Greetings,

I've been trying to find an answer to a query I have about the DAgent with little success.  I was just wondering if it was appropriate for me to install the DAgent prior to capturing the image, thus meaning the agent is already installed upon imaging a new machine?  If so, what's the best way to get the agent installed on a non-domain joined computer? Thanks in advance.

Trying to create an image of a Dell Optiplex 7040 w/ a Samsung M2 SSD.

In the PXE, Ghost is not "seeing" the Samsung SSD. It only sees the Ghost boot USB and the OS partition.

Tried toggling the drive from RAID to AHCI, no dice. No option for IDE.

I am new to using GSS 3.1 console and confused on how to distribute images with different configurations.  In GSS 2.5, there were configuration templates that you could setup to use when distributing an image.  I can't find a similiar way to setup configurations in 3.1.  I would like to be able to set a configuration that for example might configure one station with a name like S-*, one with a name of T-*, etc. where it would consectively number them.  Some that were already on the domain, want to image with same name.  Not sure how to accomplish this with GSS 3.1.

Any help  to point me in the right direction would be appreciated.

AJW

Hi all.  I have a fairly basic scenario I'm trying to figure out, but have no idea if Ghost (GSS) is the way to go.  I'm told it is, however, I haven't had time to ask my source for more details.  What I am not looking for is a highly involved enterprise management solution, I am looking instead for the lowest level simplicist imaging product I can find.  Here's my scenario:

I will be upgrading a customer to Windows 10 for all their 10 computres.  The goal however is to go one unit at a time, and each time, provide the user a temporary PC to use while I do the Win 10 work.  So my goal is to be abel to image the original PC, restore that image to the temp PC, give the temp PC to the use (informing them not to save new data for a half-day or day), and upgrade their original PC to Win 10.  Then, bring it back and remove the temp PC. 

Then I would repeat this process for each computer.  At any given time the imaging software is only being used once, and the image taken is destroyed so in my mind would not a single license of some imaging product suffice?  I am more familiar with using System Recovery 2013 R2 (but not whether it's licenses supports me scenario).  I am not familiiar with Ghost, but a "Solution Suite" sounds very involved and I have very limited time to select a product and get moving on this so can't afford to spend time training extensively.  Plus this customer has no server so even if an automated deployment solution were desired it would not likely be an option. 

Thanks very much. 

Saw the following error while right clicking machine to install an automation folder after updating to MP1:  "No appropriate bootworks NIC found.  Use boot Disk Creator to Create a Bootworks install package."  Any ideas? Because I don't see an option to create an bootworks install package.

I am working with trying to image new PCs (HP ProOne 400 G2 20-inch Non-Touch All-in-One) locally.

One idea that we want to test is to boot the PC out of the box and create a partition from the C: drive. This is a separate partition, we called it I:

After that, we copied the image that we wanted to used from an external hard drive onto the new I: drive.

Next, we restarted the PC using a USB Ghost bootable drive that we already had. We selected to image from disk with the image from the I: drive. Ghost then asked if we wanted to preserve the image or delete it after deployment. We told it to preserve the image.

It then opened a new black screen and asked us to use a -preservedest switch in the command console.

I'm new to IT so I'm not exactly sure how this works. I went to list of ghost switches on the symantec website. It came up with a -preserveifexists switch. I'm just wondering how exactly to implement this.

Can the new filepath be the same as the path that we are imaging from? Can I just tell it to preserve the entire I: Partition and add it back to the same location? I apologize if my wording is a bit confusing, as I am somewhat confused myself. 

Thanks.

I am having issues getting our new Dell Optiplex 7040s to cooperate with the ghost environment.  I can not seem to get the correct NIC drivers to work and get an IP.  Does anyone have a minute to help point me in the right direction?  I have a WinPE 5.0 Driver cab file from Dell but cant seem to add the drivers correctly to the ghost boot disk.

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise...

Basically everything that was asked in this question http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/ghost64exe-question-1873-deploying-mbrbios-images-gptuefi-mode I now face with Ghost 3.x with regards to question 1873 and GPT/UEFI.

