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Can I use vLite to install Windows 7 to an alternate drive letter?


jjo

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I've posted this question to a couple other Windows 7 forums but haven't gotten a useful answer yet.

I stumbled upon the vLite web page and think this might be the way to go, if I can get a little help.

My very simple request: I have a brand new hard disk on which I would like to install fresh copy of Windows 7 (Enterprise Edition), but unlike most people, I actually want to install the OS to a drive other than C, let's say drive L.

From what I've read so far I gather that the drive letter for the installation is specified somewhere on the installation DVD, but that this can be changed if you know how to create a suitably customized installation DVD.

WAIK is apparently one way to do this, but I'm put off by the extra complexity of the WAIK process.

I'm hoping there's an easy way to do this using vLite. Can anyone enlighten me?

Thanks,

jjo

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Can't do it, isn't possible.

I think you are being unnecessarily pessimistic about the configurability of the install.

EDIT: I meant it isn't currently possible with vLite and Windows 7. :whistle:

With no future versions being developed, vLite will likely never have this capability.

Edited by MrJinje
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MrJinje,

I think you are being unnecessarily pessimistic about the configurability of the install. I know with certainty that what you said is not correct in respect to Win XP, Win 2K, and Win NT because I've installed each of those OS's on the drive L many times in the past. It takes a little effort but is otherwise completely straightforward. However the same technique does not work with Vista or Windows 7. I tried.

Furthermore the documentation for WAIK indicates that it is possible to specify the installation drive letter (e.g., search for "Letter" in "readme_WAIK.rtf", which you can get here).

vLite seems to make a lot of customizations easier. I'm just wondering if the destination drive letter is one of them.

jjo

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Drive letters are determined at install time if we're talking about installing Windows to a drive other than C:, and even if you install Windows on L: (which would have to be the 10th volume that Windows can see and assign a letter to during the install), you're still going to have drives C: - K: as well (which may or may not be something you want to do, it's not clear from your post). You can actually change the drive letter of the Windows volume post-install (as Windows generally uses the literal object path internally when referring to a volume), but this may break existing registry data for apps that do use the drive letter (shell folders, etc). I've not ever tried changing it, but it should be easy to test in a VM if you want to test it before doing it with a real install.

However, if you want Windows to install to the "L" drive during install, you'll have to make sure you have 10 volumes, online, and formatted, and you'll have to install to the 10th volume (aka, "L"). I'm guessing this is probably for aesthetics rather than something functional, but I'm not sure how useful it is (and it won't necessarily be easy to do either).

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cluberti,

I think you are on the right track as the insertion of additional volumes ahead of the installation volume is essentially how I was able to load previous versions of Windows to a drive L. However, my attempts to do the same with a Windows 7 installation have not been successful. Perhaps I just haven't been doing this the right way.

One thing I tried, for example, was to create three partitions -- the first a small primary partition for the system files (which the Windows 7 install apparently likes to create otherwise), the second an extended partition which I divided into several logical drives, and the third a large primary partition for installing the OS. There were enough logical drives ahead of the third partition that it would have been given the letter L if all of them were named in order. However, to my disappointment, it ended up as drive C, as usual. If you know of a better way, please tell me and I'll try it. For some reason this was a lot easier with previous Windows OS's.

Other comments:

1. When this does work, I delete all the stub logical drives and merge them all into the first partition, so I end up with a small C drive with a few system files followed by a large L drive with the bulk of the OS and data files. This required a trivial adjustment to the boot.ini file, but then everything was fine.

2. I tried changing the letter of the Windows 7 C drive after an install but the OS won't allow this.

3. Based on a suggestion from someone on another forum I used the WAIK to create an "Autounattend.xml" file to use during the install from DVD process. This file is intended to facilitate automated installations but I used it because it offers the possibility to set many more options than the normal setup procedure. In it I told the setup to create two partitions, one for the system files and one for Windows 7, and to given them the drive letters C and L, respectively. The install, starting from a blank disk, worked fine, but alas, when it was all over the system files were in a hidden partition (of the size I specified) with no drive letter and the Windows 7 files were in the next partition (also as I specified) as drive C. I know the install paid at least some attention to what I specified in the .xml file because the system partition was formatted FAT32 as I had instructed.

jjo

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:) I see you've already talked to Darrell. It seems like in the Unattend you can (in the Microsoft-Windows-Setup > DiskConfiguration > Disk > ModifyPartitions > ModifyPartition > Letter hierarchy) set the system partition, usually disk 0, order 1, partition 1, and then set the letter for the Windows volume (assuming 1 100MB partition and a second partition using the rest of disk 0) on disk 0, order 2, partition 2 using the Letter modification (assuming you'd use <Letter>L</Letter>).

