In work we currently use a PXE setup to install our desktops… we boot to lan and it picks an little image off the server that boots to dos and auto maps our shares… then we boot Ghost and image away…
Problem we have hit with our new machines have enhanced Sata is enabled on our shuttles… and the option to turn it off is blacked out… sooo basically im wondering if anyone has any ideas on how we could image these desktops… as we need to load a driver for ghost to see the drives…
Its getting tiresome using a Portable dvd drive to install OS all the time and it really wont be an option when term starts…
Also just so you know the desktops dont have Optical media drives… at all…
Have you tried the command line switches -FNI (although in the past this never seemed to help us with SATA problems) or -NOIDE (I have used this to ghost a SATA drive from an external SCSI drive).
Used both Switches in the past… as u said -FNI seems pointless and -NOIDE works but not for these drives stuck in enhanced mode…
Theres just something different…
we are trying different methods and atm im using a usb dvd drive to install because I need them working asap… its just in the future I will need a quicker way to install them…
You could then place the IMAGE on the Stick…not sure if that helps any. SATA is a pain wish someone could fix all the BIOS calls to not need a frig’n driver all the time.
Nah, use the Windows Deployment Services that comes with Server 2003 RC2. I would suggest using Vista as your target OS as it’s hardware platform independent meaning yuo can get away with 1 image for all your desktops.
You fully install the machine then reseal the OS and capture it across the network onto the server by booting to PXE and choosing capture instead of deploy.
[QUOTE=JUGGY;426530]Nah, use the Windows Deployment Services that comes with Server 2003 RC2. I would suggest using Vista as your target OS as it’s hardware platform independent meaning yuo can get away with 1 image for all your desktops.
You fully install the machine then reseal the OS and capture it across the network onto the server by booting to PXE and choosing capture instead of deploy.
ok im going to try this… does WDS have to be running on the DHCP or can you just point the WDS at the DHCP ? id rather the images be sitting on a different box…
Im setting it up on a test network before going about trying it on our current servers…
it would be fine had it been a few weeks before the start of term… but where really close to the start of term now and I cant risk loosing the servers to a mistake I make…
Currently a bank holiday monday so the beers are going down well
Dont think ill be trying it for another week… only another 70 desktops to setup before the start of term… all these should be fine as they are ghostable… its just the tiresome task of setting up all the pc’s then imaging them
oh and then theres the ethernet drops to put in oh dear… 4days to do it in…
side note, but we had issues with ghost and sata hdd, but mainly because it was a mirroed raid, and we found out from symantec that ghost doesn’t suppot sata raid at all, so now we use a bootable vista pe, and imagex…works a treat too
Not to bring up old posts, but PlacidSheep how did this go with your ghosting of sata raid?
Our imagex sollution has fallen over when we wanted to image a win2k3 machine due to the raid drivers on vista PE.
We never had time to actually crack on with it… in the end we used a custom XP DVD that I made to install everything in one hit… burned 5copys and used usb drives to install them… and im still waiting for a quiet period when I can crack on and sort it out…
just everything seems in a snowball effect where work keeps coming and coming…
Might be a bit of overkill, but we have recently switched from WDS to using SCCM to deploy images. Recent test with a couple of the techies showed we could unbox and build 100 PC’s in less than 2hrs, which included getting rid of all the rubbish. I thought it was quite impressive! Well, i suppose i did fund the build room and necessary infra out of my budget, so am claiming it was my success (Yay, go management!!!)
