316 replies to this topic

[wimb]

Here is the dplist.txt that you requested. I didn't disconnect my 2nd hard drive (disk 1) this time.

Thanks for dplist.txt
At first sight there is no problem with MBRWiz.exe
The list seems normal, I don't understand why USB_XP_Setup.cmd did not do the job for you ....

Do you have any idea ?

At what stage did you disconnect your second harddrive previously ?
May be USB_XP_Setup.cmd will work also this time .....

[magic12kenneth]

Thanks for dplist.txt
At first sight there is no problem with MBRWiz.exe
The list seems normal, I don't understand why USB_XP_Setup.cmd did not do the job for you ....

Do you have any idea ?

At what stage did you disconnect your second harddrive previously ?
May be USB_XP_Setup.cmd will work also this time .....

Welcome... I have no idea. That's what I'm trying to figure out right now. The first time I got it to work when writing the tutorial.

I disconnected the second hard drive by disconnecting the cable physically before I startup LiveXP to check if my second hard drive is the cause.

I really don't know what to do. I'm going to test it on my laptop and see what happen.

Kenneth

[magic12kenneth]

Wimb,

I just finish installing Windows XP with the source folder located on C: hard drive partition 2 after booting LiveXP from hard drive. I'm still getting the same eror message above.

This is a laptop with one hard drive with two partitions. USB boot is not supported.

I checked the dplist.txt and it shows the hard drive with the two partitions.

This is very strange. Has anyone get this issue? Can someone else do a quick test on this?

Kenneth

[wimb]

Wimb,

I just finish installing Windows XP with the source folder located on C: hard drive partition 2 after booting LiveXP from hard drive. I'm still getting the same eror message above.

This is a laptop with one hard drive with two partitions. USB boot is not supported.

I checked the dplist.txt and it shows the hard drive with the two partitions.

This is very strange. Has anyone get this issue? Can someone else do a quick test on this?

Kenneth

That explains everything !
Your XP Source must always be located on the First Partition of ANY Drive.
This is ESSENTIAL for this type of XP Install.
Otherwise XP Setup is NOT able to find the XP Source as specified in TXTSETUP.SIF

See Tutorial and Intro of USB_XP_Setup.cmd

XP Setup Source Folder can be on USB-stick or on partition 1 of USB-HDD or ANY Harddisk.

When your XP Source is Located on Logical Drive of Extended Partition
then MBRWiz.exe is NOT able to identify the harddisk number of the XP Source Drive
and you will get the WARNING that you received.

So If you want your XP Source on Harddisk instead of on USB-stick then
AFTER booting with LiveXP and Quick Format of C-drive you must COPY your XP Source to C-drive
so that it is Located on the First Partition of the Harddisk Drive.
After that you have to Run USB_XP_Setup.cmd and everything will work

[magic12kenneth]

That explains everything !
Your XP Source must always be located on the First Partition of ANY Drive.
This is ESSENTIAL for this type of XP Install.
Otherwise XP Setup is NOT able to find the XP Source as specified in TXTSETUP.SIF

See Tutorial and Intro of USB_XP_Setup.cmd


When your XP Source is Located on Logical Drive of Extended Partition
then MBRWiz.exe is NOT able to identify the harddisk number of the XP Source Drive
and you will get the WARNING that you received.

So If you want your XP Source on Harddisk instead of on USB-stick then
AFTER booting with LiveXP and Quick Format of C-drive you must COPY your XP Source to C-drive
so that it is Located on the First Partition of the Harddisk Drive.
After that you have to Run USB_XP_Setup.cmd and everything will work

Ok, I redo the Widnows XP installation but this time I put the XP source folder in the first partition of C: hard drive as you mention above. Still getting the same error message.

Also, from my previous attempts on my desktop. I tried both the XP source folder on C: partition 1 hard drive and also on USB drive.

I ask my friend to borrow his laptop for testing tonight. I will test installing with XP source on USB drive and C: hard drive partition 1.

Kenneth

[magic12kenneth]

I finally finish testing on my friend's old Toshiba laptop with no usb boot or dvd/cd boot. The hard drive is format with one partition only.

