Installing Winxp via winnt32 under Winpe v2.0 (Vista PE)

[kyor]

@knockz

It's a workaround that Microsoft sends me via email. It does not exist a KB article as i know.

@Jazkal

If you found a solution for imagex and w2k3, please post it here. My college have to handle

with win2003.

But do you really need bootsect on winpe 2005 ?

I think i have tried imagex on winpe 2005 to install a sysprep Windows XP image without bootsect. It works in the beta version of imagex.

have a great weekend

kyor

Edited December 15, 2006 by kyor

[Beta4Me]

Get your WinXP CD, and look here:

%ROOTOFCD%\SUPPORT\TOOLS\

here you will find a deploy.cab file. extract this out and have a look at these two files:

deploy.chm

ref.chm

These two files will answer most of your questions.

I've checked them and learnt about that stuff, but it doesn't tell me how to access or use mini-setup or a very good explanation of it, jsut a brief description.

Also do you just sysprep -factory it or syprep -audit and then reseal.

Can this be used on systems with totally different HAL's and update them during mini-setup?

Edited December 15, 2006 by Beta4Me

[Jazkal]

@Jazkal

If you found a solution for imagex and w2k3, please post it here. My college have to handle

with win2003.

But do you really need bootsect on winpe 2005 ?

I think i have tried imagex on winpe 2005 to install a sysprep Windows XP image without bootsect. It works in the beta version of imagex.

WinPE2 and Imagex works fine with Win2k3 on most of systems, it's just a few that we are having problems with.

And our tests of WinPE 2005, work fine, it's just that we want to move to WinPE2.

[frtest]

Don't see attachment

am-i blind ?

[kyor]

The attachment that i have posted is gone. I Don't know why. I will repost the reg file, when i am at work next week.

Greetings

kyor

[kyor]

I have found it on my desktop :Ö-)

fixbootxp.reg

Edited December 31, 2006 by kyor

[Jazkal]

That is strange. I'm wondering if Microsoft asked a Mod to remove the attachments? Wouldn't they tell us if they did that?

[bassings]

I raised the diskpart problem to microsoft this morning and this is the solution they gave me:

POTENTIAL WORKAROUND #1:

------------------------

When creating the partitions for use with XP and 2003, you can use the following command to create the partition:

create part primary align=16065

Advantage: No modifications required to the WinPE image itself or to the XP/2003 install image, only change is a slight modification to the diskpart script.

Considerations:

- This will leave anywhere from 16MB to 32MB of the disk unused. (This is not as big a deal as it might sound; even under the old XP partitioning scheme we always left from 1MB to 8MB of the disk unused. On modern-day disks this amount of space is trivial.)

- If users look in Disk Management after the OS is installed, they will notice 16MB of unpartitioned space shown at the beginning of the disk.

POTENTIAL WORKAROUND #2:

------------------------

Modify your WinPE 2.0 image to have the following registry changes:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\VDS\ALIGNMENT

LessThan4GB REG_DWORD 0

Between4_8GB REG_DWORD 0

Between8_32GB REG_DWORD 0

GreaterThan32GB REG_DWORD 0

This can be done by modifying the registry hive in the boot.wim file used to create the WinPE disc.

Then use diskpart as usual to partition the disc.

I'm currently testing work around 2 on vmware. I've injected the registry changes in to my boot.wim by mounting it to a folder c:\Winpe\mount and the executing the following commands:

reg load HKLM\PE-SYS c:\Winpe\Mount\Windows\system32\config\system

Reg Add "HKLM\PE-SYS\ControlSet001\Services\vds\Alignment" /t Reg_Dword /v LessThan4GB /d 0 /f

Reg Add "HKLM\PE-SYS\ControlSet001\Services\vds\Alignment" /t Reg_Dword /v Between4_8GB /d 0 /f

Reg Add "HKLM\PE-SYS\ControlSet001\Services\vds\Alignment" /t Reg_Dword /v Between8_32GB /d 0 /f

Reg Add "HKLM\PE-SYS\ControlSet001\Services\vds\Alignment" /t Reg_Dword /v GreaterThan32GB /d 0 /f

reg unload HKLM\PE-SYS

I can't confirm if this works or not yet.

