Network Unattended installation

[Bonkers in Yonkers]

Trying to get his right but not quite there yet.

We have a Windoes 2000 environment with one domain
controller running SP4 and about 65 clients.

We like to wipe and load every 6 months. Now is that six
months. We want to use unattended installation to do
this. RIS is not available as there is only a c:\
partition on the DC and this is the only server.

We have created the network boot disk ( DOS based ). We
have created a folder on c:\ called W2K. Have copied the
Windows 2000 Professional i386 folder to the W2K folder.
So, we have c:\w2k\i386. We have shared the i386 folder
as I386$ so that it is hidden. We have used the Setup
Manager to create the unattend.txt file and manually
created the unattend.udf file. Copied that to the i386
folder.

Put in network boot disk, reboot machine, map a drive to
n:\ ( n:\ = \\dc01\i386$ ) and change to n:\. No
problems so far.

We then enter winnt /s:\\dc01\i386$ /u:\\dc01\i386$
unattend.txt /udf:abc1,\\dc01\i386$ unattend.udf. I have
also entered
winnt /s:n:\ /u:unattend.txt /udf:abc1,unattend.udf as
well as
winnt /s:n:\ /u:n:\unattend.txt /udf:abc1,n:\unattend.udf.

In each case we are getting an error that the file
n:\unattend.txt is either not accessible or invalid.
Here is a copy of the unattend.txt file:

;SetupMgrTag
[Data]
AutoPartition=1
MsDosInitiated="0"
UnattendedInstall="Yes"

[Unattended]
UnattendMode=FullUnattended
OemSkipEula=Yes
OemPreinstall=Yes
TargetPath=\WINNT
Repartition=Yes
UseWholeDisk=Yes

[GuiUnattended]
AdminPassword=xxxxxxxx
OEMSkipRegional=1
TimeZone=35
OemSkipWelcome=1

[OEM_Ads]
backgroud=backgrd.bmp
logo=companylogo.bmp

[UserData]
FullName="Installer"
OrgName=Company, Inc.
ComputerName=ABC1
ProductID="xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"

[Display]
BitsPerPel=16
Xresolution=800
YResolution=600
Vrefresh=60

[RegionalSettings]
LanguageGroup=1

[SetupMgr]
DistFolder=C:\W2K\I386
DistShare=I386$

[Identification]
JoinDomain=mydomain
DomainAdmin=Administrator
DomainAdminPassword=xxxxxx

[Networking]
InstallDefaultComponents=Yes

There are no permissions issues to this file as for this
purpose EVERYONE has full control!

Remember, we are running the winnt command because we are
using a DOS based network boot disk.

Thank you,

Going bonkers in Yonkers!

 

[Patrick J. LoPresti [MVP]]

Put in network boot disk, reboot machine, map a drive to
n:\ ( n:\ = \\dc01\i386$ ) and change to n:\. No
problems so far.

We then enter winnt /s:\\dc01\i386$ /u:\\dc01\i386$
unattend.txt /udf:abc1,\\dc01\i386$ unattend.udf. I have
also entered
winnt /s:n:\ /u:unattend.txt /udf:abc1,unattend.udf as
well as
winnt /s:n:\ /u:n:\unattend.txt /udf:abc1,n:\unattend.udf.

I would use the third one, although I do not think it should matter.

In each case we are getting an error that the file
n:\unattend.txt is either not accessible or invalid.
Here is a copy of the unattend.txt file:

What does "type n:\unattend.txt" say?

[UserData]
FullName="Installer"
OrgName=Company, Inc.

I thought comma was a magic character in these files, so I would put
quotation marks around this OrgName.

[Identification]
JoinDomain=mydomain
DomainAdmin=Administrator
DomainAdminPassword=xxxxxx

Similarly, depending on what characters are in that password, I would
put quotation marks around it, too.

Remember, we are running the winnt command because we are
using a DOS based network boot disk.

You might consider trying my free system at
<http://unattended.sourceforge.net/>.

- Pat

 

[Bonkers in Yonkers]

Patrick,

Made the change to unattend.txt and when I enter "type
unattend.txt" I see the entire document correctly
displayed.

However, now I have another question. When I enter
either of the three commands from the mapped N:\ drive I
am now getting a "An Internal Error has occured. Cannot
find a place for a swap file. Setup will end" error.