I tested booting LiveXP from hard drive with the XP source folder on C: hard drive partition 1 or on USB 1GB flash drive. I'm still getting the same error message. If I manually edit it, it works fine.

So, I don't know if it is me or what.

If you have anything for me to test to help you, let me know.

But I still do not understand why it works the first time when I use it to write the tutorial.

Kenneth

[wimb]

New Version of USB_XP_Setup Available. See post #1

August 27, 2008 - Copy USB_XP_Setup to USB-stick is selectable YES / NO now.
Vista User Account Control will give Error Message if ON.
Better treatment of Path Containing Spaces by using double quotes where missing.

[xenocyte]

Hi, i've followed the guide to the letter and everything works fine up until the txt part of the XP setup stage.
It still won't accept the unattended section being in the answer file and tries to automatically format the hardrive.

[wimb]

TXT-mode does NOT format your harddisk for this type of Install.
After you Select your Install partition then automatically the FileCopy starts, is that what you mean ?

Quick Format of your C Install-Drive was done using Drive Explorer in LiveXP PE environment.
Then you Run USB_XP_SETUP.cmd to make XP Setup BootFolder $WIN_NT$.~BT on C-Install-Drive
and you are NOT allowed to format the Install drive anymore.
Consequently FileSystem=* which would present Format Options to the User
is removed from the [Unattended] section to avoid this conflict.

So Format is done before running TXT mode of XP Setup
and that is different as compared to Install of XP from CD.

All Other Options of the [Unattended] section just work normally as when you Install from CD.

[magic12kenneth]

Wimb,

I havee a solution that I would like suggest regarding about the issue that I'm having.

For whatever reason that the MBRWiz.exe can't find my drive in three of my tested systems when doing the USB_XP_Setup, we add a feature to append the target path if the MBRWiz.exe failed because we already know what the target path is for the XP source folder path when the user enter the location for the XP source folder.

What do you think? That would be one workaround solution.l

Kenneth

[wimb]

The SetupSourcePath is not the problem.
The XP Source folder name is quite well known and already used in USB_XP_Setup.cmd e.g. as
SetupSourcePath = "\XPPRO\"

MBRWiz.exe is used now to relate XP Source Drive Letter to harddisk number and so to determine e.g.
SetupSourceDevice = \device\harddisk1\partition1

But If you have another way to determine the XP Source harddisk number then tell me more about it.

[magic12kenneth]

The SetupSourcePath is not the problem.
The XP Source folder name is quite well known and already used in USB_XP_Setup.cmd e.g. as
SetupSourcePath = "\XPPRO\"

MBRWiz.exe is used now to relate XP Source Drive Letter to harddisk number and so to determine e.g.
SetupSourceDevice = \device\harddisk1\partition1

But If you have another way to determine the XP Source harddisk number then tell me more about it.

The user have to enter the location to the XP source folder that contains the drive letter, partition and the folder path when using the XP_XP_Setup.cmd. In that case you can simply used this information to fill it the value for the SetupSourceDevice and SetupSourcePath as one option.

Kenneth

[wimb]

Can you give a more precise example on how you modify TXTSETUP.SIF

Could you Install XP from USB in all three of your computer systems ?

[magic12kenneth]

Can you give a more precise example on how you modify TXTSETUP.SIF

Could you Install XP from USB in all three of your computer systems ?

Yes, I can install it for all three computers if I manually edit the TXTSETUP.SIF. Looking at the dplist.txt, MBRWiz.exe is reporting the correct list of drives in all three systems.

Since MBRWiz.exe is reporting the correct drive list, we can use the dplist.txt to manually edit the TXTSETUP.SIF.