Cheers

[bmorris]

that worked for me.... i would get a corrupted file system after xp rebooted the second time.... i added a registry import to the task sequence, before partition.

[Saiera]

Very interesting thread and solutions are logical. I have been searching for this issue long time ago as soon as winpe 2.0 appeared and no results. Though i tried my work this way:

1: Start winpe 2.0

2: run the regedit to apply the fix boot

3: diskpart normally with the script

3 1/2 : bootsect /nt52 c: (Forgot it almost)

4: runn winnt32 either unattened or attened

5: restart

windows installation proceeds by restarting it (manually after first install) and enters the blue screen like the cd setup, copies the files, and restarts automatically, after this install i got a problem

I get a fast message before it keeps rebooting automatically and it says

A write operation was..... I cant get the rest it restarts too fast (this is the only case i wish the machine was slower)

Anyone can give me a hint how to fix this part, what am I doing wrong.....thanks

Edited February 22, 2007 by Saiera

[rahuldel]

I am having a problem while installing Windows XP Pro thru winnt32 thru WinPE v2.

The installation works fine if I am using just a plain Windows XP with SP2 without any updates or tweaks etc but if I apply any of Ryans updates or the whole series of update packs etc to make it upto date it does not even go past the first reboot after the text mode.

The error comes as "Setup was unable to verify Drive c:, youc computer does not have enough memory to examine............"

If it is just a plain XP Pro + SP2 CD it works fine and installation goes thru perfectly.

Any help please......... Setup was unable to verify Drive C: after text mode.

[Jazkal]

You may get better answers by asking in the Ryan forums.

Personally, I use HFSLIP to do my hotfix slipstreaming, and don't have any issues with WinPE2 and winnt32 over the network.

Sorry I couldn't help with the actual question though.

[kyor]

EDIT: removed. Sorry i posted in the wrong thread

Edited March 22, 2007 by kyor

[acyang]

ok i think here is the complete workaround to solve

the installation issue with winnt32.exe

do the following only for xp and win2003 installations.

On vista you will get performance problems with raid controllers

if you use the fixbootxp.reg

1. run winpe 2.0

2. regedit /s fixbootxp.reg (attached in this post)

3. diskpart

4. bootsect /nt52 c:

5. start winnt32

Hi, Kyor

I also tried to install Winxp via winnt32 in Winpe v2.0 on my UFD.

I followed what you posted, but I still met some problems.

1. I can't find "bootsect.exe" on my UFD.

I followed the steps from WAIK Walkthrough "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD",

(In LRMOPK_TW.iso, we can find bootsect.exe in the BOOT folder)

but I didn't find bootsect.exe in the BOOT folder on my UFD.

So I copied it from "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86" to BOOT folder.

2. The winnt32.exe will close after "Preparing installation".

I followed the steps you mentioned above,

I run winnt32.exe without unattended file,

I typed the regist key then the setup program went on.

But after "Preparing installation", the setup program closed and return to the command line promote.

could somebody do me a favort?

I've bothered about this for months .

[kyor]

1. I can't find "bootsect.exe" on my UFD.

I followed the steps from WAIK Walkthrough "Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD",

(In LRMOPK_TW.iso, we can find bootsect.exe in the BOOT folder)

but I didn't find bootsect.exe in the BOOT folder on my UFD.

So I copied it from "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86" to BOOT folder.

That's correct you have to copy it from your opk kit to your WinPE CD or to a network share.

2. The winnt32.exe will close after "Preparing installation".

I followed the steps you mentioned above,

I run winnt32.exe without unattended file,

I typed the regist key then the setup program went on.

But after "Preparing installation", the setup program closed and return to the command line promote.

could somebody do me a favort?

I've bothered about this for months .

Normaly, after typing in the reg key the setup Program copies the necessary files to your harddisk and

return to the command prompt. after that you have to exit winpe. type exit in winpe and remove your winpe source (i.e. USB Stick, CD)

Edited March 26, 2007 by kyor