Unattended Network Installation?

[yourtech]

btw...

I needed the following things ;

1. a WinPE boot cd (not BARTPE)

Funny you should mention that Lalius..

Any particular reason you say...

1. a WinPE boot cd (not BARTPE)

???

I'm having a problem with bartPE actually...

Now that i'm trying out BartPe and winnt32 to do an unnattended, when i run my unnattend.bat...

(previously successfull using winnt.exe via unattend.bat on a remote source via lan boot disk)

(And i've changed MsDosInitiated= to 0 now instead of 1 previously)

i now get a "Access Denied" error

(Appropriate changes were made to unnattend.bat, (which now resides on root folder of cd) and network access is working)

I've heard of other people using bartpe to run an unnattend...anyone have any ideas?

Edited May 11, 2004 by yourtech

[yourtech]

I'm now getting "Server does not have enough storage" error or something like that. This happens now via net use or using pe net config to map the drive to the distribution share.

any ideas anyone?

[yourtech]

what is this thread dead or something?

[pdmcmahon]

Okay, apparently I am a crackhead or something. I successfully reach my share point to start the install but when I run the attached batch, I get to the blue setup screen and it immediately tells me that it does not have a HDD with enough free space. I have manually booted to DOS and eradicated any partitions but my question is, if it is saying this, does that mean it doesn't see the answer file or something? It is named winnt.sif and is located in the i386 mentioned in the batch.

[joebells]

pdmcmahon I actually just had that problem occur also, telling me there was not a hdd with enough free space. I think it might have to do with ntfs read support in dos. I was using a network boot disk I found here http://www.users.on.net/~driver/bootdisk/ I added ntfsdos to the boot disk like it said but now it is saying that there is not enough memory to run winnt.exe. So I have to find a way to have the boot disk allocate more memory or something.

Also what are the big disadvantages of running setup from winnt.exe compared to winnt32.exe.

[Professor Frink]

Are you using FAT16 for your initial format at the bootdisk stage? If so, I think that's why you're getting the HDD space error. FAT16 can only create a 2 GB partition, and you need a little more than that (about 2.2 or 2.3).

I had the same problem. I changed my bootdisk to a WIN98 one -- that way, I can format at FAT32, and thus create a partition bigger than 2 GB.

Of course, my unattended eventually creates one huge partition and formats the whole drive as NTFS.

[eth0]

Also what are the big disadvantages of running setup from winnt.exe compared to winnt32.exe.

To start off: any file that gets copied over is written to disk in 8.3 format.

Which means scripts calling files may break, registry settings with filenames break, etc.

I myself use winnt32 + BartPE.

First off:

Access denied errors are probably caused by not using the proper authentication.

WinPE (and BartPE) are running on the SYSTEM account, and that usually does not have permission to connect to a network share.

Instead, use

net use [driveletter]  \\server\installshare /user:validuser {password}

I get to the blue setup screen and it immediately tells me that it does not have a HDD with enough free space. I have manually booted to DOS and eradicated any partitions

If you use a non-formatted disk, there is no filesystem for setup to write files to.

I've installed many win2k workstations using a network bootflop based on Bart's network bootdisk (nu2.nu site) with Gdisk and smartdrive added.

Gdisk can be scripted.

If you use winPE or BartPE:

Have a look at Diskpart.

This is my diskpart script:

diskpart /s dodisk.txt

rem after diskpart format the freshly made partition
format c: /fs:ntfs /q /y /v:sys

dodisk.txt contains diskpart commands:

rem select future c:\ drive
select disk 0
rem wipe the disk clean
clean
rem create a single primary partition 8GB
create partition primary size=8000
rem set the drive to mount at c:\
assign letter=c
active
exit

HTH

[edg21]

If you wanted to change my unattended FTP install, you could do everything from a bootable floppy with ftp.exe on it. All you would need is an FTP server & the client you want to install to. Check the links in my signature. Since this is a good idea I will be creating a boot disk to do it, I'll add it to my unattended FTP post when I finish it.

Bootdisk can be found here:

http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/