For example, if the dplist.txt list the following:

Disk: 0   Size:  14G CHS: 1826 255 63

 Pos MBRndx Type/Name  Size Active Hide Start Sector   Sectors	DL Vol Label

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

  0	0	07-NTFS	9.0G   Yes   No			63   18,426,492 C: BOOT	  

  1	1	0F-EXTEND  5.3G   No	No	18,426,555   10,892,070 -- <None>	



 Disk&#58; 1   Size&#58; 238G CHS&#58; 30401 255 63

 Pos MBRndx Type/Name  Size Active Hide Start Sector   Sectors	DL Vol Label

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

  0	0	07-NTFS	238G   Yes   No			63  488,375,937 D&#58; Data	  



 Disk&#58; 2   Size&#58; 982M CHS&#58; 125 255 63

 Pos MBRndx Type/Name  Size Active Hide Start Sector   Sectors	DL Vol Label

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

  0	0	0E-FAT16X  982M   Yes   No			63	2,013,121 F&#58; XP_INSTALL

and the user enters the following information for USB_XP_SETUP.cmd

XP Source Folder: D:\XP
XP Target Folder: C:

To edit the TXTSETUP.SIF manually, we have to use the dplist.txt to translate D:\XP with the following steps:

1. Search the dplist.txt for D: drive letter to determine the drive number (which disk 1). If it can't find it, then we know MBRWiz.exe failed for sure.

2. Once you know which drive letter, you look at the Pos column to determine the partition (which partition 0 meaning partition 1).

3. For the XP source folder, we already know it's \XP.

Therefore, it will look like this:

SetupSourcePath = "\XP"
SetupSourceDevice = " \device\harddisk1\partition1"

So you need implement a search function to search a string in the dplist.txt.

Kenneth

[wimb]

So you need implement a search function to search a string in the dplist.txt.

The procedure that you describe was already implemented in USB_XP_Setup.cmd program.
So it is nothing NEW, but it should work also for you as you say your dplist.txt is always OK.
It remains strange to me that your TXTSETUP.SIF was not properly Edited by the program.
Is your TXTSETUP.SIF file Read Only ?

[xenocyte]

TXT-mode does NOT format your harddisk for this type of Install.
After you Select your Install partition then automatically the FileCopy starts, is that what you mean ?

Quick Format of your C Install-Drive was done using Drive Explorer in LiveXP PE environment.
Then you Run USB_XP_SETUP.cmd to make XP Setup BootFolder $WIN_NT$.~BT on C-Install-Drive
and you are NOT allowed to format the Install drive anymore.
Consequently FileSystem=* which would present Format Options to the User
is removed from the [Unattended] section to avoid this conflict.

So Format is done before running TXT mode of XP Setup
and that is different as compared to Install of XP from CD.

All Other Options of the [Unattended] section just work normally as when you Install from CD.

Okay, retried the whole process again.

New issue - Just after the 'setup is loading windows' part on XP txt mode install I'm now getting BSOD with following errors:

0x0000008E - 0xC0000006 - 0x8090CF2D - 0xF7D065A4 - 0x00000000.

Scratching my head again...

[wimb]

For Install of XP on a modern system with SATA Drives it is needed to use DPsBase.exe
for Integrating in your XPSOURCE BTS DriverPack Massstorage with TXT Mode Enabled.
In that case a lot of Extra RAID SCSI and SATA Drivers (about 120 extra) are Integrated which appear in the
XP Setup BootFolder $WIN_NT$.~BT on Install-Drive and can prevent a lot of XP Install Boot Problems.

After using DPsBase.exe the BTS DriverPacks are located in OEM Folder in your XP Source
http://driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/

Always use DPsBase.exe AFTER using RyanVM Integrator or nLite
which can be used to Integrate Windows UpdatePacks in the XP-Source.

[magic12kenneth]

The procedure that you describe was already implemented in USB_XP_Setup.cmd program.
So it is nothing NEW, but it should work also for you as you say your dplist.txt is always OK.
It remains strange to me that your TXTSETUP.SIF was not properly Edited by the program.
Is your TXTSETUP.SIF file Read Only ?

No, the TXTSETUP.SIF is not read only. Yes, indeed, it's very strange.

I wonder if anyone else is experiencing this.

This morning, I help another friend with a desktop to reinstall Windows XP. I also get the same error message from MBRWiz.exe.

Is there is a dos search util for text file that we can replace if it fails?