I have the same error when I do this to the system with
Windows 2000 already installed, when I fdisk and format
the drive as one partition ( 10.0GB as FAT32 ) and when I
fdisk and format the drive to have two partitions ( 4GB
C: FAT32 and 6GB D: FAT32 ). Assuming that I can resolve
this issue I do not want the drive to be formatted as
FAT32. I want NTFS. Do I need to add a line in the
unattend.txt of "FileSystem=ConvertNTFS"?

Any help is welcome.

Bonkers in Yonkers


PS Nice web site. Will have to give it a shot. We
normally use a bootable CD with the WINNT.SIF file on
it. No problems there but looking for an alternative way.

-----Original Message-----
"Bonkers in Yonkers"

winnt /s:n:\ /u:n:\unattend.txt /udf:abc1,n:\unattend.udf.

I would use the third one, although I do not think it should matter.

In each case we are getting an error that the file
n:\unattend.txt is either not accessible or invalid.
Here is a copy of the unattend.txt file:

What does "type n:\unattend.txt" say?

[UserData]
FullName="Installer"
OrgName=Company, Inc.

I thought comma was a magic character in these files, so I would put
quotation marks around this OrgName.

[Identification]
JoinDomain=mydomain
DomainAdmin=Administrator
DomainAdminPassword=xxxxxx

Similarly, depending on what characters are in that password, I would
put quotation marks around it, too.

Remember, we are running the winnt command because we are
using a DOS based network boot disk.

You might consider trying my free system at
<http://unattended.sourceforge.net/>.

- Pat
.

 

[Patrick J. LoPresti [MVP]]

However, now I have another question. When I enter
either of the three commands from the mapped N:\ drive I
am now getting a "An Internal Error has occured. Cannot
find a place for a swap file. Setup will end" error.

That means winnt.exe was unable to write to the C:\ drive.

I have the same error when I do this to the system with
Windows 2000 already installed, when I fdisk and format
the drive as one partition ( 10.0GB as FAT32 ) and when I
fdisk and format the drive to have two partitions ( 4GB
C: FAT32 and 6GB D: FAT32 ).

What version of DOS are you using? 6.x and lower can only handle
FAT16, not FAT32.

From DOS, you should be able to:

C:\
echo hello > test.txt
type test.txt

If not, then winnt.exe will not work, either.

Assuming that I can resolve this issue I do not want the drive to be
formatted as FAT32. I want NTFS. Do I need to add a line in the
unattend.txt of "FileSystem=ConvertNTFS"?

Yes. That will only apply to the C: drive; you can convert the D:
drive from within Windows itself using the "convert" command (see
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/convertfat.mspx).

Or just create D: as an NTFS partition in the first place, and format
it from within Windows. That is what I usually do.

- Pat
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/

 

[Bonkers in Yonkers]

Pat,

I must admit that I am a bit of a ninny. Part of the
problem was that I failed to make a partition active.
That is going to cause a problem each and every time, no
matter what version of DOS one is using!

But, you were correct. The Network Boot Disk uses an
older version of DOS - do not know which version as I can
not ask him at the moment - so we are stuck with FAT16,
which means 2.0GB and smaller. Not very interesting.

It did work, though. It took a bit longer than the
Bootable CD that we use but it is nice to have another
method. I do like the ability to place the computer in
the OU that we desire. I guess that we could do this
with the CD as well ( winnt.sif ). Really wishing that
we could use RIS, but not currently an option.

Thank you for your insight,

No longer Bonkers in Yonkers

 

[Hugo]

Hi !

You have just to create/format (in one very fast step) a 2GB partition with
AEFDISK (very usefull and available at www.aefdisk.com) and configure this
in your unattend.txt file

[Unattended]
ExtendOemPartition = 1

Hugo

 

[Bonkers in Yonkers]

Have an even better solution. I found the Bart's modular
network boot disk. All issues have been resolved. What
a nice setup that is.

But, thank you to the both of you for your support and
insight.

Yonkers

-----Original Message-----
Hi !

You have just to create/format (in one very fast step) a 2GB partition with
AEFDISK (very usefull and available at www.aefdisk.com) and configure this
in your unattend.txt file

[Unattended]
ExtendOemPartition = 1

Hugo



"Bonkers in Yonkers"