Slipstreaming and the "fresh install guide", help!

[AndyKH]

OK, so I've bought a nice 7200 RPM HDD for my R50, and I picked it up this friday, thinking I would have blazingly fast laptop sometime during the weekend. Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way.

I found a copy of the "fresh install guide" mentioned in the sticky in the "wayback machine" at www.archive.org. I followed the guide, but I couldn't find the Windows XP package mentioned anywhere, so I don't know exactly which files it should contain. Instead, I decided to IsoBuster to extract the boot image (named microsoft corporation.img IIRC) from my WinXP CD I bought for me desktop PC some years ago. Unfortunately BCD doesn't recognize this and thus the isos build with BCD aren't bootable.

I then tried to use the manual method described in many slipstreaming guides (involving Nero or other burning programs and setting the various options for making a bootable cd). I succeeded in making a bootable CD, but when it has booted and started the install program it asks for the windows xp professional cd after starting to load the windows executive files from the cd. So something must be wrong. I tried once to insert my retail WinXP pro cd used on my desktop, and it loaded for a few seconds before it asked for the "windows xp professional sp2" cd again. This repeats until I grow tired of switching cds in the drive.

Then I found a package with a small program called "cdimage.exe" developed my microsoft which is a cd premastering program quite like BCD (I think). It created a bootable CD, but it results in the same problem as described above.

As I looked through various slipstreaming guides on the net, I found that some guides state that one should copy all the files from the original winXP cd to the hard disk to be used in the integration process, while other guides state that the i386 directory is enough. As only the i386 directory is accessible to thinkpad owners I came to think if this could in some way be part of the problem as the slipstreamed cd i once made for my desktop works perfectly (when I made this I copied all the files from the winxp cd to the the hard disk – not just the i386 folder). However if that was the case, then people would probably not have any success at all using the fresh install guide.

So I must be doing something wrong, but what?

So here are my questions:

What is actually contained in the package linked to by the fresh install guide / which files do BCD expect to be able to make a bootable cd?
Why doesn’t it work when I try to slipstream sp2 into a copy of the i386 folder from the pre-load partition on my R50s hard disk?

I’m quite desperate as it seems that the slipstream process “should just work” without any hassles, so please dig deep in your collective pool of knowledge and present the solution to me in all its glory .

Thanks in advance
Andreas

[RealBlackStuff]

I've sent numerous people to this website to slipstream xp/sp2
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm
and nobody ever came back with problems, so it must be good.

[AndyKH]

Thanks for the reply

However, the guide tells you to copy the entire content of the original CD to the hard disk before integration with SP2, but thinkpad owners only have the i386. As I write in my original post, this might not be critical, as other slipstreaming guides only tell you to copy the i386 folder, so....?

However, the guide introduces one piece of new information: It tells you to label the cd according to a set of specific rules, and as I didn't do that, it might be what is causing my problems. It is just nok very likely as I IIRC, the last time I slipstreamed a cd for my desktop (where I have the original cd available and thus copied all the files to the hard disk for integration) just named the cd WinXP_SP2 or something like that. But of course I don't know if it is different when working with OEM versions of windows (as I would expect the i386 folder files on thinkpad pre-install to be.

I will, of course try labelling the CD differently when I get home from work, but I would still like other suggestions as to why it is not working.

Thanks
Andreas

[AndyKH]

I found this amazing site http://www.supportpcs.co.uk/ that seems to use the exact same method (look under “windows install cd”) to create a windows install cd as what is presented in the sticky “fresh install guide” in this forum. It also has working links to the wxp10.zip package with the configuration files and images needed to create the bootable cd.

Now that the UCI_MECH’s site is down and the internet archive at www.archive.org is quite jittery and often lacks the images intended to accompany the text, the site mentioned in the first paragraph is really informative and helpful.

I will try it out when I get home from work, but I’m almost certain that it will work. I will keep you posted.

/Andreas