2 replies to this topic

[Dan Woods]

Hello,
has anybody experimented with kicking off unattended windows xp installs from within VistaPE yet? I'm having problems getting virtual pc 2007 to boot to windows setup after loading the windows setup files from within VistaPE..

Diskpart works normally and I am able to select, clean and create a primary partition with no problems. Format c: /fs:ntfs /q /y also works without errors and the setup files load normally after calling winnt32.exe with the unattend switch. I've used this method literally thousands of times from bartpe without issue.

My problem is that once the virtual PC is restarted after the above, I get a "boot disk error - press ctrl alt delete" error. Looking at the hard drive shows the normal folder structure that you would normally see, but it just wont boot to setup. I noticed this same problem when playing around with BDD 2007 last weekend, but figured it was due to some mistake on my part or wasn't supported somehow with the light touch CD.

Have any of you had any problems with this or is vista doing something different with diskpart than previous versions? I cant imagine it is, but something is definitely keeping the machine from booting like it normally would in Bart-PE.

Thanks,
Dan

[was_jaclaz]

Diskpart works normally
.....
Format c: /fs:ntfs /q /y also works without errors

Just a "blind shot", as I have not tried anything regarding Vista yet, but maybe either the MBR or the boot sector is not written properly (or it does not invoke setupldr.bin/NTLDR), the error you have:

"boot disk error - press ctrl alt delete"

is related to this.

You need a disk/hex editor and/or a program capable of interpreting MBR/bootsectors, like Beeblebrox, Ptedit32 or the like and check them.

jaclaz

[Dan Woods]

Just a "blind shot", as I have not tried anything regarding Vista yet, but maybe either the MBR or the boot sector is not written properly (or it does not invoke setupldr.bin/NTLDR), the error you have:
is related to this.

You need a disk/hex editor and/or a program capable of interpreting MBR/bootsectors, like Beeblebrox, Ptedit32 or the like and check them.

jaclaz

Hi Jaclaz, you're on the right path. it turns out to be a known problem with microsoft and the new bootsector written by vista. I found the solution for now over at msfn. it comprises of writing a reg entry after PE boots and then calling bootsect.exe /nt52 c: to write the correct bootsector which is compatible with ntldr.

Full details for anybody else that has the problem are at:
http://www.msfn.org/...o...88270&st=20


thanks,
Dan