We do not want to use -Sure, as that will default to Yes. Is there a way to answer the question with a NO using command line options on Ghostcast server? I did not see any 

These images come from a customer, and are not to be edited. We are having a hard time getting staff to hit NO vs. YES.

Hi,

This seems to only have started happening since 3.1mp1, its still there in Mp2 - When I right click on a machine, click on advanced, then install automation folder the console just hangs with (not responding) the automation folder does not get installed on the client machine either. The machine is server 2012R2 fully up to date.

Any ideas?

Wondering who out here is currently using GSS3.1 with WinPE10 to deploy Windows 10 clients, and if you'd be willing to share your troubles and successes!

Hi All

We have been using GS3.1 for a few months now and have around 450 workstations in the Database.

Is it possible to move the database to a different SQL server ? If so how can i do this please?

Thanks

I just started working and i was asked if i could take a look at their GSS that wasn't working. The person that was supose to set it up didn't do it correctly and it has been dormant for some time. So i am giving it a try, but the DAgant is unable to connect. It shows up in the DS console, but i can't do anything with it. As i don't realy know all that much about GSS and has only been working with it for the past 3 days it might just be me not understanding anything at all. But, after looking around and gathering information i think it has something to do with the license? "No license slot available". So, can I fix this and if so, how? 

Dear Symantec Community,

I am currently encountering a problem using Symantec Ghost 11.5.

Currently, I am in the process of migrating a Windows XP system (standalone for legacy application usage) from an older 80GB Hitachi HDD to a new Sandisk SSD Plus 240 GB SSD. The SSD is intended to replace the HDD for the same unit.

The partition styles for the old and new drives are as follows:

Old Drive (Hitachi 80GB)
HP_OS (A) 65.9GB and HP_RECOVERY (B) 11.9GB

New Drive (Sandisk SSD Plus 240GB - proposed partition style)

HP_OS (C) 160GB and HP_RECOVERY (D) 68GB

In both cases Windows utilises all of the allocatable space of the drive; there is no unallocated space. All the partitions are primary partitions.

Traditionally, I have always used Ghost to migrate full copies of the OS (homebrewed systems) from one hard disk to another during upgrades, and for backup via the creation of Ghost Images - all without an issue.

The following switches in Ghost were already enabled prior to cloning: Spanning, Autoname, CreateCRC32. I proceeded to do the cloning by connecting both the HDD and SSD via USB casings to another computer, and running ghost32 in the Windows 7 GUI.

However, when I attempted to perform the migration via partition to partition cloning, i.e. (A) clones to (C) and (B) clones to (D), the SSD will not even boot (Non-System disk or disk error), even though the data and the drives are healthy. (i.e. it is a recognised as a plain data disk rather than a bootable disk).

I tried to make the partition labelled (C) active, and while it gets rid of the Non-System disk error message, I am greeted by a blinking cursor that hangs and refuses to boot. To all those who are familiar with the older series HP Mobile Workstations/Laptops on boot-up the "Press F11 for Emergency Recovery" message would show up prior to boot, but even this message was not seen despite having replicated the partitions in the same style as the old disk, albeit the larger partition sizes.

So I did a bit of research and I came across threads on this forum highlighting how certain disks could not imaged this way because of proprietary boot sectors/blocks i.e. in the case of Lenovo computers that prevented ordinary imaging from taking place successfully.

I then tried cloning again with the same partition styles as mentioned earlier (still a partition to partition clone with no intermediate image), only this time I enabled an extra switch: ImageAll  -ia (which copied the data sector by sector). This time, the HDD itself was returned to the unit and connected to the internal SATA connector, with the target SSD connected via a USB casing. The computer was booted via a Windows 7 x86 RE CD, and using Command Prompt to launch ghost32 to perform the cloning.

And I still came to the same result. Once again, it was still not bootable.

