Boot folder, bootmgr, BOOTSECT.BAK created into different drive

[radix]

I've made a USB 3.0 flash drive bootable and installed Windows 8 x64, but boot files were created into different hard drives (I have 3 identical hard drives, each hard drive containing one active primary partition).

I've used Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to prepare the flash drive.

Installing the same distribution from DVD was fine, boot folder and others were all created correctly in C partition.

Edited December 14, 2012 by radix

[Tripredacus]

I've made a USB 3.0 flash drive bootable and installed Windows 8 x64

Was this a manual creation or did you use Windows To Go?

[radix]

I've formatted the drive as NTFS with 4096 unit size, then I used Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to copy the ISO content.

Then booted from flash drive and start installation.

Edited December 14, 2012 by radix

[Tripredacus]

I haven't experimented with that MS tool. Are you using an answer file?

[radix]

Unattended file

Autounattend.xml

[jaclaz]

Generally speaking PE 2.x and 3.x (and most probably 4.x) tend to have some issues with enumerating drives (when compared to BIOS enumeration).

Since you booted from the USB stick, that stick became "first disk" in BIOS, whilst when you used the CD/DVD the internal disk remained "first disk" in BIOS, it is very possible that this somehow altered the order of the other disks too.

See also:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/uk/configmgrosd/thread/d703ce21-dc70-40e0-a347-e9bfc5b845a5

jaclaz

[radix]

Distribution size (ISO) is 4.61 GB (1.6 GB drivers setup and I don't want to inject inf, cat and sys into install.wim), so I can't install from DVD.

The solution is to disconnect the other two hard drives during Windows installation. At least installation is fast: 8 min until metro ui.

Thanks Jaclaz for links!