Best Network Ghost method?

[Lex]

I need to do a network ghost whereby i copy a computers configurations i.e image onto a server and back over the network to mutliple machines simultaneously.

What is the best method to use?

Remote Installation Services? The I.T Consultant who works for the company i work for says he's tried and fails and doesn't know anyone who's successfully got it working.

My roll is I.T Administrator/hardware & software Engineer. I've set RIS up myself and ive stumpled across an issue with the network adapater. Now i'm finding it some what difficult to get across this block but someone please tell me that RIS is successful method of deployment or recommend me another solution please.

 

[Simmy]

Acronis Snap Deploy does just that, but I'm reluctant to recommend it because it's so buggy. It's easier to use than RIS though, so maybe give the trial version a go?

 

[Lex]

This network adaptor problem is really jarring me tho. its a known problem but no matter what the resolution it still keeps appearing on the client machine.

anyone know anything about ris who can help?

error message:

"The operating system image you selected does not contain the necessary drivers for your network adapter. Try selecting a different operating system image. If the problem persists, contact your administrator. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit."

When the client machine loads it spots the ris server and attempts to grab the imaage but right after you enter the username/password it displays the above message. hELP!

 

[oddjob62]

You need to put the drivers for the nic in 2 locations, in the OEM folder, and the winnt (or it could be winnt\system32 i can't quite remember)

During the inital startup of windows, the process looks in that location for network drivers, and uses them to connect to the RIS server, (yeah it stumped me at first), would have though it would be clever enough to look in the oem folder that you create for extra drivers but ho hum.

 

[Deleted member 64478]

http://www.netbootdisk.com/, that then maps a drive letter (ovcourse you have to configure it first to match your network settings).

You then put the ghost exe into your path you put on the disk you made above and create a batch file to execute ghost.exe automatically. Or just run ghost.exe at the command line.

The only thing about RIS is that that is ok for setting up standard XP but then you need to configure it to install applications e.t.c, which can take a very long time depending how many systems you have and what the setup is. (Unless ovcourse you deploy applications via policy).

 

[Lex]

You need to put the drivers for the nic in 2 locations, in the OEM folder, and the winnt (or it could be winnt\system32 i can't quite remember)

During the inital startup of windows, the process looks in that location for network drivers, and uses them to connect to the RIS server, (yeah it stumped me at first), would have though it would be clever enough to look in the oem folder that you create for extra drivers but ho hum.

so let me get this straight. i put the nic drivers in the image folder (on ris server) and in the default windows folder in winnt or system 32? When you say put the nic drivers do u mean copy the nic folder that contains the drivers or take the files out and put them accordingly? sorry i have to be specific i want to rid all possible problems that im causing.

if your on messenger that would help me oh so much make my xmas if i could get this working.

 

[oddjob62]

MSN in trust, but i mean you need to put the actual files (not the folder) into the winnt fodler that's created by the RIS service (ie the one that is used to the RIS installation)

 

[Lex]

MSN in trust, but i mean you need to put the actual files (not the folder) into the winnt fodler that's created by the RIS service (ie the one that is used to the RIS installation)

surely if i created the image FROM the client machine that included the network adaptor which i then uploaded that image TO the RIS server. Surely that image already has the network drivers for that same client machine as its the same image.

 

[Deleted member 64478]

surely if i created the image FROM the client machine that included the network adaptor which i then uploaded that image TO the RIS server. Surely that image already has the network drivers for that same client machine as its the same image.

How did you upload it to the server using RIS?

A RIS server only pulls down an xp installation not creates it.

 

[Lex]

How did you upload it to the server using RIS?

A RIS server only pulls down an xp installation not creates it.

well yes it creates it but how does it create it....on the client machine i run RIPrep.exe from the RIS server.

this basically uploads the configurations the customisations of the client OS that you've made rather than the basic OS setup.

 

[oddjob62]

surely if i created the image FROM the client machine that included the network adaptor which i then uploaded that image TO the RIS server. Surely that image already has the network drivers for that same client machine as its the same image.

Nah it's a bit silly (iirc) it sets up the $oem$ folder for you, but you still need to MANUALLY put the drivers into the winnt\system32 folder (Again i can't remember if it's just winnt)

 

[Lex]

Nah it's a bit silly (iirc) it sets up the $oem$ folder for you, but you still need to MANUALLY put the drivers into the winnt\system32 folder (Again i can't remember if it's just winnt)

okay i will have to give that a go. what is with the "$" that suggests that folder is invisible?

im gonna try it this evening.

 

[oddjob62]

okay i will have to give that a go. what is with the "$" that suggests that folder is invisible?

im gonna try it this evening.

Nothing to do with being invisible, that's for shares not folders.

I should be in later this evening if you wanna grab me on MSN

 

[BigChin1]

RIS can cause a lot of problems, if you've got a lot of identical machines then it's not so bad, but creating images for different hardware configs is a pain. If you've not already heard of 'HAL' then you will do - major headache. Once you get past the NIC issue you may discover that it can't see the hard disk either, particularly if you're using SATA (you then go through the same process of adding the SATA drivers).

I recently began using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) which is the replacement for RIS and comes with SP2 for Server 2003. The way it works is substantially different and for that I prefer it. There is a good how-to here that gets you up and running with an XP image in a short time.

Incidentally Vista deployments with WDS are supposed to be a piece of cake, HAL problems a thing of the past. I haven't tried it yet though..