partition screen doesn't show

[hannesrohr12]

Hi,

first of all, thanks for the great program! Very nice tool. Unfortunately, I can't get it to work properly.

I made a custom version of XP with nlite and then created as USB stick using this tutorial:

http://myeeeguides.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/winsetupfromusb-install-windows-xp-from-usb-flash-drive/

When I inserted the USB drive into my Samsung N210 netbook (Win7 preinstalled on C:), the netbook booted from the USB and the first part of the XP installation started. However, the screen where I may choose the partition where to install XP didn't show up. I was only shown a blue screen with one line saying "XP installation" or something similar, then the netbook rebooted and I got the "hal.dll missing" error.

The netbook has 5 partitions: Recovery, SYSTEM, C: (with Win7), D: (empty), and another unnamed one. I am not sure wht the SYSTEM one does; it might contain the Samsung Hyperspace OS, some Linux-based OS that is supposed to boot faster than Win7.

I want to install XP on D:. Therefore, I changed the Boot.ini settings in WinSetupFromUSB to drive 0, partition 4 which produced the following Boot.ini:

[boot Loader]

Timeout=5

Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS

[Operating Systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Second part of XP Home Edition setup from hd 0 part 4" /FASTDETECT

Does anybody have an idea why I don't get to the partition screen? Any hints are greatly appreciated. SOrry if this was asked befoer but I searched the forum and couldn't find an answer.

Thanks,

Hannes

[ilko_t]

Make sure you have integrated the appropriate SATA drivers or set SATA mode in BIOS to IDE.

I'd also try the same source with the latest 1.0 beta6 version of WinSetupFromUSB (no need to play with boot.ini) and with another, unmodified source.

BTW partition count starts from 1, logical partitions are counted last, thus D: should be partition 5, but that's not relevant to the problem you are experiencing right now.

[hannesrohr12]

Thanks for your help. I tried again, with the same source, an unmodified source, and another unmodified source, but wasn't succesful.

When using WinSetupFromUSB 0.1.1, I still don't get to the partition screen. I was wondering: when I want to install to D:, do I have to change the first BOOT.INI adjustment in the WinSetupFromUSB GUI to 0/5? Or should I rather leave it at 0/1 and tick "Additional entry" and set that to 0/5 ?

When using WinSetupFromUSB 1.0 beta6, I get the message

find --set-root --ignore-cd /usbdrive.tag

Error 15: File not found

Could it be that I didn't format the USB stick correctly? I wasn't sure how to use Bootice and RMPrepUSB.

Do you have any ides? Thanks again!

Make sure you have integrated the appropriate SATA drivers or set SATA mode in BIOS to IDE.

I'd also try the same source with the latest 1.0 beta6 version of WinSetupFromUSB (no need to play with boot.ini) and with another, unmodified source.

BTW partition count starts from 1, logical partitions are counted last, thus D: should be partition 5, but that's not relevant to the problem you are experiencing right now.

[jaclaz]

When using WinSetupFromUSB 0.1.1

Why 0.1.1?

You should normally use either vers. 0.2.3 "stable" ot the 1.0 beta x.

When using WinSetupFromUSB 1.0 beta6, I get the message

find --set-root --ignore-cd /usbdrive.tag

Error 15: File not found

Could it be that I didn't format the USB stick correctly? I wasn't sure how to use Bootice and RMPrepUSB.

Do you have any ides? Thanks again!

When you have that error, you should be "dropped" to the grub> prompt (or anyway you should be able to get it by pressing "c").

Now you are in command line mode, you can issue single commands and see the feedback.

Try:

geometry (hd0)

[ENTER]

geometry (hd1)

[ENTER]

Post results of the above two coomands.

Then establish root on first partition of the USB device, depending if a switch of the drive already happened it will be either (hd0,0) or (hd1,0):

root (hd0,0)

[ENTER]

or

root (hd1,0)

[ENTER]

Then issue command:

find /

[TAB]

Which files are listed by the auto-completion feature?

jaclaz

[hannesrohr12]

Why 0.1.1?

You should normally use either vers. 0.2.3 "stable" ot the 1.0 beta x.

Oops, you are right! I donwloaded that version from the tutorial I used (see 1st post) and didn't notice the version was outdated.

Try

geometry (hd0)

[ENTER]

geometry (hd1)

[ENTER]

Post results of the above two coomands.

I get

>geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80(LBA): C/H/S=244/255/63, Sector Count/Size=3919860/512
	Partition num: 0, active, Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0x06
	Partition num: 1,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x21


>geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81(LBA): C/H/S=1024/255/63, Sector Count/Size=488394752/512
	Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x27
	Partition num: 1, active, Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07
	Partition num: 2,  Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07
	Partition num: 4,  Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07
	Partition num: 5,  Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0x49

I then did root (hd0,0) and find / [TAB]

and got

 Possible files are: grldr menu.lst default plpbt.bin winsetup.lst windefault winsetup bootws

BTW, I set the SATA mode to IDE, as ilko_t suggested.

[ilko_t]

Hmm, do you see empty file usbdrive.tag in root of the flash drive?

Create such if doesn't exist and try again.

[jaclaz]

Hmm, do you see empty file usbdrive.tag in root of the flash drive?

Create such if doesn't exist and try again.

Guess why I asked for the find / [TAB]?

I then did root (hd0,0) and find / [TAB]

and got

 Possible files are: grldr menu.lst default plpbt.bin winsetup.lst windefault winsetup bootws

@hannesrohr12

Rest assured the stick appears like properly formatted by RMPREPUSB, let's see what happens ith the created "tag" file....

jaclaz

[hannesrohr12]

Thank you all for your help - I din't get it to work, even with a usbdrive.tag file that I created. I think I wll make a disk image for safety, then reformat the whole harddrive and try again. That should work.

Thanks a lot anyway, I appreciate your help!