rorton

i have a ghost image, which at present has been working well on Compaq Deskpro, Compaq Evo D500, D510, and HP/Compaq D530. i have just had delivery of some DC7100 (HP's new corp desktop) and am trying to add the new drivers to my image, then re sysprep, and ghost ready for deployment. I dropped the new image onto the PC, logged in, added the drivers into their own folder (i have a root folder called PnPDrvrs with all my drivers in), then ammended the Reg Entry for Devices HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsft\Windows\CurrentVersion, and removed the OEMPNPDRIVERS entry from my sysprep file (as i have issues with adding driver path into sysprep, then it messing with the REG entry. I have also added the IgnoreUnsignedDrivers entry into sysprep, as i read that if the drivers are unsigned, then they wont detect in mini setup, you get the 'found new hardware wizard' upon 1st boot of windows. So after doing all the above, i removed all device specific drivers from Device manager (by uninstalling the ACPI as usual) then run sysprep, and select reseal and mini setup. ghost up the image to the ghost server, and then after captuing the image, reboot the machine to make sure it all works OK. The machine boots fine, and starts the mini setup, then gets to the screen with the square box in it, and then eventually just hangs there. I had a feeling it may have been because i have D530 Drivers on there, along with the newer DC7100 drivers, and sysprep may have been getting confused by looking at different drivers and not knowing which ones to install, so i removed the D530 Sound and Video drivers, re sysprepped, and still the same, so i am stuck at the point of sysprep not completing Any ideas?

i've just booted one of the HP Vectra's and it also has an ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC) so looks to be OK? Gonna try and remove as much hardware as i can from my EVO based build, and apply it to an HP vectra, and see what happens (gotta be worth a laugh!)

thanks for that, so would i be able to add the same entry into my sysprep.inf file?

thanks for the reponses guys, sorry i been so long in replying. To Address a few questions, I am using sysprep, and its working well (so no need to regenerate SID's etc). The image consists of XP Pro, on a base machine, complete windows update run (latest patches etc) We then use a deployment utility called 'MARIMBA' to layer any additional apps on the base image, (Office, Antivirus, and LOTS of other legecy images etc), All the drivers for the different HP/EVO Hardware are then in a PnPDrvrs folder, remove any stuff not needed from Device Manager (VGA, NIC, Sound, USB, and any intel related stuff, along with IDE Controllers etc) Then Sysprep the image, and once the machine is shut down, Ghost this upto our ghost server. this single image works well across HP D530's, Compaq D510/D500's and Compaq Deskpro EN machines. All the drivers pickup and basically everything is fine. Sysprep runs OK, and i have allowed sysprep to stop at one point, to allow me to enter the machine name (which is made up from the asset tag attached to the machine) and to allow me to enter a local administrator password. Sysprep then completes once this info is entered, adds the machine to the domain, and jobs done Just be nice to allow this build to work across our older HP Vectra Hardware. I dont think RIS would be of much use in this scenareo. it does take some time to apply the Base OS using RIS to the machine. The having to apply none MS Applications, and our Marimba Client and other bits and pieces, could take upto an hour per machine. At least with a ghost image, the whole image gets applied to the machine, added to the domain in about 7 mins (which i feel is a great time for a 3gig image)

hi guys, been using ghost and RIS for over a year now, and really think its good PXE boot a PC, connect to the login screens, and then there is a RIS option created to connect to the ghost server, which is 'pre configured' i.e if i select the Auto ghost option, it connects to my ghost server, uses a session called 'load' and then sends the image down. i have also customised the RIS menus to help other people using this setup. Best think for me, is that i also have this setup on a laptop. Windows 2000 Server running on it, with Active Directory and RIS setup. Great for nipping to different sites etc, just use a cross over cable, plug the laptop into the PC's nic, PXE boot the PC, and ghost away, works well for me anyway

Hi All New starter to the forum, so i'll jump right in. Im trying to create a 'generic' XP ghost image, which will work across mutiple platforms. At present we use a mixture of HP EVO Machines, Compaq Evo Machines, Compaq Deskpro machine, and then some older HP Vectra machines. At present i use 2 ghost images. One for the newer HP/Compaq Stuff (Deskpro Being the oldest) then a second for the Older HP Image (Vectra VL400 being the newest) What i would like if possible, is to have a single ghost image for all the machines on site? Reson for using the 2, is issues (i think) with HAL and ACPI, as the Old HP Image wont work on the HP/Compaq and Vice Versa. Using XP Corp, SP1 as the Base OS, then adding additional apps, patches Antivirus etc, then adding drivers, and sysprepping the build, and ghosting upto the ghost server. Am i living in dream land, or is it infact possible to have a base XP Image to work across quite a few types of hardware? Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long 1st post!