Unattended leaving D and E partitions as is?

[U149113]

I am trying to put together an unattended XP SP3 install. The existing layout is:

Where C is the install drive at 50GB

Where D is the data drive at 175GB

Where E contains a Ghost image file and some application install sources at 25GB

Looking to do a unattended install on C: (unattended reformat of C partition with NTFS using all 50GB)

Leaving D partition alone as it contains legacy user data. Cannot delete this partition

Leaving E alone as it contains a Ghost image file and some application install sources. Cannot delete this partition

Using these settings I can get everything completely installed with an NTFS format and no user interaction but the process takes the entire 250GB drive as the primary. Here are the settings:

[Data]

AutomaticUpdates="Yes"

Autopartition=0

MsDosInitiated=0

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[unattended]

Repartition=Yes

FileSystem=ConvertNTFS

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

UnattendSwitch="Yes"

OemPreinstall="Yes"

OemSkipEula="Yes"

FileSystem=*

WaitForReboot="No"

NoWaitAfterTextMode=1

NoWaitAfterGUIMode=1

DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

NonDriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

Hibernation="No"

What I need it to do is take the existing first partition (50GB) and format as NTFS leaving the other two partitions alone. Is there a setting in Winnt.sif that can facilitate that? Am I missing something?

[Guest]

According to http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/19/#data

Repartition= Yes/No

Specifies whether to delete all partitions on the first drive of the client computer and to reformat the drive with the NTFS file system automatically.

I would set it to no and put AutoPartition=1

Never done this myself. Just telling you what I'm reading.

[U149113]

Well after trying several changes to the Winnt.sif file and reading the forum, it seems like I cannot do what I was looking for with the standard XP unattended process. I guess that is just the limitation of XP and the fact that the text part of the install is still tied to DOS. It does appear that using PE or BartPE the auto-partitioning can be accomplished with diskpart.

[Dmike92]

It looks a bit old now but I think I managed to do this with the following :

[Data]

Autopartition=1

MsDosInitiated=0

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[unattended]

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

UnattendSwitch="Yes"

FileSystem="ConvertNTFS"

OemPreinstall="Yes"

Other options ...

[Other sections...]

I had 2 partitions on my HD and this configuration just formated into NTFS the first one leaving the second on untouched.

I will check this when finished and come back if not true.

I dont know what to say: It worked fine the first time (cold start after inserting the fresh CD) ; then I forgot to take it off for the next reboot and I thought that it would redo the format again but NO: The screen was asking wich partition I would like to use :-(

I tried another cold start : nada.

Finally I took off the CD and the install continued with the pre-installed files from the first part !

Edited November 10, 2010 by Dmike92

[urie]

It looks a bit old now but I think I managed to do this with the following :

[Data]

Autopartition=1

MsDosInitiated=0

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[unattended]

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

UnattendSwitch="Yes"

FileSystem="ConvertNTFS"

OemPreinstall="Yes"

Other options ...

[Other sections...]

I had 2 partitions on my HD and this configuration just formated into NTFS the first one leaving the second on untouched.

I will check this when finished and come back if not true.

I dont know what to say: It worked fine the first time (cold start after inserting the fresh CD) ; then I forgot to take it off for the next reboot and I thought that it would redo the format again but NO: The screen was asking wich partition I would like to use :-(

I tried another cold start : nada.

Finally I took off the CD and the install continued with the pre-installed files from the first part !

You don't need to remove the cd just don't press any keys when it says Press any key to boot from CD and setup will continue.

[Dmike92]

It looks a bit old now but I think I managed to do this with the following :

[Data]

Autopartition=1

MsDosInitiated=0

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[unattended]

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

UnattendSwitch="Yes"

FileSystem="ConvertNTFS"

OemPreinstall="Yes"

Other options ...

[Other sections...]

I had 2 partitions on my HD and this configuration just formated into NTFS the first one leaving the second on untouched.

I will check this when finished and come back if not true.

I dont know what to say: It worked fine the first time (cold start after inserting the fresh CD) ; then I forgot to take it off for the next reboot and I thought that it would redo the format again but NO: The screen was asking wich partition I would like to use :-(

I tried another cold start : nada.

Finally I took off the CD and the install continued with the pre-installed files from the first part !

You don't need to remove the cd just don't press any keys when it says Press any key to boot from CD and setup will continue.

Thanks for your reply urie, you are completely right; In fact I mixed up two threads in this forum :

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=147460&view=getnewpost

where I explained I had no keyboard anymore and created a fully unatended CD WITHOUT the "press any key to boot from CD" message.

I was just trying to help this old topic sharing my experience on boot partitions.

Thanks again :-)

Michel

Edited November 16, 2010 by Dmike92