indy_dba

Not sure if you meant your booting BartPE from CD or via PXE/RIS (from the network), but I know that older versions of the Intel Pro 100 & Pro 1000 NIC's had problems when booting from PXE/RIS so you will want to have the most recent version of the driver to be safe. Most recent Intel Pro100 VE network driver for 2k/XP/2k3 from Intel's web site. Hope this helps.

Well I don't know if you are teaching me anything (eggs or otherwise) LOL I just found this is most likely NOT a driver issue, because I just ran BartPE from CD-ROM and BartPE has no problem accessing the network with the driver I had in the build. So this isolates the problem to something special about running BartPE from PXE boot via Windows Server2003+SP1 RIS service when combined with a PentiumD (dual core) CPU and using a recent Broadcom 57XX driver. I am able to PXE boot the servers I work on; Intel SE7230NH1-E, SE7250JR, HP DL380, DL360, DL140, Intel Buckner, etc without this problem. The HP DL140 even has the same (or similar enough) Broadcom 57XX driver and it boots fine. Remember the problem I am having is with BartPE not detecting the network driver, but at this point I have already PXE/RIS booted BartPE from the network so it seems like the driver I have should be the correct one. Especially since we now know it works from CD-ROM! Weird problem huh?

Well if PCIScan only runs from DOS I am not sure if it will run from BartPE or not (we'll just have to test it). I understand you have to do some work to create a system map file to translate the PCI vendor info into a more friendly name like Dell Optiplex GX520 or something... Regarding the CD Eject method I don't have to do that because I normally PXE boot and run BartPE from the network, but I decided to do a quick search on Google found this utility (ejectcd.exe) http://www.alexnolan.net/software/commandline.htm for ejecting CD's from the Command Line, so I suppose you could add this to your BartPE build, then modify your .BAT file to do the following: 1.) Run Ghost (with command switches for auto-restoring the image you want) 2.) Run the CD Eject utility 3.) Use the Shutdown command (XP/2003 command) to restart the system; shutdown -r -f You will have to include Shutdown.exe in your BartPE build. One way is by editing pebuilder3110a\plugin\!custom\Custom.inf and add the following line to the [sourceDiskFiles] section we created earlier in this post (to add Choice.exe). What we are doing here is telling BartPE to pull these files out of the I386 directory when PE Builder builds the BartPE files. [sourceDisksFiles] choice.exe=2 shutdown.exe=2 I haven't tried this out yet so I will leave the testing to you on this one...

The Broadcom B57XX gigabit driver has only three files a .CAT, .INF, and a .SYS. PE Builder already put the .SYS and .INF file in the directories you described. What's weird is I am able to boot BartPE just fine and the SATA driver can read the local disk. The only problem is BartPE isn't able to find the network adaptor... Weird! Any other ideas?

I have never used PCIScan before but I see Bart has a download link for it on this page http://www.nu2.nu/utils/ I tried to run it from XP but I don't think it can read through the HAL layer. If I get time I may try to run this from BartPE and see what it does.

Ok here is an interesting problem. I just got a new high end Dell Preceision 380 Workstation it has a 2.8 Ghz Pentium D (dual core) CPU and Broadcom 57xx gigabit NIC. I have been successful so far in PXE booting BartPE from RIS services on Server 2003+SP1 with many different server systems (I know I am odd working on servers not PC's with BartPE). One of these servers an HP DL140 uses the same Broadcom gigabit NIC and BartPE works fine. On the new Dell380 I am able to boot BartPE off the RIS server in TXT mode (BartPE is the only image I run and all .OSC screens are automated so BartPE starts right up after pressing F12); however, when the box box says "Installing network adapters..." comes up an "Unable to install network adaptors." message appears and the Broadcom NIC is not detected. I have tried several different versions of the Broadcom NIC and it works fine on the HP DL140 but not on the Dell Precision 380 so I am infering that I have this driver setup correctly in BartPE. So I am left to wonder is the Pentium D the source of my problem? How does the NIC adaptor detection run? Could something on a newer class mobo/CPU cause this detection of the NIC to fail? Anyone got BartPE or WinPE working on a Pentium D system? Other tips?

