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unattended install hang


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Hello all

I want to do an unattended XP installation on IBM Thinkpad T42.

winnt.exe starts with an unattend.txt.

First part looks fine, it copies all files to Harddisk (Windows XP Professional Setup). After the reboot you see "Windows Setup". And after the message "Setup is starting Windows" it hangs, black screen. I have to switch off and on the Notebook but it will do the same once again.

Has someone experience with unattended XP Installation on IBM Thinkpad T42?

I'm really happy for any support you can give!

Thanks.

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Did you delete the IBM service partition from the drive? If not then the boot sector is probably messed up. If you did delte it then try it with a non-UA cd and see what it does.

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Yes, the IBM Recovery Partition is deleted. And also on other T42 this partition is deleted.

I tryed once the XP CD from Microsoft, bootet from there. And it was possible to install the OS.

The unattended OS Installation is neccessary, I have to rollout this on hundereds of clients. And it will be done with bootix. But bootix is more or less just the stuff for network boot. Real OS installation will be done in the unattended way.

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Hello all

I want to do an unattended XP installation on IBM Thinkpad T42.

winnt.exe starts with an unattend.txt.

First part looks fine, it copies all files to Harddisk (Windows XP Professional Setup). After the reboot you see "Windows Setup". And after the message "Setup is starting Windows" it hangs, black screen. I have to switch off and on the Notebook but it will do the same once again.

Has someone experience with unattended XP Installation on IBM Thinkpad T42?

I'm really happy for any support you can give!

Thanks.

Have seen this with the Dell 6400 (i am guessing also the T42 has a sata drive?) Anyway try this - in your unattended.txt/winnt.sif file

[Unattended]
OemPreinstall = No

Normally for unattended installs you would have this set to yes, however for some reason with some notebooks, when the $oem$ files are copied after the first part of the install (the txt based part) the notebook hangs and will not go to the second (GUI mode) part of the install.

Edited by `Felix`
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Hi Felix

Thank you. Bu OemPreinstall is set to Yes.

I tryed the same unattended OS Installation on a Thinkpad T40. There I get earlier into trouble. Within the first Part I get the message "Setup is out of memory and cannot continue."

Do Thinkpad need specific and a-lot-of-memory-use Driver for DOS Network?

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Fair enough. You do then run into the problem of either a ) using a linux boot disk or CD to boot the OS to get around the DOS network memory issue, or b ) work around the DOS networking memory considerations. You should be able to make b work (I've done this many times), but you also need to make sure that your IDE or SATA chipset drivers are integrated into the installation source, as you won't have any opportunities to use F6 to provide them. I think there are likely two issues here, and both are important and need to be addressed :).

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You've done this nice thing about getting aroung the DOS network memory issue. :thumbup

Do you have any hints?

For example about EMM386? Did you find one setting which fits most?

And hints about network driver?

Yes, I know I will have to figure out IDE or SATA stuff. And I'm lucky to see all the different HW configurations. But, wouldn't this be just interesting? ;)

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Hi Felix

Thank you. Bu OemPreinstall is set to Yes.

I tryed the same unattended OS Installation on a Thinkpad T40. There I get earlier into trouble. Within the first Part I get the message "Setup is out of memory and cannot continue."

Do Thinkpad need specific and a-lot-of-memory-use Driver for DOS Network?

OOPS! should be set to NO for this instance - try that and test. Let me know how you go...

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I propably found a solution for T42. And, :blushing: , if I'm right it was just exactly this notebook. It took some time but on friday I got a second T42 for testing. Yeah, no problem, Network boot worked, Installation started, and went through.

Actually I'm not really sure what the reason was. I updated bios to the same version, entered the same bios settings but still had the same behaviour. Next week I try to figure out what it was.

Same T42 and unattended Setup from CD and no problem.

For T40 I found a solution: using smartdrv and afterwards there is enough memory available.

cluberti, I tryed several ways but I'm not able to open, extract or burn the iso. No changes. Isobuster tells there are errors.

And, :rolleyes: , I'm a her :rolleyes:

Edited by std73
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