Hello, i'm having a bit of a problem, and i can't figure out how to solve it.. I've searched the whole web, but apperantly not many people use this.
For some reason, the customer for who i'm setting up their Windows 7 x64 deployment using MDT2010 on a Windows 2008 standard x86 server, has decided that they want the profiles directory (User directory, Documents and Settings in the past), to be in a seperate D partition.
I've set up a task sequence that deploys Windows 7 fine. The "Format and Partition" task makes a 60gb MBR boot disk, and a "100% of remaining space" primary partition formatted NTFS. This works flawless.
Next step would be adjusting the unattend.xml to move the "ProfilesDirectory" to the D: disk. I found in some documentation that it should look like this:
<FolderLocations>
<ProfilesDirectory>d:\users\</ProfilesDirectory>
</FolderLocations>
These lines are added to the "oobeSystem" settingspass like instructed.
When I deploy using this tasksequence everything goes haywire. Either while running the oobe a error shows up, telling me that there is a error in the "Windows Shell Setup" process, and instructing me to reinstall windows, or it finishes the oobe, only no profiles are available and random errors pop up, usually about problems with finding desktop/profile related files or folders.
Now I would assume i've done something wrong with setting up the task sequence, but one of my managers recently ***ed up his Vista installation. He had a backup of all his files and folders, so I could experiment with upgrading his broken vista to Windows 7. These laptops also have a D partition, containing the "Users" directory.
I copied my tasksequence and disabled the "format and partition" step. Which makes MDT just clean the existing C drive. Deployment went without errors, and in the "Users" folder on his D partition, the installation had made a "Administrator.ourdomain" and another "foldername.ourdomain", because of the existing folders. I accessed the users folder, removed the NTUSER{<SID>} files, logged off and had the user log on: flawless victory! Everything worked as it should. This forces me to conclude that my task sequence is ok, but something else is messed up. Upgrades are no problem, but new computers are a issue now.
Writing this, I realise that I could add a task, before everything else, with a script using diskpart to ready up my D drive, and then completely ignoring the "Format and Partition" task, but this is just me rambling, i'll try this after the weekend.
The issue is, that when running the actual deployment, during the "Format and Partition" task, I see where the problem must be. The Installation progress shows me that it's doing something with Disk 0, that's ok. Then formatting C:, good!. Then formatting F:, or G: or WT*? is this ***? Then always formatting S:.
The formatting C: is obvious and good, no problems there. Formatting S: seems to me like formatting a temporary partition, maybe used for the deployment process as a temporary directory for scripts or something, but the changing drive letter that's second, i can't explain. I've removed the second partition from the task sequence, and it only formats C: and S: (and then errors after 10mins because unattend.xml points to D which is my DVD drive).
When i remove the ProfilesDirectory line from the unattend.xml file, and deploy a machine. C and D drives are made. But again, during installation it shows that it's formatting something else then D.
I'm stuck here. Somewhere in this text I may have come up with a solution myself already, but as said before, i'll try that out after the weekend. Hopefully someone will reply before that with "i had the same issue and ........."
Thank you very much for your efford in reading this.. book :-) I really love WDS + MDT2010 in SMB environments, makes my life sooo much easier!
Regards,
Yannick van Rooyen
Helion IT - The Netherlands
MCSA // MCSE 2003 // MCTS 2008
