marwood_tech

I am using Ghost Suite 2.5 w/ Symantec Ghost 11.5 and I currently utilize the 3COM PXE boot server to boot to the servers NIC card to run ghost and deploy my images bare-metal. This all works flawlessly, however, I have issues with maintaining my naming convention using sysprep. I would like to know how to configure the Ghost console to be able to deploy images and maintain my current naming convention. I attempted to use the ghost console in the past however, this seemed a bit complicated just for basic imaging, which is how I ended up using the 3COM PXE boot function. However, thru some searching I arrived at the conclusion that this could not be accomplished using sysprep in Ghost. I have seen some posts on here that elude to the idea that it CAN be accomplished but using the ghost console, only, the way I understand the Ghost console, it is more of a systems management tool than a bare-metal installation (which is what I am trying to accomplish). If anyone has any documentation on this specific function or can point me in the right direction, I welcome any insight into the matter as this has perplexed me for a few weeks now. Many thanks

Really? and how does the SCCM 2007 work for you? I see you said you also use WDS; is this dependent of the SCCM or does one rely on the other for complete automation? We actually used a RIS server for our old imaging system and we are looking to replace that with something mroe automated; we chose ghost as this appeals to that particular function. With the RIS, we still have to fix the MBR and perform a few other small steps in the process as opposed to just uploading the ghost image and being able to install bare-metal fully automated w/ the option to dynamically name the machine according to our naming scheme. If SCCM 2007 or WDS can accomplish this, then I would look in that direction.

ok, that makes sense....so is there a workaround for that? would Symantec Ghost or any Symantec product have a way of performing these variables automatically in an unattended bare metal install? The goal is to have a fully automated imaging process, I have worked with Ghost before but not on a global level, just individual system imaging and it has worked fine. Introducing the whole network image process and this presents somewhat of an issue, but i was under the impression that symantec ghost addressed this very functionality. Other than the name scheming, the imaging works perfectly well, it joins the domain, and adds the system to the custom OU i created, however, the name scheming process halts the mini-setup.

Basically my question is how to accomplish dynamic name scheming using the sysprep.inf file. I have created a base image using Symantec Ghost, uploaded the image without issue; reboot and runs thru the mini-setup fine until it reaches the "computername" section and halts there as the wildcard syntax I am using doesn't work. However, the same syntax worked with our old imaging system using a RIS server and WIM file. I don't believe the image file type should make a difference, once it reaches the mini-setup point in Windows, its all the same sysprep file. the syntax i am using for the computer name is as follows: [userData] ProductKey=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX FullName="XXXXXXX" OrgName="XXXXXXX" ComputerName="TEST-%03#" I even extracted the same sysprep file that worked in the old image and it would not work, this is very perplexing, hopefully someone has an answer that does not involve VB scripts and runonce options. I would appreciate any logical answers, thanks.