[sccm 2007] Drive letter of OS Disk after OSD

[Ric_]

I'm using SCCM 2007 R2 to deploy Windows 7 and I've noticed that the OS Disk gets labelled D:

 

Although this isn't terrible, I'd prefer it to be C: (expecially given the lack of any other partitions!).

 

Any ideas? I created my WinPE images and task sequences via MDT 2010 (integrated to SCCM). The issue arrises on x86 and x64 installs.

[danrhodes]

could be something to do with teh Virtual Ram Drive it creates to run WinPE from?

 

D

[DMcCoy]

AHCI or IDE mode? With AHCI Vista/7 has no control over what order SATA devices appear in. I have found that the drivers supplied with the intel storage manager (if you are using intel chipset) are more consistent.

[Ric_]

@DMcCoy: Now you mention it, I've only been testing using AHCI machines. That shouldn't affect the order though since the machiens have 1 HDD (containing a single partition) and 1 optical device.

 

@danrhodes: You may be right there, how would I fix it though?

[DMcCoy]

You can have a look at the drive letters assigned with the console on the WinPE session. MS KB is here The disk drive numbers may not correspond as expected to the SATA channel numbers when you set up Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows 7 on a computer that has multiple SATA or RAID disks

 

Try unplugging the DVD

[danrhodes]

You can have a look at the drive letters assigned with the console on the WinPE session. MS KB is here The disk drive numbers may not correspond as expected to the SATA channel numbers when you set up Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, or Windows 7 on a computer that has multiple SATA or RAID disks

 

Try unplugging the DVD

 

Yeah try the DVD I've had trouble with them when deploying. Also as DMcCoy said check in your console for the allocated letters.

 

D

[Ric_]

I've also just noticed that, during deployment, WinPE & ConfigMgr tells me that that image is being deployed to 'volume C:\'

[Ric_]

I've decided that this is slightly more important because the drive letter breaks some stuff (shortcuts and some GPO settings)

 

The CD drive is coming up as E:\

[Ric_]

I found a forum thread at SCCM 2007 task sequence hard disk partitioning ?! where a poor sould was having a similar problem to me - except his OS partition was being named E:\

 

His solution was to add a reboot after the formating action so I've tried the same and am testing it now.

 

EDIT - The guy lied... it still comes up as D:\

Edited March 2, 2010 by Ric_
update

[Ric_]

Nudge... Someone must be able to fix this! Surely somebody else uses SCCM and doesn't suffer from this? Maybe my task sequence is wrong?

[SYNACK]

Was the original image captured on a computer that had the system drive mounted as C: at the time. I know that I had issues with this back with Vista as the non OEM images are not drive letter independant because of stuff like badly coded reg entries, shortcuts, etc.

 

In general the system reserved partition in 7 is not allocated a letter at all but perhaps the capture PE image assigned it one hence the shift to D:

 

Perhaps a manual capture of the template system while the target drive is mapped to C: would help.

[Ric_]

@SYNACK: This is using original MS media for Windows 7 Enterprise (both x86 and x64) to do a bare metal install that would be suitable for capture.

 

I'm wondering if the MDT tasks (it's a task sequence created with the MDT wizardy thing) are causing issues so I'm going to test it again with a task sequence created from scratch.

[mounters]

@Ric

 

If you look at your task sequence under 'Apply Operating System' what do you have for 'Select the location where you want to apply this operating system'.

 

Mine is using 'Next available partition' and I've never had any problems with drive letters, it's alwys used C: although I manually create all my task sequences rather than using MDT.

Edited March 2, 2010 by mounters
Punctuation

[mac_shinobi]

I found a forum thread at SCCM 2007 task sequence hard disk partitioning ?! where a poor sould was having a similar problem to me - except his OS partition was being named E:\

 

His solution was to add a reboot after the formating action so I've tried the same and am testing it now.

 

EDIT - The guy lied... it still comes up as D:\

 

not that it helps but the EDIT made me chuckle

[SYNACK]

Just had a look at my old 2008 version and mounters could well be on to the solution there. Under the "preinstall" stage I've got a "new Computer" only state which has "format and partition disk" section.

 

The volumes in this version are listed listbox and it looks like it automaticly assigns a drive letter whether it is needed or not. The way around this could be to change the order of the partitions in the list. This could be complicated though with different drive sizes as you would end up needing your first windows one to be about 99% and then the hidden system one to be 100% of the ramaining in order to give it the nessisary 100MB. This may waste a bit of space but could work.

[sparkeh]

Have you tested capture and deployment without using MDT?

 

I don't have this issue (but then I am deploying XP so not exactly the same), but during testing I simply ran a deploy and capture TS followed by a deployment TS that formats the entire partition and uses 100% of that partition and deploys to 'next available partition'. Might be worth try that to see if its MDT doing something odd.

[Ric_]

I've run a task sequence that I made from scratch and that also sets the system partition as D:\

 

Surely I can't be the only person in the woirld that this is happening to! This is really getting annoying now... this is the only thing stopping my deployment of Windows 7!

[sparkeh]

Just wondering if this a Win7 thing or does the same happen if you deploy XP?

[mounters]

@Ric

 

Can you post up some screen shots of the task sequence so that I can see how it's configured.

 

Also what updates are installed on SCCM, is it R2 SP2?

[sparkeh]

Oh hang on, are you using the .wim file directly from the Win7 disk?

Apparently for Vista, W7, 2008 and 2008R2 you have to create your own wim from a deploy and capture TS as the defualt .wim will install on D:

[mounters]

Oh hang on, are you using the .wim file directly from the Win7 disk?

Apparently for Vista, W7, 2008 and 2008R2 you have to create your own wim from a deploy and capture TS as the defualt .wim will install on D:

 

Not sure about this, I just extracted a Win 7 iso and used this as my original build source to do the capture from.

[sparkeh]

Not sure about this, I just extracted a Win 7 iso and used this as my original build source to do the capture from.

 

Hmm according to Technet SCCM forums this is the case

[mounters]

@Ric

What's the version number of the boot image you are using for this task sequence?

[Ric_]

SCCM version: R2 SP2

WinPE OS version: 6.1.7600.16385

Windows OS version: 6.1.7600.16385

 

I haven't tried another OS and I have seen the comments about the Vista problem. I have seen videos though of this working flawlessly straight from a Windows 7 disk!

 

I'm downbloading a fresh copy of the media now to try that.

[Ric_]

Well I have tried it with another copy of the install media and it has once again installed to D:\

 

I have also tried 4 different models of computer - Lenovo T60, Lenovo X60, Sun Ultra 24 and HP xw6200.

 

I'm now going to play with some more BIOS settings.