Newbie Help

[Ctwizzy]

S0mE0nesMiNd1 - My pc has in the past run deadly fast with only 512Ram, so I know its possible.

[Astalavista]

1 hour to format? huh?

it takes less than 1 min to format a 160 gb sata on my pc.

Solution for u only

U must hv two hard drives which is what is recommended.

Your primary is where u hv your operating system.

Your slave drive or secondary drive is where u store all your data.

In the event that your main drive crashes or dies on u. Your data

is safe on the second drive.

No matter how many partitions u hv, when the drive dies it takes

all the partitions with it.

It takes me less than 40 mins to format, install 50 applications, including Photoshop cs, Adobe Pro 7, Corel Draw, Adobe Premier, Pinnacle 9,

Office 2003, Frontpage 2003, Norton Internet Security 2005.

You can buy a decent 80 gb drive for under 50 bucks U.S.

check out www.amazon.com

8 hours... is a total waste of time. Time is money i think

u can spend some extra money to PROTECT your data.

[Ctwizzy]

I have 2 hard drives.

Drive 1 is a 80GB, 2 is a 160GB. The 160 has an 8mb cache so its where I want to put windows so its faster.

The partitions do not exist incase of the drive crashes, im aware that if it crashes the partitions go too, which is why the secondary drive would contain backup apps, and files incase of a problem.

I would like both drives to be masters with the CD-RW and DVD-RW the secondaries to each drive, but i would need longer IDE cables to acomplish this, and atm i do not have the cash to buy some really long cables to do this.

So are you suggesting that I have windows on one hardrive, and all data and installations on a secondary drive?

Looks like I'm going to have to spend some time thinking over how i want to make my uA cd and how I want my computer setup.

What I would like to acomplish is a well organized PC, where in the circumstance than a format is neccessary, restoring back to where I was wont be a problem. (maybe keep the backup uA on the secondary drive so I can modify it for installations etc.)

Anyways if anyone more experience than me, can suggest a good way of doing this I would appreciate it. I will learn the neccesary steps to create a uA with installs, reg, codecs, and drivers if neccessary. Im sure it can help me down the line anyways.

Thanks. This community is friendly and very helpful, truly hard to find one like this. Especially the help I have recieved as a newcomer.

[Astalavista]

Answer me this

how fast is your 80gb

how fast is your 160 gb

8mb cache makes a little difference but not a big deal. Not Unless we are taking about IDE VS SATA drives.

I would like both drives to be masters with the CD-RW and DVD-RW the secondaries to each drive, but i would need longer IDE cables to acomplish this

Why? it makes no difference in Speed. Standard Practice is u hv both IDE drives connected together. Faster transfer rate between them. If u are thinking bec. your going to burn to the CD or DVD. It make no difference.

The fast DVD writer u can buy is 16X the max out put of my SATA is 40X.

What I would like to acomplish is a well organized PC

Who doesn't

restoring back to where I was wont be a problem. (maybe keep the backup uA on the secondary drive so I can modify it for installations etc.)

let me ask u this, if your Primary Drive dies, how are u going to restore from your Secondary Drive?

GET a CDRW or DVD+RW media

Unless you are a computer junky like Ryan, totoymola, and myself, I dont think u will be making updates every week.

Let me tell u with 13 post, there is a great deal to be learned. Your just at the tip of the iceburg. So much more u can do.

Start by checking out this link http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=32957

it is a great place to start. It is the yellow pages of MSFN.

What u need to learn and the links are all there.

[Ctwizzy]

Both are IDE drives, on the same cable. 7200 RPM, 80 is 2mb cache, 160 is 8mb.

I know a little about IDE drives, and enough to know that having them on the same IDE cable is bad, as the transfer rates gets bogged down when both drives are accessed simultaneously. Supposed to have both drives as the master for their own IDE, this is the fastest setup.

Anyways ill check that link out. Thanks.

I would be interested in seeing some other users PC configurations. How they have it setup and how they keep it fast/organized?

Also, i dont know if this is appopriate on this forum or not, but I see a lot about having an up-to-date XP Distibution CD with assorted hotfixes and updates.

I have a legit copy of windows XP Pro, with legit S/N. What I want to know if I could get someone prebuilt up-to-date XP cd, either by FTP or Bittorrent. This shouldnt constitute as warez as I own the cd and a SN just needing a base up to date cd from which to start.

If this is inappropriate to ask on these forums I appologize.

[Astalavista]

i seriously doubt that anyone would do that for you.

second of all it is illegal check your Microsoft EULA again.

best that u edit your post

IDE cable is bad, as the transfer rates gets bogged down when both drives are accessed simultaneously.

what are u doing for it to access simultaneously?

I hv only SATA drives, i hvn't used ide in a long time.

