T60 - Fresh install of XP

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serpico · #1 Post by **serpico** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:23 pm

Not to unnecessarily cross-post, I'll just link to my post in the Windows OS forum with my question regarding whether any modification to the fresh install guide is needed for T60s:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 231#141231

meanestfish · #2 Post by **meanestfish** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 3:28 pm

I always jump into the IBMWORK directory during the sysprep stage and delete all of the irritating applications like Norton AV to prevent their installation. Since the T60 is loaded down with so much crap that half the task bar was occupied by systray icons, an immediate flatten/reinstall was necessary.

Have you found yourself able to make recovery disks? Mine does a fatal error even after a complete factory reset.

serpico · #3 Post by **serpico** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 7:48 pm

Did a fresh install of XP on my T60 and thought I'd give a quick summary of my experience to help out others who are considering the fresh install.

My install was guided by:
1. UCI_MECH's excellent guide (http://www.4saad.com/WhatsNew/Fresh_XP_ ... /index.htm - see the sticky in Windows OS forum for long thread on this guide)
2. Thinkpad T60 Series Service and Troubleshooting Guide (comes with your T60(p)), Ch. 5 Installing a New OS, Installing XP, Alternative Procedure if you don’t have diskette drive - see this for info on disabling core multi-processing, switching SATA to compatability mode, and installing Intel Matrix Storage Mgr driver

Some notes:
1. I kept the hidden IBM partition, since I've got a 100gb hdd. May delete it later.

2. I also made recovery disks (1cd + 1dvd).

3. Run Intel Chipset Support 5 in Step 13 of the Fresh_XP_Install guide (see my post in the long thread discussing the guide - http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 231#141231)

4. Boot time after initial Windows setup (which you have to do when first turning on the laptop) was 90 seconds with 72 processes running. After XP clean install, installing drivers, mandatory Windows update modules, Avast antivirus, and ZoneAlarm, boot time was 48 seconds with 47 processes running. After adding in Windows updates and Mozilla Firefox, boot time was 60 seconds.

5. When I checked device mgr, there is an unknown device. Figured this was the sound card. When I tried to install Lenovo audio drivers, received the error "HDA Audio bus driver is required and not found" that is documented in the Z60 forum (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=19495). Searched the web for a bit and found the KB888111 hotfix at this site: http://www.thehotfix.net/kb/KB888111.htm. Once the hotfix is installed, the audio drivers can be installed. After the audio driver is installed, Windows finds the modem. I installed the modem driver from the Drivers\Modem folder. All devices now happily installed.

6. Lastly, in terms of tweaking the XP install and installing other apps, the TweakHound site is useful - http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/installxp/installXP1.htm

donking! · #4 Post by **donking!** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:01 am

A couple questions about this process.

1) meanestfish, could you elaborate on how you do your technique? How does one jump into the IBMWORK directory the way you describe (in the middle of the sysprep)? Which applications do you delete?

2) If I do this following serpico's method, will all the extra programs still be available, if I want them, in the IBMTOOLS file that I backup?

3) What are the programs that don't get installed in the with the clean install method? Some of them I know I don't want (like all the Norton crap--I hate Norton programs, they are truly bloated). But others, I don't even know if I want them or what they are. I particularly want to get rid of things that are startup processes. That stuff is annoying. But I'm not so worried about programs that are just taking up hard drive space.

Thanks for any further thoughts and elaboration on this.

serpico · #5 Post by **serpico** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:25 am

I was able to keep all the IBM programs. I really didn't want to keep anything that wasn't IBM since I have my own preferences for antivirus, etc.

If you're only concerned about minimizing startup processes, check out the TweakHound site I referenced in the earlier post.

donking! · #6 Post by **donking!** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:45 am

What's the advantage, then, of the clean install, over disabling startup processes following the TweakHound suggestions and just uninstalling the Symantec stuff and whatever else one doesn't want?

serpico · #7 Post by **serpico** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:54 am

The advantage is that you have a clean registry. I.e., uninstalling a program may not undo changes in the registry. Of course you can use a registry cleaner.

I think mostly it's the peace of mind that comes from starting from scratch and installing only what you want on the machine (this also means doing custom installations of applications as opposed to "full" or "typical"). That being said, let's face it, a clean install is a big time suck. Glad I did it, but not interested in doing it again for at least a couple of years.

donking! · #8 Post by **donking!** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 6:09 am

Thanks for the clarifications. I am a sucker for the peace of mind "clean" install idea.

astro · #9 Post by **astro** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 7:33 am

I think "reformat & reinstall" is something that hangs on from the Win9x days. I still find myself fighting the occasional urge to R&R my WinXP desktop, and have so far been successful for the last 3 years. I used to reinstall '98 every 6 months. You get really efficient at it after a while.

