Funny Windows XP Pro Installation Experience
I bought a new Dell Dimension 9100 computer last week with Windows XP Home. As an IT person, Windows XP Home edition is obviously not powerful enough for me. Luckily, I have an MSDN Universal subscription, so I planned to install Windows XP Professional for the new box.
The first work to do was to create unattended installation. Why unattended? Because my new box comes without a floppy disk, but it comes with SATA hard drives. You know, I cannot press [F6] during text step mode without a floppy.
I originally tried to create the unattended answer file and the custom setup CD by myself. That is, to download the SATA controller driver, then to create a new folder in the setup CD named $OEM$ (in the same folder as i386 in). And then I created a sub-folder named Drivers in $OEM$ and created a sub-folder named 01 in Drivers. Then I put the driver files in the folder named 01. Well, this is not what I want to say. Actually I don't need to do this because another MVP gave me a link to a Microsoft KB article. There I can download the standard SCSI controller driver (which can be used for my SATA drive controller).
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318812
I thought I was all set at this time, so I started the installation:
C:\> M:
(M:\xpcd is the folder my setup files in.)
M:\>cd xpcd
M:\ xpcd> cd i386
M:\ xpcd \ i386> winnt32.exe /unattend:unattend.txt
(I've copied the unattend.txt file to i386 folder.)
Everything went well for the text mode setup, then, I got into the graphical based setup.
The processing bar stopped at the 34-minutes-left status. I waited there for a long time (approx. half an hour), it then popped up a new window mentioned the IEEE 1394 Controller didn't pass the Windows Logo Testing. Normally I should either click OK here to install the driver or click NO here not to install the driver. However, I couldn't do either one. The mouse and keyboard stopped responds at this time. I tried to re-boot with different keyboards and mouses, but I got same result. I guess if I use PS2 keyboard or mouse there wouldn't be this problem because I think the driver for the USB controller was temporarily unloaded at that time. However I don't have a PS2 interface on my box.
Then, the only idea I had was to add a line to the unattend.txt file to ignore or allow all unsigned drivers. I searched the KB with my laptop and found this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293765
But, it was late. I created a new unattend.txt with ignoring all unsigned drivers, and then started a new setup. I finished the setup successfully.
The significance of this post is to remind people to mention what to do with the unsigned drivers during setup in the unattend.txt answer file. Note if your UnattendMode is set to fullunattended, you don't have to do anything specially with unsigned drivers.