Try adding the OEM folder to the root of your thumb and see if that makes it all flow nicely.
Or copy the OEM folder to C:\
- it will need to be deleted later

Welcome to DriverPacks.net

It is interesting to note the drive letter is missing in first error. I backtracted the errors to I386\presetup.cmd:
SET TAGFILE=\OEM
FOR %%i IN (C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y) DO IF EXIST "%%i:%TAGFILE%" SET CDDRIVE=%%i:& GOTO DPsFound
Start /wait /realtime /separate "" %CDDRIVE%\OEM\bin\un7zip.exe %CDDRIVE%\OEM\DP*.7z %SystemDrive%\

I confirmed by adding additional code to this file and booting again, that CDDRIVE was never found, hence it was blank. The question then is, why was it not found. The only reason I can see is, after the 1st reboot, in the 2nd stage, when the WinXP came up, the USB flash drive was not mounted. Hence the unzip commands never got executed, and the new drivers were never installed, esp. Chipset drivers. If I just ignore this error, the 2nd stage of the installation goes fine. But after this, when the 2nd reboot happens and the OS comes up for the third time, I get blue-screen error, which I think is because the non-Mass Storage drivers never got installed. I am not able to get past this error, and I am stuck on WinXP installation on modern computer.

Please feel free to correct me. I will try to use some old USB stick which will hopefully work with XP without addl. drivers.

if i remember correctly, a wise person in this forum advised not using nLite to integrate drivers.

I'm not, I use nLite to integrate post SP3 pack (http://xable.net/xp-sp3-update-pack-contents.html) and tweak some settings, remove some components, and use driverpacks base to integrate the drivers, after i'm completly done with nlite.

Also I don't use an ISO, but use unattended (from unattended.sourceforge.net) to boot via the network.

I see driverpacks base creates an OEM directory in my XP 'cd', thus having I386 and OEM next to eachother. Driverpack base does get it hooks into the i386 properly as it complains about the missing files.

I am running a test now with the 'OEM Preinstall' option, but, I did have 'OemPreinstall=Yes' in my unattended file ...

P.S. why would you feel dirty? I don't think there's easier ways or 'compatible with driverpacks base' ways to strip out components etc other than using nlite

I think I've actually figured it out

presetup.cmd gets called just fine appearantly, but neither nlite nor driverpack-base are to blame. I'm using the nt5x-install script via unattended and it only copies i386 to the future C: drive. It does not copy the OEM dir!

So i will try method1 now, but I may get into character issues, or patch nt5x-install script ... Maybe dosemu works better and does copy the OEM dirs. The <XPcd>\OEM path isn't an officially used and expected path is it?

cmpnents does get copied properly, looking at the script. I will test editing the presetup.cmd to do everything via cmpnents to see if that's the culprit.

So then, what would be the more recommended way, 'fix' unattended's nt5x-install script, to also copy an OEM dir, next to either an I386 or AMD64 dir, (OEM dir could be for either?), keep it under I386 and have it automatically copied, or use a more meaning full name, <XPcd>\driverpacks.

Well I had another look and was my silly fault, I didn't set OEM Enabled in nlite, sorry for false alarm

Could you be more specific in how you solved it? I went through nLite's options and didn't find 'OEM enable' feature I don't think.

Reason for asking is I bumped into exact the same issue, and only this post found as solution, without a real solution

\OEM\Bin\un7zip.exe

Windows cannot find "\OEM\Bin\un7zip.exe"I hit enter thinking I just install the driverpacks later but get

C:\DSPdsblr.exe
Windows Cannot find "C:\DSPdsblr.exe"

After clearing this dialoge I'm then prompted to insert the XP cd, so install can't continue

I used Base to integrate the packages and the slipstream completed! I intergrated just before creating an .iso using nlite, I'm not sure if this is a Nlite or Driverpacks problem, so I downloaded base 10.06 again and cleared the QSC

I get the same result