[prathapml]

Hey, I'd say have atleast 3 partitions on each hard-disk. Other than that, just remember that drive-letter allotments are not done manually (*CAN* be done manually if you want, but why do you want to complicate things!).

I would like both drives to be masters with the CD-RW and DVD-RW the secondaries to each drive

That's perfect. Try to do it that way.

@Ctwizzy

Ha ha... about the frequent re-formatting, I don't mean to say I do it for the entire HD. Its only the system-partition (C:) which gets re-formatted. So yeah, the benefit is that no junk is there to slow down the performance. Also, keep in mind that actually it ends up being very pain-less. I have about 3.5 GB of data in all, that is transferred to C: from CD during uA. That consists of OS, updates/hotfixes, drivers, applications, system tools, office suite, registry tweaks (for app/system/user settings), registration info (for giving serial key to every licensed app I use), and games. All of this is installed from a CD, and finishes within 28 minutes - I wake up, put the CD in and start install, and even before I've finished with morning coffee and break-fast, my PC is clean and back to "normal" top-speed.

The key to remember, is that you should save any required files (documents, save-games, downloads, songs, programming projects) on D: or somewhere.... so that when your C: is formatted, you don't lose anything. Also, don't let

Autopartition=1  &
Repartition=1

in winnt.sif, because its easier if you do the partitioning atleast by yourself (you don't want to lose your data to a fickle setup that doesn't know the value of your files, do you?).

I see uA as more as an admin tool for building pcs for an entire office.

Right.

That's what it started out as, for me. Then, I thought why not do the same for my home comp as well, considering that it is such a quick process.

What you need:

1. The uA guide

2. A weekend to start with reading and understanding and doing what the guide says.

3. Lot of patience, and politeness on the forums (which you can use to improve your uA install)

4. Some more time, every month or so, to update the CD with newer versions.

5. Willingness to use your knowledge to test your setups in VMware or VirtualPC.

And yes, remember since we all are humans, we do have our obsessions and things we like to talk about... check out the rest of the MSFN forum, you might like it. And since humans do explode sometimes, don't mind it if somebody hate/flames you (which is a very rare occurrence in itself). That is all. And always remember, we all were newbies once. We are always willing to help you out, just post whatever you want help with! All the best, and happy new year!

[Ctwizzy]

Ok so what Im gatering I need to do is

Steps:

• Use XPCreate to create an up-to-date distribution of windows XP
  
• Use nLite on the Dist cd to thin out some of the crap
  
• Use XPLODE to organize which progs I wana install, and registry hacks I wana add
  
• At the end use cleanup.cmd to clean up my uA cd
  
• Dance around cos im all done and now have a cd i can use to format my pc once in a while and keep it fast!
  

Questions:

• is XPCreate the best way to create an up-to-date dist
  
• My XP Pro CD is a DELL Dist, should i try and find a non dell dist?
  
• I also have from a friend a XP Pro SP2 cd, no idea how it was done. Can I use this along with XP create to make it more complete/verify it has all thats needed?
  
• The unattended codec pack, is this better than me just including which ones ill need?
  
• is XPLODE the best way of doing silentinstalls? is it preferred over batch files? what about areSilentInstall?
  

Just so im on the right track..

thanks in advance.

[prathapml]

WHEW!

That's a lot of confusion there....

About your steps, all I can say is do it one step at a time and test it. So that you know that the addition/removal of XYZ is the cause of problem ABC.

a. Don't touch nLite until you are sure of being able to fix problems that may arise, by yourself. People get unnecessarily carried away with all the possibilities in nLite, and finally end up worrying themselves and others with questions on the forum.

b. WHOA! You got the wrong impression about XPlode. Its nothing but a graphical way of doing what batch-files do. So it looks far more prettier. And what do batch-files do? Batch-files (CMD or BAT) are a series of commands executed one after another, that is all. You can use batch-files or XPlode (or any of the hundred other tools on this site) for carrying out your silent install. Now what's a silent install? Its nothing but a program's installation happening silently without bothering you to click on the "Next" button ten times! Batch-files (or XPlode) is used to string together silent installs of all the apps you want to install (so that the installation of 25 apps will quietly happen without requiring you to be present in front of the keyboard/mouse to nudge it ahead).

c. Cleanup.cmd is nothing but a batch-file (set of DOS-like commands). You can call it by any other name, or use alternative methods to do the same function. And what is the function of cleanup.cmd? It clears out all the files that were copied from CD to the hard-disk for use during silent installs. That is all, it has nothing to do with the CD!

1. XPCREATE is nice, and is geared towards hot-fixes/updates for the OS. But if your focus is on tweaks/customizing/apps, then I suggest you do it yourself. All it takes is 2 days of reading around the guide and forums, and then dance happily.

2. Oh, and god will love you for using a non-Dell disk. Far too many people are having problems here with Dell CDs... something's majorly wrong with their disks.

