Virtual HDs

[nichos]

I hope I am in the right forum for Virtual drives.

I read that I can test my Slipstraemed XP CD by installing it on a virtual drive.

1. I downloaded MS Virdual PC and created a VHD, but cannot install the XP in it as it says it cannot find the drive.

Anybody knows how to make it find the VDrive or find where I go wrong?

All the places I googled for the MS VPC refer to MAC machines.

2. Also tried MVWARE but similar thing, "....you have no tools installed..." which no matter what I do cannot find them. MVware Workstation download said it had tools in it, and other errors encountered, BUT will not install the ruddy XP in it.

Any help appreciated, Nick

PC Home build

Asus A8N 32 sli deluxe

Bios AMI 64-1009-009999

Chipset nF4-sli x16

AMD 3.5+ (2.20ghz)

Corsair twinx 1024-3200 DDR400mhz SDRAM 2x512mb

MSI 6600gt 128 PCI-E

Maxtor sata 160mb

PSU 400w

XP sp2

X45

Edited October 11, 2006 by nichos

[cyberpyr8]

I use Vmware and in the settings I put the CD drive to the ISO or you have to boot it and go into BIOS to tell it to boot from CD. THen when you boot it should load like a normal PC.

The "no tools" thing means you haven't installed the VMware tools. You can't do that until the virtual PC boots. You will have to click the screen to get control of the keyboard and mouse in the virtual pc and Alt-Ctrl to release the control. After you install the tools you can move the mouse in and out of the VM and the host PC with out the Alt-Ctrl commands.

[nichos]

Tried to install tools but can not find from where. On the top menu says install tools, I click it but nothing happens. Afterwrds it gets grayed out.

For MVWare (Have mouse OK), I navigated the CDrom to H:\setup.exe (my nLite CD created from an ISO file).

How do you start the MVWare install of XP from the CD to the Vdisk?

If I try to install from bootup the CD, it tries to go on my HD C:\ again. How can I direct it to the Virtual Disk, which I presume is a file in windows, if it has not booted in to windows yet???

Also my CDrom is shown as SCUSI??. I have a DVD-R-W combo.

Can you help from this scan?. nick

Edited October 11, 2006 by nichos

[cyberpyr8]

The ISO is not right. It should go to driveletter:\something.iso. You are trying to point that to an executable. That's the first thing. The drive not being found is strange. I would delete your VM and start over again. Just set it up with defaults (if it is just for testing then 8GB should be fine) and finish. Then start it up and booting. If you didn't select ISO and are going to run it off of the CD then go into BIOS and make the CD first in the list. See what that does and let me know.

Edited October 11, 2006 by cyberpyr8

[nichos]

I started another and tried again with no luck.

As the first scan shows my nLite sleamstreamed XP PRO SP2 DVD cd (Left one in this scan) has no .ISO file to point to, but the right hand one shows the ISO I created on G:\ to use to burn the CD.

The second scan shows something like a Virtual Drive?.

At some stage, in my confusion, it found an unpartition space of 20024mb and asked to create / format it but when I pressed C it froze up (not the PC) as per 3rd scan.

This is the starting point on defaults:-

Edited October 11, 2006 by nichos

[nichos]

Well after all the 3 days work on this, and the bother I caused, here is XP PRO SP1 running on the Virtual Drive within my windows desktop. HOW? don't ask me, sheer fluke.

On the final desperate attempt, when it asked to press C to Format the Unallocated Partition, after pressing C I pressed ENTER and lo & behold the format and the intall started & completed.

One major snag though. During the process it kept saying this and that file is not found and XP may not work, many many of them, but I kept pressing Enter to almost half way there, then it completed by itself.

The final install is XP PRO SP1, which is not on.

My CD was a Sleapstream of nLite XP PRO SP1 with SP2, MS Updates, and a lot of removals to slimm it down. All that seems to have been be lost and would like to know why.

If I have to Repair the C:\ Windows one day, it will be pointles using this CD if I will end up with plain SP1.

Have 3 days of hard work gone for nothing? Here is what I got, and works just like my True HD windows.

[nichos]

I installed fs9 on the VirtualHD and it works OK, but maybe because of so many files were missing on the V.install I cannot install the proper nVidia Gfx drivers, my X45 stick etc, so I am somewhat limited.

If you install on VHDisk the actual XP (not as per my nLite straemlined XP cd) you will probably get no missing files and be better off.

Only wanted to see if my self made CD was working OK for a rainy day and obviously it does not.

Hope the experts can point me in the right direction of why the Streamlining efford failed to produce a perfect install CD.

[Takeshi]

You obviously did something wrong when building the UACD and/or the source is corrupt. So try again. Any further problems would be better posted in the UA Windows or nLite forum.

We don't know what went wrong because we didn't watch you do it and you didn't say how you did it. Even though this attempt fails it's not really a waste because there should be something to learn from this mishap.

May I also suggest that you use screenshots sparingly. Most commonly encountered errors can be understood when carefully and accurately described in words.

[LLXX]

On the final desperate attempt, when it asked to press C to Format the Unallocated Partition, after pressing C I pressed ENTER and lo & behold the format and the intall started & completed.

You have to format and partition virtual drives just like real ones...

[nichos]

Sorry for the scans, wo'nt do it again, thought a picture makes for 1K words.

What is UA windows?

[mark]

Sorry for the scans, wo'nt do it again, thought a picture makes for 1K words.

What is UA windows?

Here it's one of the forums.

DL