Help with this would really be appreciated.

I amm using winpe to boot up a machine via usb drive, preparing the c: drive or disk 0 then starting a xp unattended install from a network share.

I boot up in winpe and go to disk part and run the following commands.
Select disk 0
clean
Create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c:
active
foramt fs=ntfs quick

then I use a net use command to connect to the server

and then run the i:\XPPro\i386\winnt32.exe /syspart:c: /unattend:i:\XPPro\unattend.txt /s:i:\XPPro\i386

It launches and goes through the inital install, after it runs it comes back to winpe cmd prompt again so I reboot for the next part of the install and this is the error i get.
A disk read error occurred press ctrl+alt+del to restart

I read about mbr issues I have ran the mbrfix /disk 0 fismbr command and I cannot seem to get past this.

any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Might be related to this:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21186



And what about bootsect?:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/bootsectexe-...or-not-the-mbr/

jaclaz

If you are using WinPE 2.1 (Vista PE) to create the partitions and then install Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 onto those partitions, you may need to set the following registry values for disk alignment in the Virtual Disk service in WinPE.

In Windows PE registry, Under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vds\ALIGNMENT
set the following DWord values

LessThan4GB
Between4_8GB
Between8_32GB
GreaterThan32GB

with the value 0

Then perform the diskpart commands to create the partitions.

I will look into the bootsec command.
thank you

But I was also wondering if this could be part of the problem the hard drive is a SATA haddrive if it is unable to kick off the second part of the install maybe becaue of a hard disk driver?

Well if it never boots up to windows for the text mode of the install I guess that wouldn't apply

thanks for anymore suggestions going to try the bootsec command.

I tried this above and came out with the same results.
Thaks for the suggestion.

Set sata to compatability or slipstream the drivers using something like nlite.

But it definatly sounds like the bootsec problem as well.

you have to edit the registry, after that you must format via diskpart.
use bootsect /nt52 and install xp via commandline

see my thread here

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...st&p=670014

Thank you so much for this. I have been bashing my head against the desk all week trying to resolve exactly this issue.

Im also getting boot problems with windows xp using imagex and win pe.

I can image a windows xp installation, boot with win pe, setup the hard disk and apply the image.
Windows XP boots great and is all set nicely, can get windows on a pc with all updates etc in about 20 to 30mins including the time to formate the disk.

BUT

whenever i try to image windows xp after installing applications it images ok, setup the disk as before and apply it all looks good no errors all runs smoothly but when it come to reboot to run xp, it does not boot just shows blank black screen no error messages or anything with no disk activity.
if i re run win pe look at me c: everything is there and all looks good

Try capturing images that are sysprepped or in Audit mode.