OS Deployment failing due to left over junk from MDT – Part I

An installation done via OS Deploy may stop with an error stating something like (sorry, I don’t have the exact error message available);

Title: ” Media not found “
Message: “Please insert the CD, DVD or USB to complete the deployment process.”

This error message tends to show up more frequently when trying out Specops Deploy, but may also happen in a production environment or when changing from for example SCCM to Specops Deploy.
There are two common reasons for this error.
1. An incomplete previous deployment. Which is quite common when you try out Deploy.
2. An incomplete previous deployment. Where MDT did not clean up from the installation properly.

There is some junk left in the system from a previous installation, which is preventing the current one from proceeding.

To solve this problem, press F8 on the client which will give you a command prompt.
Then delete these folders
c:MININT
c:SYSPREP
C:_SMSTaskSequence

or if there is nothing on the drive worth saving (no User State Migration!) just do a

C:Windowssystem32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7601
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: SOC-SE-010

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DISKPART> exit

And then reboot the system. The installation should now go through as expected.

Next, how to clean up after a successful installation.
Come back tomorrow for Part II.