3. Using the XPSP2 disk with XPCREATE.... maybe its possible, maybe its not, I don't know. Like I said, doing it yourself is more satisfying/thorough, plus you learn many things along the way.

4. The unattended codec-pack - this is another topic that you should rather attempt later on, when you have all the REQUIRED functions of your CD working properly.

And.... I'd suggest you don't waste CD-Rs on your unattended CD project. Make ISO files, and mount it in VMware/VirtualPC for your testing.

[Ctwizzy]

Thanks for the fast reply.

I still think it would be way easier if people could actually share their uA cd's but ah well. Gay copyright laws in the U.S. thank god I live in Canada where were actually alowd to have copies if you own the original.

Ok I wont touch nLite just yet. Xplode sounds like it will help a lot. I am a programmer but seeing as I do it for a full time job (j2ee web dev) id rather not do much coding if i dont have to.

1. XPCREATE is nice, and is geared towards hot-fixes/updates for the OS. But if your focus is on tweaks/customizing/apps, then I suggest you do it yourself. All it takes is 2 days of reading around the guide and forums, and then dance happily.

I dont understand this? XPCreate will make me a updated XP SP2 cd that I can customize and tweak then no? You sugest I do what myself?

Use XPcreate to make upto date cd, then XPLODE for customization, silent installs and tweaks right?

And yeah Ill just make ISO, was never gona burn a uA until it was ready anyways.

Thanks

[prathapml]

Well, I meant to say, XPCREATE is an automated tool... so once its has done its share of work, you won't know where to begin or what to do. Which is why I prefer doing it from scratch by myself.

XPlode does help a lot, but is not an automated tool (it won't guide you through what has to be done, its not made for that). It just simply executes the commands you tell it to. I suggest you stick to batch-files for now, and later when you know what you're doing, use one of those other solutions (XPlode/WIHU/WPI/etc.).

The bottom-line is, do and try whatever you want... but keep it simple, and one change at a time. Because, you don't want to be in a situation where you used XPCREATE,nLite,XPlode all at once, and then when something isn't working, you don't know which of these progs has caused it.

[Ctwizzy]

Your gona make me do it all the hard way huh lol.

Ok so kick me in the direction I need to go in to make an up-to-date XP cd so I have a base cd to start with.

Basically all im trying to do is make an XP cd with SP2 and all the updates right?

Once I have this done and tested I can move onto things such as the answerfile and silent installs.

Thanks.

[prathapml]

1. First, carry out what the Universal Windows Slipstreaming and Bootable CD Guide says. (remember to use nLite there only for the sake of slip-streaming and bootable CD making, do not enable any other options, do not remove any XP components)

2. After above step, you now have an XPSP2 disk. I say don't bother about the updates.... there are hardly a couple of required updates since SP2, these can easily be downloaded later by Auto-Update.

3. Now for the unattended guide - http://unattended.msfn.org (answer-file, and silent app installs, and whatnot....).

4. Play around with above for a month or so, while also keeping an eye on this forum to see how others solve their problems.

5. Now you can start fiddling with nLite!

6. After nLite, when you feel restless again, take a look at the multi-boot DVD guide.

7. Beyond that, many advanced possibilites keep coming up, in the forum... So if you're still in the mood for it, you can try out those.

Have fun!

[Ctwizzy]

Thanks for the quick responses.

Well as I had said earlier a friend gave me a XP SP2 pro cd, I dont know how it was made, but it beats me having to make my own using my dell copy. (**** dell why couldnt they just send out normal versions).

Anyways, what im wonderin is if there is any way of checking my sp2 cd to make sure its an actual slipstreamed cd and its ok to continue to use? Would the VM programs work?

Ok next I have made my answerfile, but thats when I had my partition plan in mind. Im going to have to change this soon, as someone said putting DATA on anything but C: is a problem for future installs.

- looking for advice on a good partitioning system to keep things organized, please give your reasons why you use it etc, im looking for a good proven way of keeping stuff organized that other more experienced people use. Links on good partitioning etc would be appreciated.

Ill be home tonight reading on batch files. I guess its a plus I can code in Java/VB etc, ive done a lil batch coding for admin apps but eventually opted out in favor of Windows Scripting Host, as it let me use VB/JS/Python instead of batch.

The way I see it is BATCH allows for basically the rest of the stuff to be done i.e silent installs, registry tweaks, customization etc. Was really hoping to use a nice GUI to make this a lot faster, as I want this CD made asap, system is starting to bother me. But if you sugest I learn the batch no worries.

Ok thats it for now.

thanks again

[Ctwizzy]

Prathapml -

I was reading in the forums and found this app called Easy RunOnceEx.cmd Creator, developed by a forum member. You probably are well aware of this app. Anyways I was reading a post and found a cmd file that has like 70% of the apps I wanted to silently install.

Do you recommend this file to make easy RunOnceEx.cmd files?

Thanks