No partition or format during installation

[tcsdoc]

I have been unsuccessful in creating a truly unattended cd for my xp. I want a cd to insert and have no user prompts at all. I would even like the computer to start the install without requiring me to 'Press any key to boot from CD'. Here is my winnt.sif. What am I doing wrong?

;SetupMgrTag[Data]    AutoPartition=1    MsDosInitiated="0"    UnattendedInstall="Yes"
[unattended]    UnattendMode=FullUnattended    OemSkipEula=Yes    OemPreinstall=Yes    TargetPath=\WINDOWS    Repartition=No    UnattendSwitch=Yes    WaitForReboot=No    NtUpgrade=No    FileSystem=ConvertNTFS    FactoryMode=Yes    ExtendOemPartition=0    OemPnPDriversPath="Drivers\000_Chipset;Drivers\001_CPU;Drivers\002_LAN;Drivers\003_Video;Drivers\004_Audio;Drivers\005_SMBus;Drivers\006_Wireless;Drivers\007_MediaReader;Drivers\008_Modem"
[GuiUnattended]    AdminPassword=*    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO    OEMSkipRegional=1    TimeZone=20    OemSkipWelcome=1
[userData]    ProductKey=**DELETED**    FullName="User"    OrgName="None"    ComputerName=Station1
[identification]    JoinWorkgroup=Office
[Networking]    InstallDefaultComponents=Yes
[Components]    msmsgs=off    msnexplr=off
;[shell]   DefaultStartPanelOff = Yes   DefaultThemesOff = Yes
[Display]    BitsPerPel = 32    Vrefresh = 60    Xresolution = 1280    Yresolution = 800
[GuiRunOnce]    %systemdrive%\install\batch.bat

[MasterControl]

Take out (AutoPartition=1) and put in [unattended]

Repartition=Yes

and on unattendswitch, put "" around YES

and remove (FileSystem=ConvertNTFS); it will choose NTFS automatically.

The order could make a difference also; this is mine and it works perfectly!

;SetupMgrTag[Data]    MsDosInitiated="0"    UnattendedInstall="Yes"
[unattended]    Repartition=Yes    UnattendMode=FullUnattended    OemSkipEula=Yes    OemPreinstall=Yes    UnattendSwitch="Yes"    WaitForReboot="No"    TargetPath=\WINDOWS
[GuiUnattended]    AdminPassword=*    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO    OEMSkipRegional=1    TimeZone=85    OemSkipWelcome=1

This will format,partition,choose NTFS, and begin the unattended install for XP.

[tcsdoc]

Thanks MasterControl, that did it. Works great. I appreciate your quick and knowledgeable response!

[Kaiwen]

I'm attempting to do the same thing, with a twist:

I have three partitions, all preconfigured and formatted. Since I don't want setup touching my partitioning scheme, I've set REPARTITION=NO.

C: primary 2gb FAT16 DOS

D: logical 16gb NTFS WinXP

E: logical 78gb NTFS Data

I want a fully unattended install, but I want setup to install to D:\WinXP. But setup keeps prompting me to select a target installation.

Does order make a difference? I'm a bit organizationally anal, and have everything in alphabetical order. But near as I can tell, all the relevant settings from MasterControl's winnt.sif are the same as mine.

My AUTORUN.INF looks like this:

OPEN=\i386\winnt.exe /s:\i386 /t:D /u:\i386\winnt.sifICON=setup.exe,0

The relevant portions of my winnt.sif looks like this:

Data]    MsDosInitiated="0"    UnattendedInstall="Yes"
[GuiUnattended]    AdminPassword="password"    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO    OEMSkipRegional=1    OemSkipWelcome=1    TimeZone=220
[unattended]    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore    FileSystem=LeaveAlone    KeyboardLayout="US"    OemPnPDriversPath="Drivers\"    OemSkipEula=Yes    OemPreinstall=Yes    ProfilesDir="E:\Application Data\Documents and Settings\"    Repartition=No    TargetPath=\WinXP    UnattendMode=FullUnattended    UnattendSwitch="Yes"    WaitForReboot="Yes"

Kaiwen

[MasterControl]

WINNT.sif Commands List

[Kaiwen]

Thanks for your reply, MasterControl.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit dense tonight. I haven't been able to find in the winnt.sif reference the answer to my problem (I did find my error with %ProfilesDir% though -- thanks).

I'm trying to do a fully unattended install to my D: partition without reformatting, but Setup keeps pausing to prompt me to specify a partition.

My AUTORUN.INF looks like this:

[AutoRun]open=\i386\winnt /s:\i386 /t:D /u:\i386\winnt.sificon=setup.exe,0

and my (corrected) WINNT.SIF looks like this:

[Data]    MsDosInitiated="0"    UnattendedInstall="Yes"
[GuiUnattended]    AdminPassword="password"    EncryptedAdminPassword=NO    OEMSkipRegional=1    OemSkipWelcome=1    ProfilesDir="E:\Application Data\Users\"    TimeZone=220
[unattended]    DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore    FileSystem=LeaveAlone    KeyboardLayout="US"    OemPnPDriversPath="Drivers\"    OemSkipEula=Yes    OemPreinstall=Yes    Repartition=No    TargetPath=\WinXP    UnattendMode=FullUnattended    UnattendSwitch="Yes"    WaitForReboot="Yes"

Any suggestions for this newbie?

