XP Guest Install on workstation 6.5 - seen this before?

[deasyp]

'Hi,

I'm encounterng a very odd setup with an XP guest install. I've done this dozens of times in the past with no problems, but on this version of workstation, I seem to have hit a wierd one. I wonder has anyone seen this happen before?

I'm setting up a new guest OS(Windows XP with SP3), the host system is Vista Business 64-bit.

The new guest OS CD drive is mapped to the XP ISO image. Floppy Drive is mapped to the 'vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp' downloaded from the VMware site.

I boot up the guest machine, do the usual press F6 to add an additional driver, add the driver by pressing S on the required screen, go through the process of selecting how the disk will be formatted. Install appears to be going well until I'm prompted with the message to insert the disk labeled "VMware SCSI Controller Installation Disk" in drive A:

I check that (I'm not going mad) and double-check that the floppy drive is pointing to 'vmscsi-1.2.0.4.flp' but it's not.. it's now pointing to 'autoinst.flp' which is located in the newly created virtual machine folder. So I try repointing the floppy at the correct .flp file but I'm now stuck in xp-install-limbo. It will not accept that that is the driver disk.. so no XP install for me (I'm configuring the guest using the custom options (rather than typical) and I've tried setting the hardware compatibility to version 6 and 6.5 to see if there was any difference in setup)

Anyone see this occour before, how did you get around it?

[deasyp]

it seems that the ISO I had for the XP image had XP SP3 slipstreamed into the ISO. So I think this was the cause of the fun and games with the floppy image.

off to stick my head in the sand

[grossag]

I'm a bit confused but I wanted to see if I could help at all. If you create a new XP virtual machine and select to use Easy Install (this happens if you select anything other than "I will install this operating system later" during new virtual machine creation), you do not need to specify the SCSI driver; the VM will be created with a SCSI hard disk and the Easy Install process will slip the SCSI driver into autoinst.flp and automatically configure the guest to install it. If you select to use Easy Install, you will be able to go grab a cup of coffee and come back and see your guest OS installed without any of this extra configuration.

[deasyp]

It's a bit of a wierd one alright.. I put it down to the ISO image being used. (An XP SP2 disc was copied locally, and SP3 was slipstreamed using nlite, the resulting ISO was used for the install)

It did seem whether I selected the vmscsi flp file or this auto created 'autoinst.flp' file, the install wouldn't proceed past the prompt to install the VMware SCSI driver. I used the orgional physical media for a new install, using the exact same guest hardware configuration, pointing to thesame vmscsi .flp file and the install pressed ahead.

If I get some more time, I'll play around with another ISO image install to see what could be causing the problem. I'm at the moment trying to test out some features of V6.5 on the eval version, before it expires, as I'm looking to purchasing a number of licences and want to be sure that there's sufficient need to go with workstation6.5 over server

PD

[BugMeNot22222]

I've experiencing this exact same scenario. The .iso I'm using does have SP3 slipstreamed into it. That shouldn't have anything to do with the failure, right?

[grossag]

I mentioned this in my reply above, but if you are using Easy Install (if you select in the New VM Wizard anything other than "Install later"), after creating a New VM the virtual floppy device will point at autoinst.flp. You should not make this point at another floppy image because autoinst.flp has the scsi drivers in it. If you are using a some non-default disk bus type in the Custom path, you are given the opportunity to provide the driver information so it can be slipstreamed into the autoinst.flp file. Is there something else that you're doing?

[BugMeNot22222]

First of all, thank you for the reply. I am experiencing the problem even while using the defaults from the Easy Install setup - which uses the autoinst.flp. I cannot get past the prompt to "Insert VMware SCSI Controller Installation Disk" in drive A: no matter what settings or options I try.

However, as noted above, I am also using an XP ISO image with SP3 slipstreamed in. Could that be the source of the problem as assumed? One other note, I am also slipstreaming all hardware drivers for the system (including the Text drivers (F6) for the system I'm setting up)