Unattended WinXP Installation loses Repair option

[Vadikan]

recovery console won't let you do a 'Repair' installation... it will let you do other things like FIXBOOT, CHKDSK etc etc...

you can never have 'Repair' on an unattended installation... do what Alanoll said and make a MULTI-BOOT disc that has a normal not touched windows xp, plus your unattended installation (use the MSFN multi-boot dvd guide to work out how to make a cd that has both installations and still only uses the same amount of space)

Yes, you're right. Sorry, I looked at the screenshot on the first page and confused it with the R (Recovery Console option). It still not a bad idea to have Recovery Console installed locally for your friends or family members ;-)

The multi-boot is the only solution in this case. Did you mean the guide by flyakite? I missed it in the first place. It seems pretty solid; however, for the Repair option only I'd go with Bootable CD Wizard (the web site is really slow, but interesting). Actually, the utility is pretty powerful to handle complicated multiboot installations, and it was probably mentioned somewhere in the Multi-Boot forum. That method was suggested by a member of a Russian board, and it didn't take me long to create dual boot DVD (unattended + regular). 20 minutes I spent on reading the documentation and 10 minutes on creating the disc. Well, I played with the shell settings for another hour then ;-))

The idea is to hexedit SETUPLDR.BIN replacing winnt.sif with, say, winn1.sif. Then, the file is saved as SETUPLD1.BIN in i386, and the winnt.sif is renamed to winn1.sif. That's basically it. Bootable CD Wizard uses bootcat.ini as the config file, where the following text defines the available installations:

\i386\setupld1.bin;Windows XP Professional Unattended
\i386\setupldr.bin;Windows XP Professional Regular  

Pretty easy.

[edbro]

Oops, wrong posting. My bad, please disregard and forgive the bufoonery.