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Sysprep.inf entry

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by f_somers 1 view

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Hi!
We are busy designing a W2K Pro unattended installation using sysprep v1.1 and DriveImage. we are creating the image on a IDE pc and intend to rollout to IDE and SCSI pc. The image works great on an IDE pc, but on the SCSI pc we get a blue screen with BOOT_DEVICE_INACCESSIBLE error. I know that this means the boot loader cannot read the disk, but we have followed all the guides / white papers etc. and cannot find any mistakes. When checking the sysprep.inf file AFTER running sysprep, I found and entry called [SysprepClean] which was added after the fact by sysprep. Does anybody know what this entry does?

7 replies

by rlardinois

That entry most likely has options for the point in time when sysprep erases itself off the destination drive after the Mini-setup wizard completes. If you need to rollout to PCs with different hard drive technologies, I believe you need to look for a utility called syspart instead of sysprep.

--Ryan

by nunya bidnez

You do *not* need to use syspart. Syspart is a parameter for unattended installations. What you *do* need to do is one of two things: either download the latest version of sysprep, which allows you to install on different HALs (Hardware abstraction layers, which is the problem here- IDE and SCSI have different HALs), or you need to create one image for the IDE machines and one for the SCSI machines, thereby creating images with different HALs.

by f_somers

I am using ver. 1.1 which to my knowledge is the latest version of sysprep. And as such I follow the instructions for including different mass storage controlers in the image for distribution to a different platform.
Thanks

by nunya bidnez

There is a difference between mass storage devices and HALs. Your machines likely have not only different mass storage devices, but different HALs. As such, you'll need to load a separate HAL for the SCSI machines. (During a manual install, you would normally press F6 early in the installation process to load an alternate HAL).

by f_somers

OK.
To my knowledge the HAL is the same, the only discernable difference I have seen is the possiblity that the systems have different ACPI settings, which again calls a different HAL during setup (hal.dll vs. halacpi.dll). I realize that it's not possible for am image to be restored to a system with a different HAL, but I just don't understand the error message BOOT_DEVICE_INACCESSIBLE at the BSOD. I figure it's got to have something to do with the mass storage controler.
So, thanks for the suggestions, and I will keep testing.

FS

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