Kaiwen

[MasterControl]

[Data]

AutoPartition=1 or 0

If you have the selection on 1 then Windows Setup will install the OS on any free partition that is available. If you remove this line or if you put AutoPartition=0 then setup will ask you on which partition you wish to install Windows onto and advises you what to do if your partition already contains an OS.

If you put:

[Data]AutoPartition=1

then, it will put the operating system on a free partition, automatically.

But, you want it on D:

I suggest reformating and partitioning your HDD as so:

C: primary 16gb NTFS WinXP

D: logical 2gb FAT16 DOS

E: logical78gb NTFS Data

and put it on C: instead.

I will also search the forum. I read something on this, but I dont remember where it is. Will post again once I find the info...

Post:

This link has some good ideas as well ---> Forum Post

[yoporch]

I've been having problems getting my winnt.sif to be totally unattended. I have been trying to tweek it so it will skip the "press any key to boot from cd". I followed Master Controls tweeks from previous post, but no luck.

My install basically starts off with press any key to boot from cd, partitions, goes through setup and reboots, it then asks me to press any key to boot from cd again, does it's thing until it reboots again. Arghhh! Heres my .sif. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Yoporch

;SetupMgrTag

[Data]

AutoPartition=1

MsDosInitiated="0"

UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[unattended]

Repartition=Yes

UnattendMode=FullUnattended

OemSkipEula=Yes

OemPreinstall=Yes

UnattendSwitch="Yes"

NoWaitAfterGUIMode=1

;Extendoempartition = 0

TargetPath=\WINDOWS

KeyboardLayout="US"

;OEMPnPDriversPath="install\drivers"

DriverSigningPolicy=Ignore

[GuiUnattended]

AdminPassword=315845d552896169aad3b435b51404eed04cc476576d52d1f214a1ee3f559eab

EncryptedAdminPassword=Yes

OEMSkipRegional=1

TimeZone=85

OemSkipWelcome=1

[GuiRunOnce]

C:\XPCD\$OEM$\$1\install\applications.cmd

[userData]

ProductID=***** ***** ***** ***** *****

FullName="****"

OrgName="****"

ComputerName=*

[identification]

JoinWorkgroup=WORKGROUP

[Networking]

InstallDefaultComponents=No

[NetAdapters]

Adapter1=params.Adapter1

[params.Adapter1]

INFID=*

[NetClients]

MS_MSClient=params.MS_MSClient

[NetServices]

MS_SERVER=params.MS_SERVER

[NetProtocols]

MS_TCPIP=params.MS_TCPIP

[params.MS_TCPIP]

DNS=Yes

UseDomainNameDevolution=No

EnableLMHosts=Yes

AdapterSections=params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter1

[params.MS_TCPIP.Adapter1]

SpecificTo=Adapter1

DHCP=Yes

WINS=No

NetBIOSOptions=0

[MasterControl]

@ yoporch

I read on this forum somewhere that you can not keep the setup from saying:

Press any key to boot from CD...

If you do, it will send the boot into a countinous loop.

Just press one time and leave alone. Of course if an end user sees the message he/she will probably keep pushing keys... I see your concern, it is one of my own...I will research this more and if you find anything, let me know!

Peace

What do you call a blond with half a brain?

Gifted!!!

[Alanoll]

Don't press any key twice.

If you do remove it, you will get sent into an endless loop. You can remove it by removing bootfix.bin i believe from I386.

If you press a key twice, like you press first time, it goes through it's thing and then restarts, and then press it again, it will just do the same thing over again without continueing.

My suggestion, would be to use CDShell. Not to create a menu, to so you can modify the prompt that is displayed. Or that it needs a special key press or something to get the Blue Screen back again (textmode where it copies files over).

[sparty]

I am struggling with the whole unattended installation of Windows as well, and I tried several things, also suggestions from previous posts. My situation is as follows: My hdd contains:

C: (where I want Xp on)

D: Where the distribution files are.

Now what I want is to choose the partition to install to, with the option of formatting. When I choose to format the whole drive, it will kill the distribution files as well, so that wouldn't work.

Anyone any ideas?

[Biggeh]

probably i am wrong or i have just misunderstood...

this msg (press a key...) comes from the windows cd so if u want to get rid of it u will have to change the bootsector of the cd... (huh?)

if your hdd is empty (no partitions) u can make a workaround, just change the bios-startup options to hdd/cdrom/floppy. since there is no partition on the hdd it will boot from the cdrom (u will have to press a key) but after the installation started and there is a (bootable) partition it will start from the hdd first and wont show u the cd-boot message...

i think at least