Windows setup can't copy files - sort of

[bartmoss]

Hi Guys,

I am trying to set up Windows XP via USB and ran into a problem that I simply do not know how to tackle, and couldn't find a solution for. You, as they say, are my only hope!

I have an USB stick with bootable win install, and I added my Intel Raid drivers to it. That part works fine; I can format the HD and access it. The installer creates the basic directory structure and does put some files in it, for example \windows\regedit.exe but also some stuff in system32.

However, when it gets to the part where it should copy over all the stuff from i386 folder, that doesn't happen and I get errors "cannot copy bootvid.dll" and so on. Pretty much for all files there are.

So my suspicion is that it can not access the source for some reason. My USB stick is mounted as u: and entering the recovery console I can access it as well as c: where windows will reside.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for your time!

- Bartmoss

PS: I do not recall how I set up the usb stick, it was some time ago, but it does make use of grub; this may or may not be relevant. I have used the stick before, successfully, so I do not think it's fundamentally flawed.

PS2: I have a sneaking suspicion that the drive order may be changing, since the setup can't see the raid drive when it first starts, but then can see it when it is formatting it, at which point it seems to be the first drive on the sata controller.

PS3: Went through the files and can't see any pattern as to what it copies and where it fails. Completely stumped now.

Edited March 21, 2010 by bartmoss

[ilko_t]

1) How did you prepare the stick, which method/program/guide ?

2) What source are you using, modified, nLited, slipstreamed SP2/3 etc. ?