Sysprep'd Image Hangs when Deploying on Certain Hardware

[Guest]

I currently have a sysprep'd Vista image sealed using sysprep /generalize
/oobe /unattend:myfile.xml

This image works fine if I deploy it onto Dell Latitude D820 (reference
system it was built from), IBM Thinkpad G41, and IBM Thinkpad T60.

When deploying to a Thinkpad T40 and T42 it simply hangs when booting.

Enabling boot logging doesn't generate a log.

Booting into Safe mode shows it loads all the drivers apparently as
crcdisk.sys is the last loaded driver.

I can install Vista manually on the T40 and T42 and it installs fine.

Does anyone have any ideas what would cause this? I recognize the T40 and
T42 aren't "Vista Ceritfied" machines, but nor is the G41 and T60 and they
work.

 

[Mike Lewis \(MS\)]

Some IBM macines had a conflicting c:\minint directory on the disk. Not
sure if this results in a hang or just the deploy process stops. SATA
drivers and click during diskpart runing at deploy time are other things to
try/look at.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply Mike.

Some clarification I should put here: The hard drives I'm restoring the
images to have been wiped with diskpart prior to restoring the image. IE: I'm
working from a completely clean slate.

The partition structure is the same on all the systems mentioned. I've
encountered no click (defective HD I presume?) during diskpart, and disks
check out clean with SMART tests and chkdsk. My working machines of the D820
is SATA, the T60 is SATA but is running in "Compatibility Mode" (IDE
Emulation it appears), and the G41 is not SATA so I think we can rule out
SATA Drivers and bad hardware here.

Steps to deploy image onto the T40 and T42 are the exact same being used on
the working hardware.

Any other ideas?

 

[Michael Niehaus [MSFT]]

How are you deploying the image? Using SETUP, or using ImageX?

-Michael

 

[Guest]

ImageX

I can post exact specifics of details but here's overall how I'm deploying
on every model and in every scenario. This is done using standardized
steps/automated batch files so it doesn't deviate at all between models.

Diskpart to format partition 1 (size is 15 gigs)
Partition 2 is remaining space on the HD and contains the images
Imagex /apply image.wim C:
Restore/setup appropriate BCD code using a bcdedit /import command
wpeutil reboot

This is done from a Windows PE boot CD for my manual testing here, or in the
event of the actual deployed setup a Windows PE Boot partition which is the
2nd partition referenced above.

 

[Guest]

Quick addition to the below:

After the bcdedit /import file.bcd is run
I then use bcdedit to set the bootable partition via the GUID and the os
root and the like. The BCDEdit process is not causing a problem here as I can
successfully boot on all systems. The hang occurs after the Boot Manager menu
and before the green status bar Vista loading splash comes up

 

[Mike Lewis \(MS BDD\)]

Does your imported BCD file have the detecthal switch set? Where did your
bcd file come from?

 

[Guest]

Mike,

I was missing detecthal yes for the Vista entry and this seems to have fixed
it - thank you!

The BCD file was built and derived from examples provided in the BDD 2007
documentation. I don't recall ever seeing anything regarding the detecthal
switch mentioned anywhere.

Thanks Mike and Michael for your assistance - seems good so far (worked on
the T42 so far... need to get my hands on the T41 and T40 to test again)

 

[Mike Lewis \(MS BDD\)]

This is handled automatically with Setup and SMS, so BDD does not adress
that switch in normal usage scenarios. One reason we use Setup rather than
ImageX directly to apply images for Vista. SMS has a much larger dev and
test team and can write to the APIs, for our scope, for our team, Setup.exe
is the better choice when not using SMS.

 

[Guest]

I have BDD and wds setupup. OS,build,dp and drivers have been instaled. I am
working with a Dell Optiplex 320. The process runs as it should until the
first reboot and then it gets stuck on crcdisk.sys.