WinPE and Windows 2003 SP1 install

[AlbinoRaven]

Hi all,

I've thumbed through the newsgroups, microsoft's "help" files and did a little bit of roaming through here. I've been trying to take my unattended win2k3 sp1 build and "plop" it into WinPE 1.1 and run the setup with PE as the Drive config tool.

So far with trying things I've seen here I can get it to start the minint setup, but all it seems to do is tell me it's 50 minutes, reboot and boot back into WinPE. Basically it hasn't made the C drive bootable or copied the setup files over. Makes me sad.

At least I'm running VMware and can make quick changes, test them and smack myself with a brick.

I take the original CD Microsoft for WinPE sent me and create a folder called win2k3 with WinISO and drop the files from my original unattended into it (with WinISO).

The directory structure in the ISO looks like this from the root.

DOCS

I398

\WinPE Files like system32 etc.

WIN2K3

\$OEM$

\$1

\Oracle92010

\Oracle92070

\OraclePatches

\App

\AdobeAcro

\I386

\Usual OS stuff

WinPE

(pardon the layout)

My Startnet looks like this

===STARTNET.CMD===

regsvr32 /s netcfgx.dll

factory -minint

netcfg -v -winpe

net start dhcp

net start nla

a:\floppy.cmd

cls

diskpart /s CDISKPARTSCRIPT.txt

REM

REM

FORMAT c: /fs:ntfs /q /V:OS /y

REM

REM

mkdir c:\win2k3

REM

REM \Win2k3\i386\winnt32.exe /syspart:c /tempdrive:c /unattend:\Win2k3\i386\winnt.sif

REM \win2k3\i386\winnt32.exe /s:\Win2k3\i386\ /copydir:\win2k3\i386 /unattend:\Win2k3\i386\winnt.sif

\win2k3\i386\winnt32.exe /copydir:\win2k3\i386 /unattend:\Win2k3\i386\winnt.sif

exit

======

===CDISKPARTSCRIPT.txt===

list disk

select disk 0

create partition primary

assign letter c

exit

======

===WINNT.SIF===

[Data]

Autopartition = 1

MsDosInitiated = 0

UnattendedInstall = Yes

[unattended]

UnattendMode = FullUnattended

UnattendSwitch = Yes

OemPreinstall = Yes

OemSkipEula = Yes

Repartition = Yes

WaitForReboot = No

NoWaitAfterTextMode = 1

NoWaitAfterGUIMode = 1

WaitForReboot = No

TargetPath = WINDOWS

DriverSigningPolicy = Ignore

NonDriverSigningPolicy = Ignore

[GuiUnattended]

AdminPassword=Password

AutoLogon=Yes

AutoLogonCount=3

EncryptedAdminPassword = No

OEMSkipRegional = 1

TimeZone=35

OemSkipWelcome = 1

ServerWelcome = No

[Display]

BitsPerPel=16

XResolution=800

YResolution=600

[shell]

DefaultThemesOff = Yes

DefaultStartPanelOff = Yes

[LicenseFilePrintData]

AutoMode = PerSeat

[components]

iis_asp = On

iis_common = On

iis_inetmgr = On

iis_internetdataconnector = Off

iis_serversideincludes = Off

iis_webadmin = On

iis_webdav = Off

iis_www = On

[internetServer]

PathWWWRoot = C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot

[userData]

ProductKey=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

ComputerName=*

FullName = "Da Place"

OrgName = "Superfly"

[Networking]

InstallDefaultComponents = Yes

[identification]

JoinWorkgroup = Workgroup

[TapiLocation]

CountryCode=107

[RegionalSettings]

LanguageGroup=1

SystemLocale=00000409

UserLocale=00000409

InputLocale=0409:00000409

[TerminalServices]

AllowConnections = 1

LicensingMode = PerUser

PermissionsSetting = 1

[NetOptionalComponents]

SNMP=1

======

[Br4tt3]

Sounds like the drive onto which you are installing is not activated through diskpart... that way, even if the installation has been performed once (files copied to the drive) the installation will kick back onto the PE CD again as their is no other valid boot devices! Have u run a diskpart script from within your PE installation? Does it include a "active" command aswell?

