Sysprep - Laptop powers off before minisetup

[morganw]

I'm trying to create a universal image for all the PCs that we've got but I've got a problem trying to load a sysprep image onto an RM Mobile One Widescreen. The image works without problems on a few other PCs and laptops that I've tried, but the Mobile One Widescreen powers off during startup instead of getting into the minisetup routine - it shows the Windows XP logo but doesn't display the "please wait while windows prepares to start" message. Safemode doesn't boot either and the last driver to show is AGPPCQ.sys.

 

Initially I thought it was a HAL selecton issue, after testing with sysprep and mysysprep I ended up building a HAL seletion menu into boot.ini following the guide here:

Vernalex.com - Welcome

I could then force a HAL at boot, I tried ACPI, ACPI UP, ACPI MP (this is correct one), same result every time it still powers off...

 

...so i'm pretty sure that the problem isn't with the HAL.

 

I had the drive controller set to compatible in the BIOS, so I changed it to enhanced and setup my sysprep.inf file to load the latest set of Intel mass storage drivers (this laptop seems to use the Intel ICH8 controller). This gives exactly the same result, and the timing of the shutdown isn't affected by changing to the other drive controller mode. If I just boot the laptop from the XP SP3 CD then it doesn't require any additional drivers for the drive controller when it's set to compatible...

 

...so that seems to indicate that the problem isn't with mass storage drivers.

 

I've also tried disabling AGP440.sys, AGPPCQ.sys, INTELPPM.sys (even though this is Core2Duo - I was getting desperate).

 

I've also tried booting with the /BASEVIDEO switch

 

I think it must be one of the services that causes it to shutdown but is there an easy way to identify it? I've enabled boot logging and it seems to be loading a lot of stuff before it powers off, the end of the file gets down to cdfs.sys (I think - I couldn't export the log file from the laptop as the network card wasn't supported under BartPE).

 

I'm building the image in Virtualbox with a ACPI MP HAL (but have also tried switching this HAL to the others as well).

 

Is there some fantastic method I can use to identify what is causing this laptop to shutdown?

[andyturpie]

You may or not have mentioned event viewer, but if you can get this on the machine, it takes crash dump data and makes it easier to understand.

 

Good Luck.

 

Resplendence Software - WhoCrashed, automatic crash dump analyzer

 

If that is no good, I would just throw in the towel and create a seperate image for the RM Widescreens. Some times we can be guilty of spending too much effort and time banging heads lol.

 

Regards,

 

Andy T.

[morganw]

Thanks, i'll try and put this in the image and see if i can get to the crash data afterwards, hopefully i'll be able to get something.

I appreciate that I could just make another image, it's just annoying that I can get it working on everything else i've tried so far with minimal effort.