HELP! SYSPREP keeps changing my drive letters!!!

[Graham Payton]

Hi All


I am trying to make a standard image of my Dell Optiplex PCs so I can roll
out XP, and more importantly re-install one easily if I need to.

I have got everything set up nicely and run Set Up Manager that comes with
Sysprep to create my setup file. Then run Sysprep reseal for the users.

The problem is that when it starts up again it has swapped round my drive
letters for D: and E: which means that the software then won't work
properly.

My set up is as follows:

Drive C: <No Volume Label> - Primary Partition for Windows XP set as active
Drive D: <Pagefile> - Primary Partition that holds my pagefile.
Drive E: <Apps & Data> - Logical drive in an extended partition that holds
all my apps software.

I am using Norton Ghost to make the images and originally thought it was
that. But then rather than re-installing the image on the PC I just let it
boot up again, after the initial Sysprep, and it still happened.

Does anyone have any ideas???

If all I had to do after install was change the drive letters I wouldn't
mind, but with the pagefile origianlly being on D: Windows has a bit of a
fit and needs to be rebooted about 5 times whilst making the changes to set
it back to normal.


Thanks in advance


Graham

 

[Mike Kolitz]

Graham,
I'm assuming that all of these partitions are on the same physical drive,
correct?

If so, you're doing yourself more harm than good with putting your swap-file
into a separate partition. By moving it onto another partition, rather than
another physical drive, you're just making the drive head travel more and
more often to do the same amount of work. If you moved it to a different
physical drive, then you would more than likely experience a performance
increase.

If you're going to have one physical drive, you're better off leaving the
pagefile where it is.

However, I believe you can rid yourself of your drive letter problems if you
set your drive partitions up this way:

Primary Partition:
Drive C:

Extended Partition:
Logical Drive D: (which I recommend you get rid of)
Logical Drive E:


--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

Remember to check Windows Update often,
and apply the patches marked as Critical!
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect

 

[Graham Payton]

Hi Mike


Thanks for you reply.

I totally understand what you are saying about a second drive making
performance better. I used the extra partition because I didn't want the
pagefile to become fragmented in any way.

I remember this happening years ago on NT4 systems I worked on. Don't know
if it is still possible on XP, but that's the idea behind me doing it
anyway.

I understand what your saying as well about putting it all into the extended
partition too. The thought never crossed my mind. Suppose it is the "Can't
see the woods for the trees!" theory )

I have also found an error on the symantec website about Norton Ghost
causing these issues. It doesn't list Ghost 8 as having them so I have
purchased a new version and will try it this afternoon.

I will post results here. Plus I have also got to make some more images for
other sets of PCs, and will make all them with the 2 partitions on the
Extended partition.


Many Thanks for your input


Graham

 

[Graham Payton]

OK

I have tried using Norton Ghost 8 and the same problems still occur.

So I then tried using some switches which Norton recommend to stop the disk
signatures from being changed. Still get drives D and E swapping round.

It does come up with found new hardware after the system reboots from the
sysprep, so I am wondering if I run it with the plug and play option
switched off will this help?

I am trying Mikes' suggestion of having D and E all on the extended
partition as well. I will post the results of all this tomorrow.

In the meantime if anyone else has any ideas then please feel free to chip
in.


Thanks


Graham

Hi Mike


Thanks for you reply.

I totally understand what you are saying about a second drive making
performance better. I used the extra partition because I didn't want the
pagefile to become fragmented in any way.

I remember this happening years ago on NT4 systems I worked on. Don't know
if it is still possible on XP, but that's the idea behind me doing it
anyway.

I understand what your saying as well about putting it all into the extended
partition too. The thought never crossed my mind. Suppose it is the "Can't
see the woods for the trees!" theory )

I have also found an error on the symantec website about Norton Ghost
causing these issues. It doesn't list Ghost 8 as having them so I have
purchased a new version and will try it this afternoon.

I will post results here. Plus I have also got to make some more images for
other sets of PCs, and will make all them with the 2 partitions on the
Extended partition.


Many Thanks for your input


Graham

Graham,
I'm assuming that all of these partitions are on the same physical drive,
correct?

If so, you're doing yourself more harm than good with putting your swap-file
into a separate partition. By moving it onto another partition, rather than
another physical drive, you're just making the drive head travel more and
more often to do the same amount of work. If you moved it to a different
physical drive, then you would more than likely experience a performance
increase.

If you're going to have one physical drive, you're better off leaving the
pagefile where it is.

However, I believe you can rid yourself of your drive letter problems if you
set your drive partitions up this way:

Primary Partition:
Drive C:

Extended Partition:
Logical Drive D: (which I recommend you get rid of)
Logical Drive E:


--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

Remember to check Windows Update often,
and apply the patches marked as Critical!
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect


let
it

of

a

fit and needs to be rebooted about 5 times whilst making the changes

to
set

it back to normal.


Thanks in advance


Graham

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- fake,

as
I am fed up with all the spam I get, about 300 a day, after accidentally
posting on a newsgroup with my correct address (

 

[Gordon Fecyk]

Drive D: <Pagefile> - Primary Partition that holds my pagefile.
Drive E: <Apps & Data> - Logical drive in an extended partition that holds
all my apps software.

I understand wanting to move the pagefile to another volume to keep it
unfragmented. I did this. I don't quite understand why you'd want to store
all the applications and stuff on another volume though, especially since
you're not benefitting from the default security ACLs on the root of C, on
Program Files and on Documents and Settings.

But if you're doing this for other reasons, what happens if you use one
primary partition and have two logical drives on the extended partition?
You can switch this around with Ghost by restoring partitions within an
image to specific partitions, rather than restoring the complete image.

DOS used to be funny about the ordering of drive letters depending on what
partitions were where (primary vs logical) and most DOS-formatted hard
drives had but one primary partition only, with logical drives following,
but the ordering of the logical drives would at least be sequential (D, E, F
etc). For example:

Drive 1 Drive 2
==================
Pri (C) Pri (D)
Ext Ext
Log1(E) Log1(H)
Log2(F) Log2(I)
Log3(G) Log3(J)

I don't know the behaviour caused by having multiple primary partitions,
though I do recall the limit was four in total (hence the "Extended
Partition" was invented). It could be that XP's defaulting to the DOS
ordering scheme when you first boot up a sysprepped installation, or it
could have its own unique ordering scheme. I don't recall seeing
documentation on it. And does XP Home support dynamic partitioning like XP
Pro and Win2K do?

My own image has one primary partition and one logical drive on the extended
partition (My pagefile). The machines I'm installing this on support large
drives in the BIOS (or I get a firmware update for it so it can).
Everything's going to want to install to whatever %programfiles% points to,
so I don't bother fighting it. It only takes me one reboot to move the
pagefile to the logical drive.

I would like to know if it's possible to programatically change the virtual
memory settings, but it's not critical.

 

[Graham Payton]

Right I now used the theory of D and E in the one extended partition and
this worked fine.

So problem solved.

Yippee )

 

[Graham Payton]

Hi Gordon


Thanks for the reply.

I finally solved this by putting D and E in the same extended partition.

I use another partition for the apps after a long time ago one of my users
filled up the system partition on a WIndows NT 4 PC and it caused me no end
of agro to fix the thing. I also had the same trouble with an NT 4 server
as well.

Just a habit I have gotten into really. No other reason than that.


Cheers


Graham