AutoUnattend.xml Partitioning Failure

I administer a small nonprofit that reconditions donated laptops and subsidizes cheap or free sales in a thrift store. The donated machines are random vintage, make, and model, and unknown condition. If the machine has a Windows 7 or higher license then we provision it with Windows 10, else Linux. Whatever the OS, the installation is via automated script.

Most of the Windows machines provisioned with our script worked fine, but a few newer models threw that error. It turned out to be a BIOS configuration setting on the machine. It failed on "UEFI Boot mode", but succeeded when I changed to "CSM Boot mode". I Googled that and found that it emulates BIOS mode. The older machines are pre-UEFI, so they just worked.

Kari - many thanks for the outstanding tutorial for which you posted a link a couple of posts prior. I'm a Linux administrator but I'm pretty unfamiliar with Windows administration, and a complete novice regarding Windows automated installation. That tutorial was extremely helpful to me.

@pku, I have a couple of suggestions:

1) Have you considered creating a separate script for machines with UEFI firmware? Naturally, it's up to you, but personally if I had a machine with the newer UEFI firmware, my preference would be to make use of it.

2) If you prefer to not have a separate script for UEFI vs BIOS based system there is a simple way to use the same script for either type of system: Simply leave off the sections that specify which disk to install onto and the section that would create the partitions in your answer file. Setup will pause and ask you to choose the location where Windows should be installed but after providing that information the rest of setup will continue fully automated. The same script will then work for both BIOS and UEFI based systems.

NOTE: Option #2 also provides one other benefit that may not be readily obvious: Normally, when automating the installation of Windows, the recovery partition will be created before the Windows partition. While this works just fine, the latest guidance from Microsoft is to create the Recovery partition last, immediately after the Windows partition. If you create your answer file as I outlined in number 2 above, that is exactly what would happen: The Recovery partition will come last, immediately after the Windows partition.

If any of this doesn't make sense to you or if you have any questions, do feel free to let me know.

@pku, Just wanted to follow up with you to see if the info above helped or if you had any further questions regarding this.

@hsehestedt

I am trying to create an answer file and I followed the guides that are posted. I installed Windows 10 completely unattended, when checking the install out I noticed the recovery partition was at the beginning and not at the end as per Microsoft's latest directives. I started to research how to correct this and the only thing I can find is your post above.

Could you clarify your description "Simply leave off the sections that specify which disk to install onto and the section that would create the partitions in your answer file. Setup will pause and ask you to choose the location where Windows should be installed but after providing that information the rest of setup will continue fully automated."

Do I completely delete DiskID="0" and create & modify partitions sections ? I imagine that DiskID="0" still needs to be created to wipe existing partitions ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dave01,

welcome to TenForums!

I just wanted to quickly acknowledge that I have seen your post. I'm on a tablet at the moment and don't have access to my detailed notes on the topic. If you can bear with me just a little while, I'll respond back in a little while with the precise details of what you need to do.

@hsehestedt
perfect, thanks for your reply

Sorry about the delay in my response.

Since you have already created an autounattend.xml answer file, simply modify it by following these steps:

1) I would suggest making a backup copy of the answer file so that you can revert back to the original just in case you need to do so.

2) Open your answer file in the Windows System Image Manager.

3) In the "Answer File" pane, locate this section:

1 windowsPE > amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Setup_neutral > DiskConfiguration

Right-click on "DiskConfiguration" and delete that entire section.

4) Navigate to this location:

1 windowsPE > amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Setup_neutral > ImageInstall > OSImage

5) Under this section, delete the entire "InstallTo" section.

6) In the "Windows Image" pane, navigate to Components > amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Setup_neutral > ImageInstall > OSImage

7) Under "OSImage", right-click on "InstallFrom" and select "Add Setting to Pass 1 windowsPE".

8) Go back to the "Answer File" pane and select that newly added "InstallFrom" block.

9) In the "InstallFrom Properties" pane, set the value for "Path" to "\install.wim" (without the quotes).

10) Back in the "Answer File" pane, under "InstallFrom", you can delete the "Credentials" block.

That's all. You can now validate your answer file, as usual, and save it.

This answer file will behave exactly as it did before making this change, with the only difference being that Windows Setup will pause to allow you to choose the location to which Windows should be installed.

When you are presented with that screen, locate the disk to which Windows should be installed. If there are already existing partitions on that disk, then one by one, select each partition and delete it. Caution! Make sure you are selecting the correct disk. The correct disk is not always disk 0. Once the disk shows no existing partitions and displays only unallocated space, select that disk and continue.

If your original answer file resulted in a fully unattended installation, then setup will now continue unattended for the remainder of the installation.

Note: I really like creating answer files like this for a few reasons:

First, that same answer file can be used no matter what disk number you need to install onto.

Second, that same answer file can be used on both BIOS / MBR and UEFI / GPT based systems, although that is typically not going to be an issue with Windows 11.

Third, when installed like this, Windows will create the Recovery partition as the last partition n the drive, which is the recommended configuration from Microsoft.

If you have other questions, do let me know.

@Dave01, I thought that I would just check with you to see if the info provided yesterday helped at all or to see if you had any further questions on the topic.

I have not had a chance to try this yet. But thinking of restarting unattended again from beginning. Have you got a dummies guide ?

This is the tutorial that I have always used:

Create media for automated unattended install of Windows 10

A few things to be aware of:

First, this tutorial is really geared toward creating a customized installation of Windows, running sysprep on it, creating a new Windows image from that customized installation, and finally deploying or installing Windows from that new image with an unattended installation.

That method requires that you create a separate "Technician" system which is what will ultimately be used as the model for the image. It also requires that you create two different answer files.

However, in your case, it sounds like you simply want to perform an unattended installation of Windows which is far simpler. It's also easy to modify that tutorial to use a single answer file for unattended installation.

In that same thread for that tutorial, take a look at my post #299 which you can find here:

Create media for automated unattended install of Windows 10

You will note that it is a simple process to modify the original tutorial.

So, here are the steps that I would suggest:

1) Peruse the tutorial first just to get a good feel for the steps that you will need to take. It may seem a bit long but that is mainly because @Kari simply provides a lot of screenshots and excellent explanations of what is happening. Also, bear in mind that for a simple unattended installation, you will NOT need to create a Technician system nor will you need to create a second answer file.

2) After you review the tutorial, go to my post #299 within that thread (located at the 2nd link above), and then begin following the tutorial following the steps and exceptions that I spell out in that post.

3) Finally, refer to our earlier discussion above to modify the resulting answer file so that Setup will ask you for the location to which Windows should be installed.

I know that this is a lot, so if anything is fuzzy or unclear, please don't hesitate to ask questions!

One final point: This tutorial comes from @Kari. Of all the tutorials on TenForums and ElevenForum, this is by far my favorite. This is THE tutorial that started me on the whole road to learning about Windows unattended installation, Windows image management, and related topics. I would strongly suggest following Kari's tutorials if this subject matter interests you. Every last one of them is meticulously researched and stone-cold bullet proof. It's well worth your time to check out some of his other tutorials.