Restore Partitions, etc.

RockLobster

RockLobster

RockLobster

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Joined
2 Sep 2007
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Hi

In work we have around 1500 pcs, at the moment if we want to restore a PC we use a floppy boot disk with Ghost on it, Ghost gets the image from our server and restores the PC. We are looking into the same way Sony, Packard Bell, etc do it by having a hidden partition with the image on there and being able to hit a key it brings up a menu and you can restore from the hidden partition. Only thing is the restore would have to be password protected to stop anyone doing it.

Any ideas how I would go about it?

Cheers
 
I know on HP's / IBM's it's built into the Bios to be able to boot off these - I can't see there being a problem making your own but it would be a massive hassle and to also make it password protected even harder.

I think Ghost is probably the best way to go - perhaps make backup DVDs and have them near or stuck on the side of the PC and doing them that way would be slightly more towards what you are after (then someone would have to put the DVD in to actually restore it).



M.
 
Is there a good reason to do it this way?

One of the main reasons for using Ghostcast or similar is that you have a central repository for your build images. If you change anything, you only change the central image.

In your proposal, a change to an image would have to be manually updated on every PC.

The risk with this approach depends on how often you change your image and what you try and pack in before delivering apps over the network.

Where I work, its done with a very high baseline image and only a few apps are installed after the restore. Your proposal would kill us but might work for you.
 
I guess he wanted it for machines not neccesarily on the network (i.e. laptops) that may be out and about and need fixing.
 
We use both Ghostcast over the LAN and a bootable DVD image which contains the same ghost image. If the PC is on a slow link then somebody has to kick off the install via the DVD but once it's ghosted the image boots up and goes through a series of automate tasks such as joining the domain, software installs that have to done whilst joined to the domain etc...
 
m4cc45 said:
I guess he wanted it for machines not neccesarily on the network (i.e. laptops) that may be out and about and need fixing.
Click to expand...

Fair point yes, just trying to clarify what the issue with the current way of doing things is (if there is one). All things being equal, and all bandwidth being available, over-the-network installs are the way to go for managing large desktop estates.
 
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