The following is for xp sp1 however it\'ll apply to all nt versions
When you boot from cd you\'re entering text mode (looks like dos but isn\'t). This is a 16 bit mode that has many restrictions, such as no network access. XP setup looks at txtsetup.sif for any information it needs. If you\'re booting from cd xp setup will look at txtsetup.sif for SetupSourcePath, and use this value to look for the source files.
Before anything is done xp setup needs to verify the source files are correct. To do this it looks for a cd tag, in the form of a file. For each version of windows nt, including service packs, the tag is different. This is so you don\'t boot from xp bootdisks then use a sp1 cd to install file, you would have mismatched files.
In my txtsetup.sif it has the following;
cdname = \"Windows XP Professional CD-ROM\"
productname = \"Windows XP Professional\"
bootname1 = \"Windows XP Professional SP1 Setup Boot Disk\"
bootname2 = \"Windows XP Professional SP1 Setup Disk #2\"
bootname3 = \"Windows XP Professional SP1 Setup Disk #3\"
bootname4 = \"Windows XP Professional SP1 Setup Disk #4\"
bootname5 = \"Windows XP Professional SP1 Setup Disk #5\"
bootname6 = \"Windows XP Professional SP1 Setup Disk #6\"
cdtagfile = \"win51ip\"
cdtagfilei = \"win51ip\"
cdtagfilem = \"win51mp\"
boottagfile1 = \"disk101\"
boottagfile2 = \"disk102\"
boottagfile3 = \"disk103\"
boottagfile4 = \"disk104\"
boottagfile5 = \"disk105\"
boottagfile6 = \"disk106\"
spcdname = \"Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1 CD\"
spcdtagfilei = \"win51ip.sp1\"
cd2name = \"Windows XP Professional CD2\"
cd2tagfilei = \"win51ip2\"
What this means is if you boot from floppies, on each floppy it\'ll look for diskxxx. So floppy 3 will have disk003, if setup does not find this on a floppy it wont continue. In a windows GUI if you run :i386winnt32 /noreboot, go through the prompts, then look at c:win_nt~bt, youll see it has the 6 diskxxx\'s. This way when setup starts from the hard drive, it\'s fooled into thinking all 6 floppies were entered.
It also shows that on the root of the cdrom for cd1 it looks for win51ip.sp1. If setup does not find this file in the root, it\'ll prompt you for the cd. So look at your txtsetup.sif file and see what file it\'s looking for.
-gosh