Systems Deployment

I recently put a KBE on a flash drive and used that flash drive to boot 11 computers up. I selected a scripted installation and then found that only 4 of the 11 computers actually succeeded when installing windows. The other 7 machines complained that they couldn't find an appropriate volume to install windows to.

I checked the setupact.log in x:\windows\panther on the afflicted systems and found the following sort of errors:

GetSystemDiskNTPath: Unable to get required buffer size for system disk from BCD APIs; status = 0xc0000452
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Error [0x06069e] IBS GetMachineInfo:Couldn't find boot disk on this BIOS-based computer
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB CanBeSystemVolume: Volume at disk [0] offset [0x100000] doesn't meet criteria for system volumes...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Disk [0] is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for disk 0: CanBeSystemVolume] The selected disk is not the computer's boot disk.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB CanBeSystemVolume: Volume at disk [0] offset [0x0] doesn't meet criteria for system volumes...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Disk [0] is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for disk 0: CanBeSystemVolume] The selected disk is not the computer's boot disk.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Region on disk [0] (offset = [0x0]) is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for {disk 0 offset 0x0}: CanBeSystemVolume] The partition is too small.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB CanBeSystemVolume: Volume at disk [0] offset [0x7e00] doesn't meet criteria for system volumes...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Disk [0] is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for disk 0: CanBeSystemVolume] The selected disk is not the computer's boot disk.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Region on disk [0] (offset = [0x7e00]) is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for {disk 0 offset 0x7e00}: CanBeSystemVolume] The partition is too small.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB CanBeSystemVolume: Volume at disk [0] offset [0x2543200000] doesn't meet criteria for system volumes...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Disk [0] is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for disk 0: CanBeSystemVolume] The selected disk is not the computer's boot disk.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Region on disk [0] (offset = [0x2543200000]) is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for {disk 0 offset 0x2543200000}: CanBeSystemVolume] The partition is too small.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB CanBeSystemVolume: Volume at disk [0] offset [0x100000] doesn't meet criteria for system volumes...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB DiskRegionSupportsCapability:Disk [0] is BLOCKED against capability [CanBeSystemVolume] for the following reasons...
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB LogReasons: [BLOCKING reason for disk 0: CanBeSystemVolume] The selected disk is not the computer's boot disk.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB Remedy was applied for said disk rule
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBS Disk=0, Region=0x100000 did not meet requirements; hrDiskCheck = 0x0, hrSystemDriveCheck = 0x80300015
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBS There was a failure applying the ImageInstall/OSImage/InstallTo unattend settings (or WillShowUI=Always). Setup will display the UI to select an image install destination.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info IBSLIB PublishCriticalError: Publishing blocked message [Windows cannot locate the disk and partition specified in the unattend answer file's <ImageInstall> setting. Make sure the setting references a valid partition and restart the installation.]
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info This installation is blocked from completing due to compliance failures or invalid input; this is not an internal error.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info [0x0a013d] UI Accepting Cancel. Exiting Page Progress.
2011-07-14 13:40:13, Info UI Entering Page Cancel.

At the same time, from the log of a machine that was able to actually run the scripted install:
2011-07-14 12:50:22, Info [0x0606cc] IBS GetSystemDiskNTPath: Found system disk at [\Device\Harddisk0\DR0].
2011-07-14 12:50:22, Info [0x0606cc] IBS GetSystemDiskNumber: Disk [0] is the system disk.

I rebooted a couple of the machines and loaded the KBE from my flash drive once again. I tried the same scripted installation with the same results with the exception of one of the machines, which for whatever reason was able to install.

I used diskpart to investigate the disk, but the computers all had the same hardware (they are D630s) and couldnt' find any difference.

I read something on micrsofts answerboard that suggested the flash drive might be causing an issue. I booted a couple afflicted systems from the network, got the KBE up and was able to run a scripted install. I have since PXE booted the rest of the machines that wouldn't go, and all seems fine.

Has anybody dealt with similar issues? What could be causing these disk issues? I really like being able to use a flash drive to boot to KBE, but it seems that I won't be able to use this method if I want to do scripted installs.