muybn Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 I created an nLite XP bootable disk and when I try to use it, I'm prompted for a disk in the A: drive. Why would it do that and how can I fix it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted March 3, 2012 Share Posted March 3, 2012 Please next time always give exact error message. I believe you copied your files from cd manually and missed the "ident" files from the root. Their names depend on the version you use (Home/Pro and SP level). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muybn Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Please next time always give exact error message. I believe you copied your files from cd manually and missed the "ident" files from the root. Their names depend on the version you use (Home/Pro and SP level).The exact message is: "Please insert the disk labeled Windows XP Professional CD-ROM into Drive A:"I have a Thinkpad T42p that has four "recovery" (not installation) disks. This is the message I saw when I didn't have the i386 folder under my main working folder at first (in my case, "XP" on an external HD): "Make sure that the selected folder or drive contains the 'i386' or 'AMD64' directory and proper Windows installation files...An easy way is to insert your Windows installation CD and select your CD drive. Never copy the files directly to a partition root, create an empty folder first."Does this mean I should copy the contents of all four disks to a folder? There are many problems with doing this, such as duplicate file names on all the disks so there would be many overwrites if I did so, not to mention the "cyclic redundancy" errors (I think is what it's called). Many sources I've studied in the last couple of days indicate that in case of the multi-disk recovery set, the i386 folder from the C: root should be copied to the work folder (in my case, "XP" on an external drive).So, I copied the C:\i386 folder to the empty "XP" folder, still wondering if the "proper Windows installation files" referred to above would be included in the i386 folder or if I still needed to get them from somewhere. If anyone has an answer to this particular question, I'd appreciate it. To tell the truth, the nLite guide and program prompts aren't very complete. For example, it says little or nothing about ident files; and when proceeding with the program, it says the Ident file (and all root files) aren't detected yet offers to write the Ident file. Should I be doing something different here?nLite seems to be a really slick program, but what I especially don't like is that when you click the button to make the ISO, at the top of the window, it reads, "Bootable ISO. Create a Bootable ISO to burn on CD/DVD or for testing," leaving the user the impression that everything's included and that the ISO created will be bootable, when apparently it's not that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muybn Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 (edited) dup reply deleted Edited March 5, 2012 by muybn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 it says little or nothing about ident files; and when proceeding with the program, it says the Ident file (and all root files) aren't detected yet offers to write the Ident file. Should I be doing something different here?nLite always assumes you are starting with an original installation disc. Thank God. If not, it should spend an hour checking for the presence/validity of every needed file. What happens if you let it write the ident files for you (doing something different... to what)?More people have tried starting from recovery discs, I don't know the results (very few report when finished). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muybn Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 (edited) nLite always assumes you are starting with an original installation disc...More people have tried starting from recovery discs, I don't know the results (very few report when finished).Thanks again for your time, Ponch. What you mention above is fine, just that there are four discs in my recovery set and I haven't seen anywhere how to accommodate that specific situation. On the other hand, many fora that I've read suggest using the i386 folder but apparently mine didn't have all the necessary files--which suggests that the contents of these folders vary from one machine to the next. I would think that since they contain the basics of the OS, they would all be the same.I appreciate the fact that nLite is a free product but I would be more inclined to donate if the instructions were clearer for novices like me and I could get it to work. At least on the last platter I wasted, it indicated that I should put the disk in the CD-ROM drive instead of the A: drive so that's a little progress (don't know what I did differently!), but it still wouldn't let me proceed past that point; meaning that there are still files missing. Luckily, platters are cheap; I'll plan to waste at least two or three more by trying again to copy all files from my four install disks into one folder.I actually just did a system restore as an interim fix to the slowness and other problems I was having; now to the painful process of reinstalling all the software (plan to create an ISO image of the whole HD this time when I get everything to where I want it). And I'll try the i386 trick again now that a fresh install might have a better bevy of files.Any suggestions on how to create an ident file? The only thing I've seen is that I should write the word "Windows" in the one that indeed nLite created for me. Edited March 6, 2012 by muybn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ponch Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 (edited) nLite is not only free, it's out of developpement since 4 years at least.You can search the forum for "recovery discs" (read this for instance), but your best move would be to get an HP install cd from ebay, same version as yours (Home/Pro).Ident files; there are 3 ident files, depending on your version (Home/Pro) and SP level. You can easily google that and create them yourself.Try using a CD-RW. Or test your iso file in a virtual machine (download and install VirtualBox if you have few gigabytes free on a machine). Edited March 6, 2012 by Ponch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
submix8c Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 WIN51 <-bothWIN51IC <-HomeWIN51IC.SPn <-HomeWIN51IP <-ProWIN51IP.SPn <-ProWhere 'n' is the SP-level (hint - dates will correspond to release/SP-level)Text files with contents "Windows" (not required) and <-enter-> keyTag-files above to be placed in same folder as I386Check that 4 OEMBIOS.xxx files exist in I386 - may be found on an installed system Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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