The XP install has definitely clogged up a bit in that time, but not enough that I want to a reinstall again.

Remember when Bill G first introduced XP? It booted in under 30 secs (or something) on a Pentium II. No reason it can't do that now, it just has to be fresh...

donking! · #10 Post by **donking!** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 8:46 pm

serpico wrote:2. Thinkpad T60 Series Service and Troubleshooting Guide (comes with your T60(p)), Ch. 5 Installing a New OS, Installing XP, Alternative Procedure if you don’t have diskette drive - see this for info on disabling core multi-processing, switching SATA to compatability mode, and installing Intel Matrix Storage Mgr driver

Why would you want to disable core multi-processing?

serpico · #11 Post by **serpico** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:00 pm

donking! wrote:
serpico wrote:2. Thinkpad T60 Series Service and Troubleshooting Guide (comes with your T60(p)), Ch. 5 Installing a New OS, Installing XP, Alternative Procedure if you don’t have diskette drive - see this for info on disabling core multi-processing, switching SATA to compatability mode, and installing Intel Matrix Storage Mgr driver
Why would you want to disable core multi-processing?

According to the manual, this should be disabled for the Win XP install (something to do with SP1). You can re-enable after installing XP.

wpwood3 · #12 Post by **wpwood3** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 10:34 pm

serpico wrote:According to the manual, this should be disabled for the Win XP install (something to do with SP1). You can re-enable after installing XP.

If you have WinXP with SP-2 integrated or slipstreamed you don't have to do it. I did a clean load of WinXP SP-2 without disabling multi-core.

donking! · #13 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:01 am

I'm having trouble with UCI_MECH's guide. When I get to the step for integrating the SP2 file with the I386 file from my T60, it fails. I get a window saying the integration didn't work.

serpico · #14 Post by **serpico** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:14 am

donking! wrote:I'm having trouble with UCI_MECH's guide. When I get to the step for integrating the SP2 file with the I386 file from my T60, it fails. It looks like UCI_MECH's guide was intended for people who don't come with SP2 preloaded on their notebooks. serpico, how did you get around this? Did you have this problem?

UCI_MECH's guide works for SP2. I had no problems with the integration. You may wish to double-check that all the required files and folders are put in the exact places that the guide specifies. Also make sure that the integration command is entered exactly as the guide instructs.

donking! · #15 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:25 am

Thanks serpico. I tried all those things. Still no dice.

I get a message saying:

Failed to copy some or all of the files necessary for integrated install.

Please check that:
a) No network or copy errors occurred during the integration process
b) The format of the destination directory is correct.
The files to be integrated must reside in an i386 and/or ia64 or nec98 directory
(i.e. for an i386 share, if you typed "update /s:c:\cdshare", the files must be in the c:\cdshare\i386 directory

RaysMD · #16 Post by **RaysMD** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:28 am

why are you guys trying to integrate SP2 to the I386 folder on your T60?

It already has SP2 on it.

bg4533 · #17 Post by **bg4533** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:32 am

donking! wrote:I'm having trouble with UCI_MECH's guide. When I get to the step for integrating the SP2 file with the I386 file from my T60, it fails. I get a window saying the integration didn't work.

I used this method and it worked for my T60 without disabling dual core.
A few notes:
-You need to follow the instructions to add SP2 even though it is already there. I don't know why but it seems you need to...
-You need to burn to a CD-R. I tried a DVD-R and it failed
-Make sure you have all of your path names correct

donking! · #18 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:35 am

RaysMD wrote:why are you guys trying to integrate SP2 to the I386 folder on your T60?

It already has SP2 on it.

The guide says you have to. There's some particular file that's copied over that's not there otherwise and it won't work. (Not that it's currently working for me anyway.)

serpico · #19 Post by **serpico** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:40 am

RaysMD wrote:why are you guys trying to integrate SP2 to the I386 folder on your T60?

It already has SP2 on it.

Regarding integrating SP2 - quoted from UCI_MECH's guide:
Important Note: You must do this step even if your computer came preloaded with SP2. This step is crucial to create a file called win51ip.SP2 which prevents the install CD from asking you to insert the SP2 update CD during the installation.

You raise a good point though. If donking happens to have an SP2 update CD, he may be able to skip the integration step.

donking, did you modify the i386 folder at all prior to integrating?

donking! · #20 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:55 am

I got it to work! Phew.

No, I didn't do anything to the i386 folder, the first time around.

To get it to work, I deleted everything I had done from the guide. Rebooted the computer. And started over from the beginning, re-downloading everything, including the big SP2 file. Then it worked fine.

