betamax Posted March 26, 2005 Share Posted March 26, 2005 If I use a boot disk to copy the i386 folder to the hard drive and run winnt.exe from there, does the MsdosInitated= switch have to be set to 1?What happens if I set it to 0?The only difference I see between the two is the $Winnt$.~ls folder that is temporarily created, but why is this folder necessary when you're installing from a location on the hard drive to start with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betamax Posted March 26, 2005 Author Share Posted March 26, 2005 /bumpIf anyone is familiar with this please let me know.Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betamax Posted March 27, 2005 Author Share Posted March 27, 2005 no one's done an unattended install from a bootdisk? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fox2002 Posted March 28, 2005 Share Posted March 28, 2005 Up UP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betamax Posted September 12, 2005 Author Share Posted September 12, 2005 /bumpstill wondering about this. i hope someone out there knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glent Posted September 12, 2005 Share Posted September 12, 2005 no offence but why dont you just try it as nobody seems to have an answer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betamax Posted September 12, 2005 Author Share Posted September 12, 2005 well all i really want to know is which way is the right way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bendes Posted September 13, 2005 Share Posted September 13, 2005 (edited) Can you give me more information about your problem and then I try to help you if I can...You copy the i386 folder from which location? A CD/DVD, Network?What does exactly your bootdisk? Edited September 13, 2005 by Bendes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betamax Posted September 13, 2005 Author Share Posted September 13, 2005 the boot disk boots me into dos mode.i copy the i386 folder from the CD.i then want to run winnt.exe from the newly created i386 folder on the hdd, and specify an unattended answer file.my question is: in the unattended answer file, what should the MsDosInitiated switch be set to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris4869 Posted September 13, 2005 Share Posted September 13, 2005 I thought about doing it a while back too, but I ran into a couple of obstacles. For example the hard drive has to be reformatted to FAT32 (for a Win98 boot disk). You can't copy the i386 folder from your CD to the hard drive if the hard drive is already formatted in NTFS. It's time consuming. Maybe you have a different solution.Anyway.. I dropped the whole idea. I ended up creating a ghost image of a newly formatted hard drive (FAT32) with the i386 folder in it. I then use the CD boot disk (with ghost.exe) to reimage the pc with the /rb option to reboot after it's done. It usually takes about 5 minutes long. I added a line of command in the autoexec.bat (on the CD boot disk) to install the OS after the reboot from the ghost imaging. As far as your question go, I don't have any reference to the MsdosInitated switch. I left it out. I've been using this method to install Windows 2000 & Windows XP. I later found out that I can save a lots of time if I create the image after Windows created the $Winnt$.~ls folder (after the 1st reboot in Windows). If I capture it at that stage, I don't have to install from the beginning or modify my autoexec.bat to start the installation. This is just the basic foundation to my Windows unattended install. I later added extra drivers, created scripts to install my applications stored on the server as well as patches and hotfixes... blah blah blah.. It works great so far after using it on over 2000 pcs in my company over the course of 2 years. I found all my ideas & answers from this forum. This place rocks!I hope you start experimenting and tell us of your method(s). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Takeshi Posted September 14, 2005 Share Posted September 14, 2005 (edited) Just omit the entry altogether and see.There's no valid value of 1, according to ref.chm. Edited September 14, 2005 by Takeshi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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