Ran Sysprep and Partition Letters Changed!!??

  • Thread starter Thread starter JonK
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J

JonK

I am building a custom install of WinXP SP3 for our school district on a HP
6730b notebook. I re-installed XP with our Enterprise copy of XP so that when
Sysprep runs I can put our Enterprise CD-Key in the Sysprep.inf file and that
is taken care of. The only questions during Mini-Setup we have to answer are
accepting the EULA and naming the machine. All other setup questions are
automatically configured via the Sysprep.inf file. I have had no problems
with this scenario until the HP 6730b. I decided to test the setup so I ran
Sysprep and then rebooted. I accepted the EULA then accepted the
auto-generated machine name as it is just a test and then the next thing I
see is that the "The logon User interface DLL
C:\programfiles|HPQ\IAM\bin|OCGINA.DLL failed to Load". I said a quiet
expletive then rebooted and started in safe mode. I discoverd that the drive
letters had gotten swapped around! The Local Disk C: was now D: and the
HP-Tools Fat partition which was D: is now C: !!! This was the first time I
decided to try and leave the HP-Tools partition in tact as I am not sure that
it isn't really needed by the BIOS for some reason. In the past I had
normally blown away HP's backup partitions because we re-image if there is a
major problem rather than use the HP restore methods.

So anyone know what happened here? Why did the drive letters get switched? I
am using Sysprep from a SP2 installation and not a SP3 disk or installation.
Does that have anything to do with it? Is it because the HP-Tools partition
is a FAT partition? Now I am kind of wondering why HP did that, made it a FAT
partition rather than a NTFS. Dell would have these partitons but they were
hidden or only accessible via the F12 key at boot time and never created a
problem. HP's on the other hand is not hidden and shows as a regular active
partition.

How do I get around this? Can I fix the existing 6730b that I started with
or do I have to start over with a fresh one? If I can fix it, how? I tried
Partitionmagic but got nowhere in trying to fix the drive letter assignments.
Any help or education on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jon
 
Did you use your VL Windows XP disc for sysprep?

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

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

I am building a custom install of WinXP SP3 for our school district on a HP
6730b notebook. I re-installed XP with our Enterprise copy of XP so that when
Sysprep runs I can put our Enterprise CD-Key in the Sysprep.inf file and that
is taken care of. The only questions during Mini-Setup we have to answer are
accepting the EULA and naming the machine. All other setup questions are
automatically configured via the Sysprep.inf file. I have had no problems
with this scenario until the HP 6730b. I decided to test the setup so I ran
Sysprep and then rebooted. I accepted the EULA then accepted the
auto-generated machine name as it is just a test and then the next thing I
see is that the "The logon User interface DLL
C:\programfiles|HPQ\IAM\bin|OCGINA.DLL failed to Load". I said a quiet
expletive then rebooted and started in safe mode. I discoverd that the drive
letters had gotten swapped around! The Local Disk C: was now D: and the
HP-Tools Fat partition which was D: is now C: !!! This was the first time I
decided to try and leave the HP-Tools partition in tact as I am not sure that
it isn't really needed by the BIOS for some reason. In the past I had
normally blown away HP's backup partitions because we re-image if there is a
major problem rather than use the HP restore methods.

So anyone know what happened here? Why did the drive letters get switched? I
am using Sysprep from a SP2 installation and not a SP3 disk or installation.
Does that have anything to do with it? Is it because the HP-Tools partition
is a FAT partition? Now I am kind of wondering why HP did that, made it a FAT
partition rather than a NTFS. Dell would have these partitons but they were
hidden or only accessible via the F12 key at boot time and never created a
problem. HP's on the other hand is not hidden and shows as a regular active
partition.

How do I get around this? Can I fix the existing 6730b that I started with
or do I have to start over with a fresh one? If I can fix it, how? I tried
Partitionmagic but got nowhere in trying to fix the drive letter assignments.
Any help or education on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jon
 
I hate answering a question with a question but do you mean did I use the
CD-Key for the Volume License version of XP? Yes I did. That is the point of
my wiping the HP installed version of OEM Windows which would require the
individual Product CD-Keys on each box. The point of using our VL disk to
redo the Windows install is so that when Sysprep runs it will accept the VL
license key during Mini-Setup. Re-imaging just a single CPU would not be a
big deal entering the license key but when we roll out 150 or more CPU's at
in a roll out entering the individual license keys is a large aggrevation. I
am wondering if because HP made the HP-Tools FAT partition active this caused
the problem? On a new 6730b straight from HP C: is NTFS and contains the XP
Partition. The HP-Tools FAT partition is D: and is visible. I am trying to
preserve the HP-Tools partition and replace the or rebuild the C: NTFS XP
partition with a VL copy of XP then zipping it up with Sysprep to then create
the image.

Thanks,
Jon
 
JonK said:
I hate answering a question with a question but do you mean did I use
the
CD-Key for the Volume License version of XP? Yes I did. That is the
point of
my wiping the HP installed version of OEM Windows which would require
the
individual Product CD-Keys on each box. The point of using our VL disk
to
redo the Windows install is so that when Sysprep runs it will accept
the VL
license key during Mini-Setup. Re-imaging just a single CPU would not
be a
big deal entering the license key but when we roll out 150 or more
CPU's at
in a roll out entering the individual license keys is a large
aggrevation. I
am wondering if because HP made the HP-Tools FAT partition active this
caused
the problem? On a new 6730b straight from HP C: is NTFS and contains
the XP
Partition. The HP-Tools FAT partition is D: and is visible. I am
trying to
preserve the HP-Tools partition and replace the or rebuild the C: NTFS
XP
partition with a VL copy of XP then zipping it up with Sysprep to then
create
the image.
Click to expand...

I know this doesn't help with your problem, but on a related note, did
you know that you can preserve the OEM pre-activation during a sysprep
by following
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457078(TechNet.10).aspx ?

Doing this allows you to use the license that comes with the PC (and
potentially save your organization some money), but still not have to
enter the individual keys for each machine.
 
Zaphod,
I will definitely look into this. This sounds like a life saver to me as it
would seriously make creatiing images a lot easier. So yes it does in the end
pertain to my question.

Thanks,
Jon
 
Sorry I don't see a way to edit my post below so I have to reply to myself or
double post.

I have tried the solution given by Zaphod and have discovered that if I
don't get it right on the first pass I run into a situation where "Your grace
period has expired and will not be reset". I researched this in this
Disscussion Group and found that you can't create an image from this machine.
When I try and run the image software I get errors and in fact can not create
an image.

As I see it with the experience I have gained in this trial I am still best
to use our Volume License and re-install from scratch as I have been doing
for years. I really wish there was a way around this but there doesn't seem
to be one.

Thanks for the help,
Jon
 
Jon,

Don't give up yet! Instead of attempting to create an image from the
machine, install from scratch and use the key from the Technet article
to activate it, then supply the same key in the sysprep file so it
auto-activates during the mini-setup.
 
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