I had double checked my paths before, several times, so I don't think that was the problem. When I first downloaded the big SP2 file, it was going really slow and I left it running while I went out. So maybe something funny happened there. Also, some of the other files, the first time through, had trouble unzipping properly because either windows automated unzip feature or explorer was messing up. So maybe one of those were messed up in the original download or unzipping. The second time around I downloaded the files first and then extracted them using the extraction feature in the context menu.

Thanks for the thoughts and help serpico.

RaysMD · #21 Post by **RaysMD** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 1:57 am

I just did this the other day.

Here are my steps. This is a brief overview.

1. download nlite from nliteos.com. This little utility lets to integrate drivers etc. It's complicated so you might want to skip this for now and come back to it once you've read up a little on #2.

2. Go to this website for an overview of the directory structure.
http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/1/

3. As long as your I386 folder is untouched with the unattend.txt file intact then you're still fine. There's a key in the unattend.txt file that is very important. It let's you install windows without using a CD key. It generates one for you. Make a copy of the unattend.txt file and rename it to WINNT.SIF. Also, make some changes to that file once you have read up on the unattended.msfn.org website. The cd-key is the "key." Do not lose it.

4. There are 4 necessary files and the I386 folder on the root of the windows install CD. You can get these files from another copy of Windows SP2 or just make them yourselves. These are more or less identifier files. If you do decide to make your own file, then make sure there is no extension in the name of the file, i.e, *.txt

I386 Folder (untouched)
WIN51 (file with the word "Windows")
WIN51IP (file with the word "Windows")
WIN51IP.SP1 (blank file)
WIN51IP.SP2 (blank file)

5. This is probably where you are having some problems. once you have created the bootable CD. You find out that it won't find your hard drive. Well it's because the T60 comes with an SATA hard drive and the windows install cd won't know what to do with it. That's where the program nlite comes into play. There a section on how to "slipstream" or integrate the SATA drivers to your install CD.

hope that helps. step 5 will be a little difficult.

BTW, obtaining the oem cd-key from unattend.txt was brought up in 6/2004, but I don't think many people know about it. If you rename the unattend.txt file to WINNT.SIF, then you won't even have to enter the key during the install. it's entered automatically.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=1009 (last post by me in 6/2004).

[EDIT] now that I've read this entire thread, I see that some of you guys were able to do a clean install (I hope you mean by booting up the CD from the start) without integrating the SATA drivers. If so, then skip step 5. I just hate pressing F6 for drivers.[/EDIT]

donking! · #22 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:02 am

If I don't want to delete the hidden partition, do I need to go through the step of disable the predesktop area?

Oh, man, and wait, I have to have floppy drive to do the Intel Matrix Storage Manager thing?

donking! · #23 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:17 am

RaysMD, can you tell me which are the drivers I need to select in nLite, for the SATA to work? Also, do I want them to be in textmode or PNP? Thanks.

[Edit: I answered my own question through semi-blind guessing. It's the ICH7CORE.INF driver file (found in C:\DRIVERS\OTHER), as a textmode driver (when nLite prompts for this).

Hey that nLite is pretty cool and not too hard (what I understood of it). It's great to be able to configure Windows the way I want it before I even install.

Curiously when I boot from the install cd, it sees the Predesktop partition, even though I did not disable the Predesktop in the BIOS.

Now to do the install and see if it works.]

serpico · #24 Post by **serpico** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 10:56 am

donking! wrote:If I don't want to delete the hidden partition, do I need to go through the step of disable the predesktop area?

Oh, man, and wait, I have to have floppy drive to do the Intel Matrix Storage Manager thing?

No, the booklet has an alternative procedure if you don't have a floppy drive, which is what I followed.

RaysMD wrote: [EDIT] now that I've read this entire thread, I see that some of you guys were able to do a clean install (I hope you mean by booting up the CD from the start) without integrating the SATA drivers. If so, then skip step 5. I just hate pressing F6 for drivers.[/EDIT]

You can do the clean install w/o integrating the SATA drivers - pls see my post earlier in the thread re: the Service Guide booklet that comes with the laptop. Basically this involves disabling AHCI, installing Intel Matrix Storage Mgr drivers and re-enabling AHCI. And yes, by clean install I mean booting from CD, formatting drive and installing new OS.

wpwood3 · #25 Post by **wpwood3** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 12:25 pm

serpico wrote:
RaysMD wrote:why are you guys trying to integrate SP2 to the I386 folder on your T60?

It already has SP2 on it.
Regarding integrating SP2 - quoted from UCI_MECH's guide:
Important Note: You must do this step even if your computer came preloaded with SP2. This step is crucial to create a file called win51ip.SP2 which prevents the install CD from asking you to insert the SP2 update CD during the installation.

