Config Manager 2007: Dell XPS 8700 - OSD

Recently, I was asked to put a 'quick build' together of a Dell XPS 8700 Desktop PC. For me a quick build is often nothing of the sort, instead taking hours of build, re-build and test with plenty of driver applying thrown in for good measure.

Given the deadline nature of the request (why is it always urgent?) I opted for a capture of a fully Windows-Updated, no other applications, vanilla Windows 7 x64 SP1 machine. This snazzy piece of kit had an mSATA drive, so I wanted to use that as the OS disk. Obv.

The initial capture was simple enough, but when it came to deploying the image I started to see a problem. In short, even though I was formatting the disks (there are two; 256gb mSATA and 3gb SATA) in the Task Sequence I was constantly coming up against an teeth-gnashingly annoying 0x80070032 (or sometimes 0x80004001) error when trying to apply my WIM file.

OSD Homepage gave me the infuriating error:

System partition not set Volume C:\ is not on the boot disk and can not be made bootable. Failed to make volume C:\ bootable. Please ensure that you have set an active partition on the boot disk before installing the operating system. The request is not supported. (Error: 80070032; Source: Windows)

"But my Task Sequence has everything it needs!", I screamed. Just look:

Format the 256gb mSATA SSD as C (0, MBR)

...and mark it as bootable

Format the 3gb SATA HDD (1, GPT)

...and do nothing unusual

Next, apply the WIM file to the next available partition

However, EVERY time I built the desktop...BOOM!

This was infuriating. I tried swapping the disks, removing one, unplugging the card reader module and - even - Googling! And, of course, Mr. G was my friend. Whilst it didn't say exactly what to do, I did stumble upon this nugget and also this one and in particular: 

This got me thinking, perhaps the BIOS settings are interfering with the next available drive and overriding Config Manager's own osddiskpart process.

So, I booted into the BIOS settings and checked the settings under Hard Disk Drivers (not sure if that's a typo...). 

I noticed the 1st Boot Device was set as the 3tb HDD and not the mSATA, so I changed the 1st and the 2nd around, so to make the mSATA disk the primary boot disk. 

And what do you know? Format, partition, boot-activation and WIM file deployed without any problems. 

One thing to note, mSATA formatted as C: but the HDD as I: due to all the ODD and card-reader devices. This doesn't matter since when you apply a WIM file the original captured drives are re-allocated upon first boot after the build.