Kenneth

[wimb]

It is not MBRWiz.exe that fails for you, since you say that dplist.txt is always correct
and dplist.txt is the output file of MBRWiz.exe. MBRWiz.exe is NOT the editor

On my 3 systems the TXTSETUP.SIF file is always edited correctly
by USB_XP_Setup.cmd with aid of makebt\Fedit.exe and dplist.txt

So NO problems here

[magic12kenneth]

It is not MBRWiz.exe that fails for you, since you say that dplist.txt is always correct
and dplist.txt is the output file of MBRWiz.exe. MBRWiz.exe is NOT the editor

On my 3 systems the TXTSETUP.SIF file is always edited correctly
by USB_XP_Setup.cmd with aid of makebt\Fedit.exe and dplist.txt

So NO problems here

Yeap, it seems I'm the only who is having this issue. Let's hope it will resolve by itself in future release. Who knows...

Kenneth

[polly4you]

Thank you wimb...

[wimb]

For peculiar older BIOS versions, where harddisk number of USB-Drive and Install Drive
are Reversed in TXT-Mode and GUI-Mode, it occurs that the XP Source is NOT found.
In USB_XP_Setup.cmd you can Select now to Copy the XP Source from USB-drive to the Install Target Drive,
to overcome this problem, which takes about 5 minutes extra time.

The BIOS of a Compaq computer of 2002 was giving me the trouble that
in TXT-mode and in PE environment the USB-stick was harddisk0 and Internal HD was harddisk1 ,but
in GUI-mode and in XP Environment the same USB-stick was harddisk1 and Internal HD was harddisk0
The problem of this reversal of harddisk number in XP Setup was overcome by
Copy of the XP Source from USB-drive to the Install Target Drive. Then you always find the files.

USB_XP_Setup Package was Updated accordingly.

[ilko]

This is interesting report Wimb, thanks. Can you give more details about this machine?
BTW- good idea is to move rdummy to BusExtenders, I've had cases when it didn't load when is among many SCSI/SATA drivers. Not sure if you already done that.

[wimb]

It is an OLD Compaq of 2002 with following Details derived frow SIW

Compaq 5371EA 470017-436 Desktop
Physical Memory 256 MB Total, 75 MB Free

Motherboard Compaq Model 077Ch
Chipset Vendor Intel Corporation
Chipset Model 845 Brookdale Host-Hub Interface Bridge (A3-step)
South Bridge 82801BA (ICH2) LPC Interface Controller
CPU Intel Pentium 4

BIOS Version COMPAQ - 20011203
686Y2 v2.06
BIOS Date 12/03/01
BIOS Vendor Compaq
Version 686Y2 v2.06
Release 12/03/2001
BIOS Size 512 KB
Characteristics - supports booting from ATAPI ZIP drive
- supports booting from LS-120
- supports AGP
- supports legacy USB
- supports ACPI
- Multi Proccesor supported by BIOS
- supports INT 17 printer services
- supports INT 14 serial services
- supports INT 09 and 8042 keyboard services
- supports INT 05 print-screen
- supports INT 13 3.5-inch/720K floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/1.2M floppy services
- supports INT 13 5.25-inch/360K floppy services
- supports INT 13 for Japanese Toshiba 1.2M floppy (3.5-inch, 360rpm)
- supports Enhanced Disk Drive specification
- supports selectable boot
- supports booting from CD-ROM
- allows BIOS shadowing
- upgradeable (Flash) BIOS
- supports APM
- supports Plug-and-Play
- supports PCI
DMI Version 2.3 @000F9C00

But I must say it is very strange behaviour of this BIOS regarding Harddisk Numbering for USB-stick and Internal Harddisk,
which reverses when Rebooting from TXT into GUI-mode.

Thanks for the Info on rdummy for USB-Harddisk. Until now I was using SCSI.Load and SCSI as Section.

[wimb]

BTW- good idea is to move rdummy to BusExtenders, I've had cases when it didn't load when is among many SCSI/SATA drivers. Not sure if you already done that.

Thanks ilko
USB_XP_Setup package was Updated:

In USB_XP_Setup.cmd - Entry for rdummy.sys in TXTSETUP.SIF was moved from Section [SCSI] to [BusExtenders]
Removed /k flag in xcopy commands which
would cause $WIN_NT$.~BT\TXTSETUP.SIF being ReadOnly when XP Source was on CD.