How can I make it possible for the SSD to boot up into the Windows OS successfully just like how the HDD did, while benefitting from the increase in partition sizes? Or is this not possible?

I want to use the -ib (Image Boot sector switch), however, I don't know where and what exactly the boot sector is located on HP machines, so I decided not to use this switch.

I also did not try Partition to Image and then Image to partition onto the new SSD, as it would take 2.5x more time and also additional space required to hold the image - unless it was actually the solution, this would produce a different result from the Partition to Partition copying method.

Or in the worst case scenario, would a disk to disk cloning method solve this problem - thus allowing me to create another partition to the end of the drive to fill up all of the unallocated space. However, I would prefer not to use this method as I am keen on specifically increasing the partition size of the OS partition; i.e. HP_OS.

I humbly ask for your assistance in this matter and I look forward to all of your replies. Feel free to query this thread if you need further information.

-it_geek

Hello, i'm stuck on a weird problem.

My gss 3.1 installation is brand new and i was testing automation folder with one virtual machine, this virtual machine is a windows 7 pro x64 computer. I have made a configuration for WinPE 3.1 env then created an automation partition installer later deployed on the window 7 without an issue.

For testing purpose i launched an image creation task, the virtual machine is rebooting just fine but when enterring in the winpe env i get a black screen with only the mouse available :/

I get the same result on a physical machine via a pxe boot.

What i am missing on things to do ?

Thx in advance.

Searches of Google and Symantec forums are turning up nothing of value so I am hoping someone on here is aware of a way to pass a variable into a powershell script as a part of a GSS 3.1 task.  Ex.  Passing the name of the PC in the console into a powershell script to rename the PC.

$compName = %SomeGSSVariable%

Rename-Computer -NewName $compName -DomainCredential foo\someCred -force -restart

I have successfully created a WinPE10 Boot Disk with Network Boot. However, I want the boot disk to automatically boot to ghost64 to run GhostCast Server. Can anyone tell me if there is an easy way to do that? Here is what I see when I use my WinPE10 Boot Disk

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please wait while GSS WinPE 10.0.10586.0 x64 Pre-boot Automation Environment (CDROM boot) loads............. Initializing Windows PE... Locating boot drive... Found boot drive using autoutil.. Initializing network.... starting the network..... Loading drivers.... Using Dynamic IP.... Configuring WinPE firewall...... Firewall disabled. Establishing network connection... Validating network connection (criteria = -169.254).... Authentication network connection.... Mapping network drivers...

The Command Completed successfully.

Deployment share mapped to M:

Calling custom actions...

Startup complete.

M:\

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its work fine if I type in ghost\ghost64 and I can run the Ghostcast server from there without any problem. However, I want to find a way to auto run it instead of typing in the CMD "M:\ghost\ghost64" manually. I kind of remember for the older Ghost 2.5 with WinPE 3.. I need to manually edit the startnet file and put in "wpeinit start x:\ghost32.exe" for the boot disk to boot directly to Ghostcast server. I’m not sure how to do that with the new WinPE10/Ghost 3.1 and new Boot Disk creator tool.

Thank you in advance for all your help!!

WHello,

We are having issues creating an image on a Dell Latitude E5430 using Ghost Solution Suite 2.5. We are using a Ghost Boot CD. The CD runs fine, but when we try to use the Unicast to connect to the Ghost Server, it says "Connecting to <name>" but it hangs up and does nothing from there. One guess is that WinPE might not be connected to the Internet. Let me know if you have any further questions/if you want me to elaborate on anything. Thank you.

Hello,

I'm facing a very strange problem related to the deployment of a WIM image to a new computer using DS/GSS.

If we deploy it using DS 6.9 SP5 MR1 it works as expected and boots correctly to Windows executing our post-configuration scripts.

If we deploy it using GSS 3.1 MP2 it doesn't work. We see for some seconds the Windows logo and then stays in a black screen. It doesn't execute anything.