BTW, the installation is not set in the installation anywhere, it's just that after the image is applied (and the system rebooted), the first available letter (starting with C) is assigned as the system is specialized. Assuming you're going to try an autounattend.xml, look into the DiskConfiguration step of the Microsoft-Windows-Setup hierarchy, in the WindowsPE pass. It is indeed in the help documentation.

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Having tried the following, I'm about to give up and give in to Microsoft's insistence that Windows 7 be installed on drive C if it is the only OS on a hard disk.

Starting from a blank hard drive I created two partitions, a 100MB primary partition and an extended partition covering the rest of the drive. Within the extended partition I created several 36MB logical partitions followed by one more logical partition that took up the rest of the extended partition. In other words, the whole drive is partitioned.

I formatted the 100MB partition and all the 36MB partitions FAT32 and formatted the big, remaining partition as NTFS.

The idea here is to follow cluberti's advice to put several volumes ahead of the last one in the hope that the Windows 7 installer will see them, give them drive letters in sequence, and load Windows 7 into the last one with the desired drive letter.

What was the drive arrangement after the install completed?

When all was said and done the 100MB primary partition had become the hidden system partition (as expected) and Windows 7 was installed on the large logical partition at the end of the drive, which was called, to my disappointment, drive C. All the other drives were there with drive letters D, E, etc. The Windows installer either didn't recognize the extra logical, formatted partitions as volumes or didn't care. Either way, failure.

I'm still interested in finding out a way to accomplish my goal, but I think I will have to defer it for now.

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You might want to test out club's other theory, using the ModifyPartition settings during the windowsPE pass. (in your autounattend.xml)

<DiskConfiguration>
<WillShowUI>OnError</WillShowUI>
<Disk>
<DiskID>0</DiskID>
<WillWipeDisk>false</WillWipeDisk>
<ModifyPartitions>
<ModifyPartition>
<Order>1</Order>
<PartitionID>1</PartitionID>
<Label>System</Label>
<Format>NTFS</Format>
<Active>true</Active>
</ModifyPartition>
<ModifyPartition>
<Order>2</Order>
<PartitionID>2</PartitionID>
<Letter>L</Letter>
<Label>Windows</Label>
<Format>NTFS</Format>
<Extend>true</Extend>
</ModifyPartition>
</ModifyPartitions>
</Disk>
</DiskConfiguration>

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Worked for me in a VM today - I had to have created and formatted the partitions before I ran setup (WillWipeDisk is false here), but I had Windows 7 installed on the only partition, and it was M. I dunno what you did or didn't do, but it does work. However, it's an awful lot of work for a cosmetic change that I would still recommend you do reconsider. There have been Windows updates in the past that fail if Program Files isn't on C:\ or D:\, for example, and while none have come across for Win7 yet it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that it will happen at some point in the future. Unless you absolutely must run on a drive other than C: or D: (like a Citrix TS server running on M: or U:), it really is wise to use one of these two letters "just in case".

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  • 2 weeks later...

Having tried the following, I'm about to give up and give in to Microsoft's insistence that Windows 7 be installed on drive C if it is the only OS on a hard disk.

Starting from a blank hard drive I created two partitions, a 100MB primary partition and an extended partition covering the rest of the drive. Within the extended partition I created several 36MB logical partitions followed by one more logical partition that took up the rest of the extended partition. In other words, the whole drive is partitioned.

I formatted the 100MB partition and all the 36MB partitions FAT32 and formatted the big, remaining partition as NTFS.

The idea here is to follow cluberti's advice to put several volumes ahead of the last one in the hope that the Windows 7 installer will see them, give them drive letters in sequence, and load Windows 7 into the last one with the desired drive letter.

What was the drive arrangement after the install completed?

When all was said and done the 100MB primary partition had become the hidden system partition (as expected) and Windows 7 was installed on the large logical partition at the end of the drive, which was called, to my disappointment, drive C. All the other drives were there with drive letters D, E, etc. The Windows installer either didn't recognize the extra logical, formatted partitions as volumes or didn't care. Either way, failure.

I'm still interested in finding out a way to accomplish my goal, but I think I will have to defer it for now.

DR friend,

Do not get frustrated. All those discussions u r having will be solved if you can use one OS loader like one I am using the free version of OSL2000. Its features

like swap HDD, hide partition will help you. I am using it and having nine OSs installed on my machine with three HDDs. But some how any vista should be installed on the first primary of the first HDD( as seen by BIOS). You need not use vista boot loader also. I do attach the jp of my diskmgmt.msc view.

With nLite, I always keep my profile and temp folder out of drive C to keep my OS less fragmented. There is no OS in relative drive D,E,F,L etc. Always OS partition is drive C. If one get corrupted that never disturbs the other OS. One os can be used to virus check the other also.

Give a try and c if it helps u.

Edited by darenhoff
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