Repartition=No, which partition will setup use?

[gai-jin]

I've got a great working unattended install cd thanks to the help here and the tutorial, but now have one other question. I designed this initially to repartition the drive, but I'd like to use this on an HP computer which shipped with XP originally. This system has a 'hidden' partition which holds all of the system restore information, instead of oem restore cd's.

If I choose repartition=Yes, I'm afraid it will wipe out this hidden partition as well.

So, if I choose repartition=No in the winnt.sif, will it reformat the existing windows partition and reinstall over that partition? I just want to ensure it won't damage the hidden partition, in case we have trouble and need to go back to OEM restore.

Thanks!

Gai-jin

[MCT]

repartition=No

setup will ask u

=Yes

i believe it looks for the larges partition on your hdd, so if C is ALWAYS bigger then another 1, it will always install to C

HTH

[[BM]Crusher]

You want Repartition=No and AutoPartition=1

AutoPartition

Installs Windows to the first available partition that has adequate space for a Windows installation and does not already contain an installed version of Windows.

Syntax AutoPartition = 1

Value 1

Example AutoPartition = 1

Comments Either omit the AutoPartition entry from your answer file or set the value of AutoPartition to 1. If AutoPartition = 1, the /tempdrive command-line option of Winnt32.exe is ignored during Setup. If you do not set the value, text-mode Setup installs Windows on the partition where $WIN_NT$.~LS is located.

Repartition

Specifies whether to delete all partitions on the first drive of the client computer and to reformat the drive with the NTFS file system.

Syntax Repartition = Yes | No

Values Yes

Deletes all partitions on the first drive and reformats the drive with NTFS.

No

Does not delete partitions or reformat the drive.

Example Repartition = Yes

Comments  Important

Repartition is valid only when performing an unattended Setup by booting the computer from the Windows product CD.

[gai-jin]

Crusher,Jun 16 2004, 10:26 PM]

AutoPartition

Installs Windows to the first available partition that has adequate space for a Windows installation and does not already contain an installed version of Windows.

I want it to re-format the partition which currently has windows installed. It looks like if I use repartition No and autopartition yes, then it won't overwrite an exisiting windows install?

Gai-jin

[[BM]Crusher]

it can't really be done from a bootable cd installation... you would have to create a dos boot disk installation...

or, do some research as to how the winbom.ini works I have no idea but I know you can use that to partition and format any drive you like... I think you can only use it through WinPE or Windows Welcome though which is a real bummer...

as a workaround, do what I do:

Repartition=No

AutoPartition=No

FileSystem=ConvertNTFS

it stops as the "choose installation partition" screen... if I want to format a partition I can just delete it and recreate it (doing this it asks you what filesystem you want and formats it)... or if I don't want to format it I can just press ENTER to install without it deleting all my extra files

I know it's not really "unattended" if you have to tell it which partition to use, but that screen pops up only about one minute after you press enter to boot from cd... so you just wait one minute to choose partition and then walk away for half an hour

[valter]

I was wondering if it is possible to automate repartition of an hard drive. Lets say I have a 120 GB hard drive, and want my C drive to be 80, and D to be 40 GB ... is there anyway winnt.sif or any other file could automate this?

[[BM]Crusher]

you can use WINBOM.INI to automate partitioning and formatting of a hard drive any way you like... but you can only use it if you are installing windows through WinPE