Preparing Advanced Format hard drives for Microsoft Windows installations on HP Business Notebook PCs, Workstations, and Desktop PCs

8
Deploying Windows XP on an HP system
For proper partition alignment when deploying Windows XP on an HP system, observe the following
guidelines:
 Remove the ExtendedOEMPartition command line from Sysprep (or other unattended installation
method).
 Allow the disk cloning tool to manage/extend the partition size.
 Do not use the KB931760 WinPE registry patch on an HP system.
In MDT and SCCM, ZTIDiskPart.wsf should be edited to prevent these registry settings from being
applied automatically. Consider the sample ZTIDiskPart.wsf code shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Excerpt of code used to update WinPE registry settings
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// If needed, set diskpart workaround as described in KB 931760/931761
// Always set the variables for Windows XP and 2003
//----------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Left(oEnvironment.Item("ImageBuild"), 1) = "5" Then
oEnvironment.Item("OSDDiskpartBiosCompatibilityMode") = "TRUE"
End If
If UCase(oEnvironment.Item("OSDDiskpartBiosCompatibilityMode")) = "TRUE" then
oLogging.CreateEntry "Implementing Diskpart BIOS compatibility fix (see KB 931760 and KB 931761)", LogTypeInfo
On Error Resume Next
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\VDS\ALIGNMENT\LessThan4GB", 0, "REG_DWORD"
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\VDS\ALIGNMENT\Between4_8GB", 0, "REG_DWORD"
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\VDS\ALIGNMENT\Between8_32GB", 0, "REG_DWORD"
oShell.RegWrite "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\SERVICES\VDS\ALIGNMENT\GreaterThan32GB", 0, "REG_DWORD"
On Error Goto 0
End If
While the ZTIDiskPart.wsf code varies somewhat between different versions of MDT and SCCM, the
excerpt shown in Figure 2 is fairly consistent. In the highlighted portion, the script determines if
Windows XP 5.1.2600, for example, is being deployed; if so, the registry settings listed below are
applied to the WinPE registry. Subsequently, these settings would result in misaligned partitions
when DiskPart is used.
To prevent the patch being applied, you can comment out the highlighted code.