Re: Cloning XP setups (followup)
From: Rick Corbett (rick_corbett_at_bristol-city.gov.uk)
Date: 10/31/03
- Next message: oscarmok: "Re: What's the best practice to setup laptop users capable to work at home and office"
- Previous message: John: "Auto configure ICF for network"
- In reply to: Iskandar Taib: "Cloning XP setups (followup)"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 15:37:26 -0000
Iskandar,
We've used successive version of Ghost for the last 5 years to image 1200+
PC's and laptops.
1) Re: Which version.
Use the Enterprise version ('cos Ghost 2003 is a 'personal' version which
doesn't allow batch scripting), preferably v7.5 (I don't think the
Enterprise version of v8.0 has been released yet, only the 'personal'
version. Ghost 8 add support for booting from DVD). The Enterprise version
also includes GhostCast (to be able to clone several machines at the same
time) plus other utilities (e.g. to create unique SID's). Ghost images of
Win XP Pro installs are huge (2.5Gb + uncompressed, 1.7Gb + compressed) so
CD may not be the way to go.
We clone new PC's by two methods:
a) via the network to a storage server (uses large amount of bandwidth and
limited to the speed of the network
b) using portable hard disks (much faster than via network but does mean
taking the top of the case off for a few minutes)
We're looking at experiment with portable USB DVD's but will have to wait
until Ghost Enterprise v8 is out. We also realise that cloning via DVD is
going to be very slow by comparison to a or b above.
2) Re: Deployment
To Ghost via the network you use the Ghost Boot Disk utility (included in
the Enterprise version, I don't know about the Personal version). This
utility creates a bootable floppy disk which gives low-level network access
via DOS (NDIS2) NIC drivers. Ghost then runs on top of DOS and uses the
NDIS2 NIC driver to connect to the remote server. The default is PC-DOS
(included with Ghost) but you can use MS-DOS to create the floppy boot disks
instead. A fairly comprehensive assortment of NIC drivers is included and we
haven't had any trouble creating new templates for the Ghost Boot Wizard.
The Ghost Boot Disk utility is simplicity itself.
To Ghost from an image on a hard disk, all you need is a Win95 boot disk
with the Ghost executable on it.- host takes care of recognising NTFS
drives/partitions which DOS doesn't know about.
Either way, Ghost FDISKS and FORMATS the destination drive on the fly so you
can lay a new image on top of an existing XP installation.
3) We don't use Windows PE.
PS - Make sure the source image is created using the Volume Licensing
version of XP Pro otherwise you'll get into a right mess with Windows
Product Activation issues after the PC's are switched on after cloning. We
had a horrific experience of new cloned Compaq's all having to be re-done
from scratch after one of my staff built a source image based on a Compaq
pre-installation of XP Pro. Although we're a volume licensing customer, we
had been supplied with non-volume licensing OS pre-installed. This is one
reason why we never, ever create a Ghost image based on an OEM-supplied
installation of an OS. The other reason is that suppliers like Compaq/HP,
Toshiba etc. install a huge amount of bloatware that is often only for their
own benefit. We prefer a lean-and-green install where we know exactly what
has been installed and where. To do this, FDISK and format then install
fresh installation of XP plus drivers then service packs, critical updates
and your own applications. I suggest you always carry out a Scandisk and
defrag before saving the Ghost image to be used on other PC's.
We always FDISK HD's into 2 partitions - the first as NTFS (for OS and
programs) and the second as FAT32 (for the XP swap file, a copy of the Ghost
executable and to store a partition image of the primary partition. This
means that if a user messes up the OS or programs then it only takes a few
minutes to re-clone the primary partition from the partition image stored in
the secondary partition... and all we need is a Win95 boot disk to get
access to the FAT32 partition where the Ghost executable is stored. This is
much quicker than having to re-clone the entire hard disk.
Hope this helps.
Rick
- Next message: oscarmok: "Re: What's the best practice to setup laptop users capable to work at home and office"
- Previous message: John: "Auto configure ICF for network"
- In reply to: Iskandar Taib: "Cloning XP setups (followup)"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] [ attachment ]
Relevant Pages
|
