djhawthorn
Technical User
Hello,
I am looking at deploying some several hundred Windows 2003 Servers in the near future, which have to be built from scratch on brand new hardware (blank hard drives). Until now I have used Windows 2000 unattended installs, using a DOS (Win98) boot sector which has FDISK and FORMAT (somewhat scripted) in order to setup the first partition immediately prior to the fully-unattended Windows 2000 install.
The main problem with this is Virtual PC does not like the DOS boot sector on the CD; so I can not use Virtual PC to test the installation of 2003 when I replace the i386 folder etc of the 2000 install.
Are there any freeware third-party tools available that can fully-automate the creation and formatting of a system partition (from a bootable CD), that can then kick off the fully-unattended install of Windows?
Basically I want to stick the CD in, and with a minimum of fuss kick off the partitioning, formatting, and installation of Windows, coming back a few hours later to find it all done.
This product needs to be compatible with Virtual PC for ease of testing - I need to be able to test installation and configuration prior to getting the actual hardware installed, as there will be a rush to get them built as quickly as possible once the hardware arrives.
Any help appreciated.
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The dumber they think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them! ![[machinegun]](/data/assets/smilies/machinegun.gif "[machinegun] [machinegun]")
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I am looking at deploying some several hundred Windows 2003 Servers in the near future, which have to be built from scratch on brand new hardware (blank hard drives). Until now I have used Windows 2000 unattended installs, using a DOS (Win98) boot sector which has FDISK and FORMAT (somewhat scripted) in order to setup the first partition immediately prior to the fully-unattended Windows 2000 install.
The main problem with this is Virtual PC does not like the DOS boot sector on the CD; so I can not use Virtual PC to test the installation of 2003 when I replace the i386 folder etc of the 2000 install.
Are there any freeware third-party tools available that can fully-automate the creation and formatting of a system partition (from a bootable CD), that can then kick off the fully-unattended install of Windows?
Basically I want to stick the CD in, and with a minimum of fuss kick off the partitioning, formatting, and installation of Windows, coming back a few hours later to find it all done.
This product needs to be compatible with Virtual PC for ease of testing - I need to be able to test installation and configuration prior to getting the actual hardware installed, as there will be a rush to get them built as quickly as possible once the hardware arrives.
Any help appreciated.
The dumber they think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them! 
