winnt.sif to partition

[celtic_tiger]

Salut Ladies and gentlemen

I expect you will see a torrent of questions from me over the next month or two as I am planning to take the xp client 70-270 exam.

Tonight I am wrestling with winnt.sif to perform an unattended install using the xp cd and including a floppy with winnt.sif on the root a:\

I want to however specify a specific partition to install xp with the answer file to as I have a partition set up specifically for lab work and i dont want to overwrite the version of xp I am using now. I have checked with the books but they tend to skim over the unattend using the cd. I dont see any way I can do this within setup manager so I presume its a command line thing.

Anyone?

[Claymoore]

Don't bother. Spend your time learning something besides winnt.sif on a floppy drive. Walk around your office and start counting floppy drives and you'll understand why.

You would be better off learning how to sysprep images and work with imagex and Windows Deployment Services because those skills will roll forward to Vista and the server tests.

[celtic_tiger]

Oh I intend to. This time I am going to perform all these excercises on my lab PC's. I just wanted to get the easier excercises out of the way first and I dont like moving on with something while I still have questions and doubts about it. Im guess one cannot perform an unattended installation to a specific partition.

[CncrMnkyFF]

Like our senior member said don't stress this excercise too much. It is almost obsolete. Like you, however, I like to do all of the excercises to ensure I got the basics covered. Therefore to answer your question:

You have to understand how a answer file is compiled. Of the four main parts of the bootstrap section; The first section of the answer file, the bootstrap, includes a provision to avoid overwriting a current installation of windows with a newer installation: Autopartition!!!

Here is a good set of values if you want to avoid overwriting:
Here are the settings I used for my sim before the "big test" 70-270: (lol -- 270 is comprehensive; but 291--- wow):

[Data]
Autopartition = 1
MsDosInitiated = 0
UnattendedInstall = Yes
AutomaticUpdates = Yes

[Mishra]

Learning what the .sif file is a good thing to know.

Look up nlite and play around with that as it can greatly help you in making this process much more simple.

[gravyjoe]

To my knowledge, doing an unattended installation with winnt.sif can only be done with one partition. In other words, it'll only allow you to have (and format) one full partition on the hard disk. Therefore, you cannot have any other partitions on the hard disk itself. Can someone confirm this for me?