WinNTSetup v5.4.1

[JFX]

Hi Wendy

FAT16 will be selectable for boot drive in next version.

[lama]

OK, something is wrong... i've this modded W7 OS (Tiny7, which you can search at the usual place) and your app failed to install that OS (but OS installs fine from CD boot)

Edited March 26, 2011 by lama

[JFX]

OK, something is wrong... i've this modded W7 OS (Tiny7, which you can search at the usual place) and your app failed to install that OS (but OS installs fine from CD boot)

hmm, what could be wrong here?

However, I will not add support for any Warez release. Use a clean, preferable unmodded Windows version.

[click-click]

I am trying to use WinNTSetup V2 to setup Win7 on a VMware virtual disk. I had a bootable Win7 already installed on that vmdk which booted fine. When I mounted that vmdk and formatted it and then ran WinNTSetup and selected that drive as the boot drive + installation drive, all three boot flags were red. Bootsect threw an error after the WinNTSetup was finished with the install.wim and the setup would not boot in the VM. I am doing all this from an XP machine and don't have any problems when using a native disk.

I can prep XP on a VMware virtual disk and it boots fine, but not Win 7. If I select the left tab with the W7 vmdk as the target, I see a green NTLDR PBR If I use the right tab, the BOOTMGR PBR is red. Any ideas?

Thanks

Edited March 28, 2011 by click-click

[JFX]

I could reproduce your problem.

After formating the drive under Windows XP, the Partition will have a NTLDR loading PBR.

The MBR of the mounted disk is not visible to the Host OS. So MBR and Boot Flag will be red.

Main problem is that tools like bootsect or bootice can not change the PBR of a VMware mounted partition.

I'm not sure how i solve this in future versions, but you can try following:

After Winntsetup has finished make a copy of bootmgr in the selected bootdrive and rename it to NTLDR.

[click-click]

Okay, I formatted a newly created vmdk with a Win 7 VM and mounted that for WinNTSetup and now I see a green check mark for the BOOTMGR PBR. I will try your suggestion (formatted in XP) later. Did I understand you correctly that I should select "Do Not update the boot configuration" whenever using a mounted virtual disk?

Edited March 29, 2011 by click-click

[JFX]

Yes use "Do Not update the boot configuration", but this will only avoid the error message.

I have found a way to detect a mounted Vmware partition, so next version should not show this error.

And hopefully make it boot able somehow.

Edited March 30, 2011 by JFX

[click-click]

I ran WinNTSetup using the virtual disk that I formatted from a Win 7 VM. I still got a WinNTSetup bootsect error message even after selecting "Do Not update the boot Configuration". Now when I try to boot, I get Operating System not found. I'm still not there yet.

[JFX]

I'm sorry, but i can not add support for vmware mounted disk.

Even after updating the PBR and create a correct BCD store, bootmgr will at least try to boot the OS, but fail in a black screen.

There is a good reason why the checkbox for read-only mounting is always set, the driver corrupts data.

VMware is very immune against bug reports, so i don't think this will be fixed anytime.

There maybe is a solution, the vmlite guy's have written their own driver which can mount vdi/vhd and vmdk images.

It's in the current version of VBoot

works very good so far:

vbootctl.exe mount "VMware.vmdk"
vbootctl.exe umount Z:

Edited March 31, 2011 by JFX

[JFX]

Update: Version 2.0.4.41

- automatic decompression of ntldr/setupldr/bootmgr on NTFS compressed drives

- drive selection will not accept read only drives for boot- and installation drive

- improved VHD creation and installation*

- added option for instant creation of fixed VHD's

- added support for FAT16 and exFat boot drives

*VHD creation now uses diskpart script like this

create vdisk file="C:\Windows7.vhd" maximum=25600 type=(fixed|expandable)
select vdisk file="C:\Windows7.vhd"
attach vdisk
create partition primary align=(32|64|128|256|512|1024|2048)
active
format quick fs=ntfs label="Win7 VHD" uint=(512|1024|2048|4096|8192|16K|32K|64K)
assign letter=X:

In rare cases without setting fs=ntfs, diskpart will format the partition with FAT32.

Partition now active and the installation to a VHD will now create boot files inside the Vdisk too. (So you can boot this VHD also in VirtualBox)

Further due to the long time required by creating big fixed VHD's, there a new option: instant creation of fixed VHD's

Also added Alignment and Allocation option to GUI.

[click-click]

I'm sorry, but i can not add support for vmware mounted disk.

.

.

There maybe is a solution, the vmlite guy's have written their own driver which can mount vdi/vhd and vmdk images.

It's in the current version of VBoot

works very good so far:

vbootctl.exe mount "VMware.vmdk"
vbootctl.exe umount Z:

Okay, I will figure out another way of doing this. I tried vboot and also ended up with 'Operating System not found' on booting after WinNTSetup. I also tried to fix this with the W7 recovery disk.

Bootrec /fixmbr (okay),

Bootrec /fixboot (element not found message)

Bootrec /rebuildBCD (finds windows system then message element not found).

The only thing that works with a .vmdk is using WinNTSetup V1 to install XP. I have not tried that with V2 though.

BTW, VBootctl.exe will install drivers on 1st use and all worked fine until I rebooted. My XP system hung during the boot process and I had to to revert to my last good config. Mount/Umount and reboot worked okay on Vista though. Thanks for taking the time.

Edited April 1, 2011 by click-click

[JFX]

oh, sorry to hear you had problem with vboot driver.

If you find any way to get this work with vmware, let me know. I have mostly given up Vmware since i switched to windows 7.

[ilko_t]

JFX, nice tool, thanks

[BlueLife]

Great work, thanks @JFX

[click-click]

After running WinNTSetup for WIndows 7 , I have some additional changes that I would like to

automate. I have a question about a few problems that I encountered. Maybe someone can help

resolve them.

I have 5 modified *.msc files (ie. eventvwr.msc etc.) that I want to replace in system32. When I copy

the files, I get Access is denied. It looks like I am missing full control to do this. I can manually change

the security attributes, but would like my setup cmd to be automatic without intervention. I have a similar

problem when I try to modify one of the power schemes with a .reg file. How can I elevate my privileges

to avoid these errors?