Hi John I've got my hard drive patitioned off into three drives. One is for Xp plus apps. The second is for personal documents and the biggest partition is for music and videos. I first created a folder on the largest partition and within that folder I had 3 sub folders.One contained a copy of the original XP cd. Another contained windows updates and hot fixes. The third contained the driver files. This is the folder I pointed n lite to when it asked for drivers. It doesn't really matter where you put the drivers or updates or even the Xp source files. you just need to tell n lite where they are and it takes care of the rest. Of course when you go through the wizard in n lite and remove certain components they are actually removed from the folder where you copied the original XP cd files. I think it takes up about 552 MB. But if you remove all languages except English, you can trim off 50 or 60 MB. You can of course trim off more as it allows you to tweak the installation in quite a detailed manner. As far as I know you can create an ANSI file which incorporates drivers and hot fixes, but of course you need to know how to write this file correctly. I once had the same problem where two copies of the operating system had been installed. This is why you have to make sure you either format the C partition or the entire drive before you start. Not easy to do with no sight. Here are a few links that you may find useful. http://www.hytekcomputer.com/Articles/XPInstall/1.shtml http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Customizing-Unattended-S... http://www.bootdisk.com/ Darren. ----- Original Message ----- From: "john coley" <johncoley@blueyonder.co.uk> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 1:59 PM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] unattended xp using NLite with jaws
Hi Darren, I've had similar experience with driver update programs. You can't necessarily be sure that the driver it updates is going to work wel. When I ran NLite I first backed up all the drivers on my system, all of which were working well and backed them up to a folder, then told NLite where the folder was. I'd put it in my documents, which occurred to me afterwards may have been the wrong place. When you did yours where did you tell NLite to look for the drivers? I've never tried doing an install using an answer file. Although I have a floppy drive it seemed to me, having read the guide that NLite would be more straitforward, and I don't know if you can incorporate drivers doing it that way. I've had partial success with NLite, but have always had to have a sighted friend install my drivers afterwards. Another drawback has been that, because the partition isn't wiped before xp installs I end up with multiple installations. I've often thought that if only I could find someone prepared to make me a fully functional xp install with all drivers incorporated into it I'd willingly pay them to do it. The problem is does such a person or company exist? If you ever hear of one let me know. Hope your day's going well, John.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Darren Brewer" <darren.m.brewer@blueyonder.co.uk> To: "Blind sysadmins list" <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Saturday, April 12, 2008 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] unattended xp using NLite with jaws
Hi John
I tried using n lite a couple of months back to perform an unattended installation of XP, and also had problems with integrating drivers into the setup.
Initially I added drivers for graphics, sound and networking, but when that failed I just tried including the graphics driver.
The installation seemed to go ok until it got to the final reboot. The windows logo came up as usual and then just before it entered windows the computer reset. I couldn't fix the problem as everytime it tried going into windows it would just follow the same pattern and restart.
For some reason it didn't like the graphics driver. But I cannot understand why as it was the correct driver. I use a program called driver magician which will search for all your windows and non windows drivers and then back them up to a folder of your choice.
I did eventually manage to get windows installed but used the original XP cd. This was tricky as the screens are very difficult to read having only a bit of residual vision.
I have previously performed an unattended installation by making a win nt.sif file and copying that onto a floppy. Since then I have bought a new computer and it does not have a floppy drive so this method wasn't possible. I do however wonder if it can be done by copying the win nt.sif file onto a pen drive rather than a floppy disk? Something I might try at some stage.
As far as formatting the hard drive goes. I don't think there are any options to allow you to determine how the hard drive is partitioned and formatted.
What I usually do is to just format the entire drive and then use disk director to re partition the drive manually.
Maybe others have had more luck with n lite?
Darren.
----- Original Message ----- From: "john coley" <johncoley@blueyonder.co.uk> To: <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Sent: Monday, April 07, 2008 9:47 AM Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] unattended xp using NLite with jaws
Hi everybody, I'm new to the list so don't know if this has been covered previously. Has anyone on the list had success creating an unattended xp cd incorporating drivers using NLite? I've tried numerous times but still haven't managed it, even given some sighted assistance. The two areas it's failed on are formatting and driver integration. As far as formating the partition goes I can't find the option, and as far as driver integration goes although I checked the box for driver inclusion, and told NLite where the folder with the drivers was it wouldn't seem to have incorporated them in the cd. If anyone knows of a more successful way of making a fully functional unattended xp installation cd let me know. John.
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