Some concerns about unattended on my new setup

[NickHD]

I originally posted this in the Windows XP forum because I some how missed this entire section, so this is a repost of what I said there.

To make a long story short, after installing XP on my new system I looked for ways to move Documents and Settings to another drive but found the only viable way was through an unattended install.

So I've gone through most of the guide and I've got winnt.sif all setup, I just have to add some drivers and I'll be done. However, I realized a small little hitch. How can I be sure what drives will be assigned what letters? I have 3 SATA drives, 2 of them are configured in RAID1 and the other is what I want to use as my system drive. So the single should be C:\ and get Windows and Program Files folders while the RAID1 array should be D:\ and get Documents and Settings. How can I be sure that the single drive will get C and the RAID1 get D?

Depending on how this gets answered I may have a few other concerns to add to this.

Oh, also, since I'll have the RAID drivers slipstreamed, it will recognize my array instantly right? I mean it won't see them as 2 separate drives.

Thanks,

Nick

[NickHD]

Nobody has any input on this? I would really like to make sure this works before I go ahead and do it, if anybody knows anything about this the information would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Nick

[Marthax]

I highly doubt that this is possible to achieve using only UA commands, but if I were you I'd look in the MS deployment tools. Search for DiskPart. It's MS integrated program that is used to manage HDD's. I'm not sure you'll find what you're looking for, but it's worth a shot. Good luck!

EDIT: If I am thinking correctly, then you can achieve it in one way. I assume that C: is always the biggest HDD and D: is the smaller, that is if you let Windows sort your HDD's. If your RAID1 HDD's are bigger then the other HDD, then Windows should assign C: to the RAID1 and D: to the other one.

Edited July 7, 2005 by Marthax

[jbm]

The only reliable way I know of to have XP installed on the C: drive is to

choose the drive you want to install XP to manually. also I'm assuming these

are new drives that will be formatted during install. If thats the case then

the first drive you create a partion on will be C: and the other will get

a drive letter after any CD drives you have. If the drives are all ready

formatted then the boot drive gets assigned C: and the second one D:.

another thing if you have any removable drive drives (USB or firewire)

remove them before doing the install. On my system they get assinged C if

I have them attached during an install.

[NickHD]

Marthax, I'll check out DiskPart, thanks.

jbm, the disc is for the system I'm on right now which has the proper boot drive and the RAID array setup the way I want it to be. So you're saying that if I format this machine, my current boot drive will get C, my RAID array would get D, and the CD drive would get E, is that correct? If it's as simple as that then that's great! Let me know if I understood you correctly.

Thanks,

Nick

[jbm]

yes thats what I meant. But I would choose the install drive manually.

You can't easily change the boot/system drive after install incase

something goes wrong. but you can other drives

[NickHD]

How would I just select the install drive manually while having everything else left unattended?

Thanks,

Nick

[jbm]

In your winnt.sif file should be

[unattended]

Repartition = No

and if you have

[data]

AutoPartition = 1

change it to

AutoPartition = 0

or remove it completly

You should also have a look at ref.chm in the deployment tools

found on the XP pro CD in support\tools\deploy.cab