This WIM image is captured using WAIK 8.1 Update 1 using this command:

..\waik81\x86\DISM\dism.exe /Capture-Image /CaptureDir:C:\ /ImageFile:i:\lcfib\wim81\x64\win81x64_v11.wim /Name:"win81x64 Enterprise ES-EN-CA v11" /Compress:fast /ScratchDir:i:\temp /Verify

The image is a Windows 8.1 with all the latest updates and sysprepped using this command:

sysprep /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:unattend_x64.xml

The job for deploy this image executes a lot of commands, but the main are these ones for applying the image, replace computer name in the XML for unattend installation, copy the drivers for this hardware model and inject them:

.\inlab\WAIK81\x86\DISM\dism.exe /Apply-Image /ImageFile:.\inlab\wim81\x64\win81x64_v11.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:C:\
REM ReplaceTokens .\lcfib\wim81\x64\unattend_x64.xml .\temp\unattend81_x64%ID%.xml
copy /y .\temp\unattend81_x64%ID%.xml c:\windows\system32\sysprep\unattend_x64.xml
copy /y .\temp\unattend81_x64%ID%.xml c:\windows\panther\unattend.xml
set modelo=%#!computer@prod_name%
robocopy  ".\inlab\drivers\%modelo%\x64" C:\Drivers /mir
.\inlab\WAIK81\x86\DISM\dism.exe /Image:C:\ /SysDriveDir:C:\ /NoRestart /Apply-Unattend:C:\Drivers\drivers_x64.xml /LogPath:C:\Drivers\log_install.txt

The main difference between the two environments is Windows PE version. DS uses WinPE 2.1 and GSS uses WinPE 5.x.

We've changed our scripts to use the same ADK (8.1 Update 1) instead of relying in the commands available from the eXpress share under the different WinPE environments with no success.

The problem is something related to the drivers injection. If we don't inject drivers, then the image boots properly and executes the hardware detection and all the configuration specified in our XML file. But, this is not a good solution because of missing drivers for the hardware.

We've have tested changing the procedure for injecting the drivers after Windows boots (i.e. using some scripts in the XML unattend file calling pnputil) but this has problems with some unsigned drivers prompting for allowing the installation. So we need to inject them in offlineservicing pass (Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE).

We've started having this problem during the setup of our new environment using GSS for replacing the old DS servers. GSS 3.0 had this problem. GSS 3.1 has it too. The upgrade to MP1 and MP2 also has the problem.

Do you know how to investigate this behaviour? We've boot the problematic client machine using WinPE and look into the windows log files but we don't find anything interesting.

We've also opened a case without success. It has been closed "because this is not a normal deployment method" :-(

So, any idea would be very appreciated because we're stopped in the replacement of DS servers project.

Thanks to all.

Hello,

I'm trying to test a scenario where I deploy a master (taken from a virtual machine) onto a physical computer without using sysprep but with deployanywhere. My idea is to have a unique master for all my computer going from dell optiplex 780 to dell precision T3420.

So i made a deployment task, not sysprep checked, just configuration and deployanywhere.

Deploying the image is working, deployanywhere too (had to edit advanced option to change target to d:\windows) but after the autologon phase of deployanywhere the computer seems to restart on a sysprep oobe :(

If i go through the oobe, selecting language, computer name, user password, eula, time etc the task continue on configurating the computer and terminate with succes, computer being imaged and joined to the domain.

Why am i going to this oobe thus i didnt choose sysprep? hard to find any help for this scenario on the documentation.

Thx

So I downloaded a tria version of the newest ghost suite.  Our old ghost suite 2.5 wasnt working with a new set of Lenovos we got in.  So I downloaded the 3.x trial here online.  Has anyone had an issue with the trial or the full version?  Just seems laggy to me.  When you click inside of the boot disk creator, it hangs and hangs and hangs.  Took 15 mintues just to add "-ib" to the script.  When you click on something you have to wait.  Also when imaging its not as smooth as older versions of ghost.  When imaging.  The numbers do not keep up.  it will say 1:00 remaining, then 50 seconds later it will say 0:29 remaining.  Just frustrated its acting like this!