Check out the diskpart /s <scriptfile/textfile> command - to fix ur drive prior to the installation of the Win32 setup. There is loads of info in the winpe.chm on ur PE CD media.

Best Regards

Tha Sausage Eater..

[JuMz]

Have you tried using the [DiskConfig] Section in your winbom.ini? WinPE has the built in ability to wipe the disk...

[DiskConfig]

Disk1 = First.Config

[First.Config]

Size1 = *

FileSystem1 = NTFS

SetActive1 = Yes

PartitionType1 = Primary

Size2 = *

PartitionType2 = Extended

Size3 = *

PartitionType3 = Logical

QuickFormat1 = Yes

ForceFormat = Yes

This is what I use to configure the disk. Completely formats it and makes one big drive. All the information I used to do this is in the winpe.chm file...

Edited April 28, 2006 by JuMz

[AlbinoRaven]

Sounds like the drive onto which you are installing is not activated through diskpart... that way, even if the installation has been performed once (files copied to the drive) the installation will kick back onto the PE CD again as their is no other valid boot devices! Have u run a diskpart script from within your PE installation? Does it include a "active" command aswell?

Check out the diskpart /s <scriptfile/textfile> command - to fix ur drive prior to the installation of the Win32 setup. There is loads of info in the winpe.chm on ur PE CD media.

Best Regards

Tha Sausage Eater..

Nuts!

I totally forgot about that. I'll add this to my diskpart script:

list disk

select disk 0

delete disk 0

list disk

select disk 0

create partition primary

assign letter c

exit

I'll give this a shot too.

Have you tried using the [DiskConfig] Section in your winbom.ini? WinPE has the built in ability to wipe the disk...

[brainstane]

You need to add a format C:/fs:ntfs /q /y in there.

[gadget]

dont forget to make the partition active as well in disk part.

You may also suffer from mbrproblems too. the only way I know of writing mbr in pe is using the latest version of gdisk32.

[p4ntb0y]

you can use mbrwiz also.

I had this problem and I wrote the MBR to a temp loction then wrote back too the disks after diskpart as I understand it you got to jumpstart the OS into seeing the boot record.

to help with debugging add "/debug4:a:\debug4.log" to the end of winnt32.

This will tel you if your drive is bootable and all files are being copied properly.

I take it your not working with raid disks?

Edited April 30, 2006 by p4ntb0y

[AlbinoRaven]

you can use mbrwiz also.

I had this problem and I wrote the MBR to a temp loction then wrote back too the disks after diskpart as I understand it you got to jumpstart the OS into seeing the boot record.

to help with debugging add "/debug4:a:\debug4.log" to the end of winnt32.

This will tel you if your drive is bootable and all files are being copied properly.

I take it your not working with raid disks?

Not yet but it looks like some of the other groups I do work for are interested in doing that.

I'm building an autoinstall for one of our web apps in our web farm. The first drop for it was the unattended methods for CD building, took about a month and bit to get it done right. The WinPe method is going to allow me more control over the disks as there isn't any way to monkey with disk partitioning properly with unattended CD without using a third party.

Plus I thought it would be cooler looking.

The debug command works great BTW.

Thanks

[p4ntb0y]

looking at your diskpart script I would have......

rem This file instructs Diskpart.exe to select Disk 1 as target,
rem clean the target, create a primary partition on the disk
rem and mount it to c: for the new partition.  The new partition is then
rem ready for format and OS install
rescan
select disk=0
clean
create partition primary
assign letter=c

You may need a reboot depending on the drives your using again you may need to use gdisk32 or MBRFix.

Format the drive as normal

then kick of the winnt32.exe...

\win2k3\i386\winnt32.exe /copydir:\win2k3\i386 /unattend:\Win2k3\i386\winnt.sif /syspart:c /tempdrive:c

you can also add the /noreboot switch to tell windows not to reboot after the file copy phase finishes

I started this an two HP ML310's as I wanted to make sure the raid scsi drives were being configuired properly.

Nightmare!

just got the get rid of the reboot and then its complete