You raise a good point though. If donking happens to have an SP2 update CD, he may be able to skip the integration step.

You DO NOT need to integrate SP-2. It is already there! Simply create a blank file and name it win51ip.SP2. That's all I did and everything worked fine.

Key points I learned:

1) You do not have to disable duo core processing because you are loading WinXP SP-2 and not SP-1. (unless you don't have a floppy for the SATA drivers)
2) It's nice to have a USB floppy to load the SATA drivers by hitting F6 when you begin the install.
3) The ATI Catalyst control program will not run unless you have .NET installed first.
4) The audio requires the UAA High Definition driver before it will work.

serpico · #26 Post by **serpico** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:03 pm

wpwood3 wrote:You DO NOT need to integrate SP-2. It is already there! Simply create a blank file and name it win51ip.SP2. That's all I did and everything worked fine.

Key points I learned:

1) You do not have to disable duo core processing because you are loading WinXP SP-2 and not SP-1. (unless you don't have a floppy for the SATA drivers)
2) It's nice to have a USB floppy to load the SATA drivers by hitting F6 when you begin the install.
3) The ATI Catalyst control program will not run unless you have .NET installed first.
4) The audio requires the UAA High Definition driver before it will work.

Good tip on skipping the integration of SP2; that will save time. Presumably the bootable CD you are creating is identical to the CD that would be created if you follow the integration steps.

Can you skip disabling core multi-processing if loading XP2, BUT you do NOT have a floppy for SATA drivers?

donking! · #27 Post by **donking!** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 4:46 pm

wpwood3 wrote:4) The audio requires the UAA High Definition driver before it will work.

Is this something different from serpico's step 5. above?

*

serpico, thanks for the tip on the non-diskette procedure. I don't know how I missed that. Too late at night I guess. Oh well, I learned some things about using nLite. It wasn't that hard actually.

serpico wrote:Can you skip disabling core multi-processing if loading XP2, BUT you do NOT have a floppy for SATA drivers?

I'm not sure if this answers your question. I did not disable multi-processing. My boot cd with SATA drivers integrated booted fine and recognized the hard dirve. I haven't run the install yet, though, to see if the whole process works.

serpico · #28 Post by **serpico** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 5:19 pm

donking! wrote:
wpwood3 wrote:4) The audio requires the UAA High Definition driver before it will work.
Is this something different from serpico's step 5. above?

*

serpico, thanks for the tip on the non-diskette procedure. I don't know how I missed that. Too late at night I guess. Oh well, I learned some things about using nLite. It wasn't that hard actually.

serpico wrote:Can you skip disabling core multi-processing if loading XP2, BUT you do NOT have a floppy for SATA drivers?
I'm not sure if this answers your question. I did not disable multi-processing. My boot cd with SATA drivers integrated booted fine and recognized the hard dirve. I haven't run the install yet, though, to see if the whole process works.

With respect to the audio driver, no, he's referring to the same thing I mentioned. Just follow the link in my earlier post for the required hotfix.

Well, I guess that sort of answers my question, but I wanted to know if you could skip disabling multi-processing if you didn't install SATA drivers until after XP was installed.

So it looks like there are at least 3 ways of getting around the issue of XP not recognizing SATA hdd without the correct drivers:
1. Follow instructions in booklet that comes with laptop (disabling AHCI mode)
2. Use USB floppy drive with SATA drivers
3. Integrate SATA drivers into bootable Windows XP cd

I suppose you can also do (2) with USB hdd (hard drive in enclosure with USB connection). Has anyone tried this?

donking! · #29 Post by **donking!** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:03 pm

I feel like something funny happened when I installed the intel chipset support. It just went really fast, didn't seem to install anything, though it announced it had worked fine. And did not automatically reboot the computer.

In the IBM instructions it says:

"4. Follow the on-screen instructions and use the default settings to complete the setup, once the operating system has rebooted."

As I said, I didn't get an automatic reboot. And I didn't get any screen asking me what settings I wanted. Didn't something go wrong? How can I tell if the chipset support was installed?

Thanks.

serpico · #30 Post by **serpico** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 8:51 am

donking! wrote:As I said, I didn't get an automatic reboot. And I didn't get any screen asking me what settings I wanted. Didn't something go wrong? How can I tell if the chipset support was installed?

I don't remember getting a screen asking about settings. I'm guessing here, but take a look in Device Manager, under System Devices - should be a long list of items.

Also, I suppose there's no harm if you try reinstalling the chipset support. Maybe the executable will tell you that chipset support is already there.

T60 - Fresh install of XP

T60 - Fresh install of XP

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