaged.

Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is a SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated. Consult your computer manual or SCSI adapter documentation for more information..

You must select a different partition for Windows XP.

To continue, press ENTER

If I manually delete the partition on the drive and create another, same problem. The same machine works with the other image, so obivously I am doing something wrong. What did I forget, or did I not do it correctly at all? Is there an easier way to do it?

Thanks in advance.

Edited November 6, 2008 by aschwartz

[aschwartz]

Is there an easier way to create a 2nd image, with just a different runonce (or cmdlines file I should saay, which calls the runonce? Am I doing it incorrectly.?

[aschwartz]

I think I have a better idea of what I need now.

I think that I need to know if there is a way to set it so that I can run a different cmdlines.txt file with a different image.

Meaning that - my directory structure looks like this:

\RemoteInstall\Setup\English\Images\

Under here I have 1 folder called winxpsp3_1, which houses 2 folders

i386 and $oem$

In the i386 folder there is a templates folder which has the ristndrd.sif file(there is also one in the i386 folder)

The $oem$ folder has the cmdlines.txt file as well as the runonce.cmd file that the cmdlines.txt file calls.

What I am looking to do is to have a different runonce.cmd file run depending on which image I choose from the initial boot menu.

This way I can have an "image" for training machines, a plain image for home machines, and my standard image with all my work apps(the one that currently works correctly)

Does that make any sense? I dont see anywhere in there how to call a different file for the install.

[aschwartz]

I figured it out, instead of using the cmdlines.txt file, I added a new line in the guirunonce that does the same, populate the runonce upon first boot. I just had to add a shutdown -r command in to make sure they take affect.

I then created multiple sif files, one for each image I wanted. I didnt need a copy of the directory again.