thesimpsons wrote> What is the best way to script if I have different type of Dell workstations and want to get the disired images based on the type of workstation? Thanks again. The only way I know to do this is to create a DOS menu using the Choice.exe command line utility and have one option for each type of workstation you are cloning. Each menu item would then call the appropriate Ghost32 command line that would be pointed to the correct .GHO file for that type of workstation. Step 1) Edit the Custom.inf file in the pebuilder3110a\plugin\!custom directory adding the following section and line to the end of the file: [sourceDisksFiles] choice.exe=2 This will include the Choice.exe program and make it available for use when you rebuild BartPE. This file listens for the choice you make in the menu shown below. Here is a shortened down version of the Menu.bat file I use. You can see in option 1 I call to another file, diskpart.bat, to handle this partitioning task; however, for option 2 I call Ghost directly. I just did this to keep complex functions like disk partitioning in their own reusable script in case I want to link it to another menu or something in the future. :MAIN-MENU CLS ECHO. ECHO.Ghost Imaging Menu ECHO.----------------------------------------------------- ECHO. ECHO.1.) DISKPART (Disk0 / C:=32GB / D:=##, NTFS formated) ECHO.2.) GHOST (-FDSP -FEMAX -CNS -Z2) ECHO.3.) End Program. ECHO. CHOICE /C:123 /M "Enter your choice:" /N ECHO. IF ERRORLEVEL 3 GOTO END-OPTION IF ERRORLEVEL 2 GOTO GHOST-OPTION IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO DISKPART-OPTION GOTO MAIN-MENU :DISKPART-OPTION CALL diskpart-crs.bat GOTO MAIN-MENU :GHOST-OPTION "X:\programs\ghost8\GHOST32.EXE" -FDSP -CNS -Z2 -FEMAX GOTO MAIN-MENU :END-OPTION CLS ECHO. ECHO.Thank You for using the Ghost Imaging Menu! TIP: You can only have 9 menu items in a single Choice.exe driven DOS menu; however, you can make the main menu call a secondary menu. So for example your first menu might be the hardware vendor like 1.) HP 2.) Dell 3.) AcmePC etc. then each of those would bring up a new menu with options for the specific models like 1.) Optiplex 170 2.) Preceision 360 3.) Latitude D600 etc. If you want to automatically recognize the type of workstation and have Ghost run without any user input at all I don't have any help for you. I suppose you might be able to write or borrow some type of program that could read information from the BIOS to determine the model and then call the appropriate Ghost command that way, but this is something I have never done. Seems like once I got to the point where I could press F12 to boot into BartPE with a DOS menu and then choose an option or two from a menu and have Ghost automatically restore the image to the computer was simple and quick enough to not justify the hours of programming it would take to do this any other way. I am all for automation so though so if you find a way to fully automate the Ghost restore by hardware brand/model please post it and let us know how you did it.

thesimpsons wrote > Thanks for posting. Can you please show me how to add the .bat script that will start ghost32 automatically right after BartPE bootup and connected to the network share then start the sripts? Thanks. In my original post the NetDrive section of the pebuilder3110a\plugin\penetcfg\penetcfg.ini file is the key to automatically mapping drives. In the NetDrive section, shown below, simply change the NetworkPath and UserName to the correct information for your network. You can also choose the drive letter by modifying the Drive variable. On my network I have the Z: drive mapped to an NT share and this is where I store and retrieve the Ghost image files and also where I run a custom .BAT file script that has many menu options. TIP1: .CMD files are the same as .BAT files were in the DOS 6.x days and either file extension creates an executable command line program in XP or Server2003. ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ; You can map up to 10 network drives: [NetDrive1] ... [NetDrive10]; [NetDrive1] ; Drive = x: ; Drive = * (to use the first available drive letter) Drive = Z: NetworkPath = \\Server\Path UserName = Domain\Username ; Password = (leave it empty to be prompted for a password) Password = Userpassword [NetDrive2] ;same syntax as NetDrive1 if you want to map more drives In my original post this .BAT file is called menu.bat and it's stored on a network drive, Z:\Scripts\menu.bat. The menu.bat file is run from the [PostNetAutoRun] section of the pebuilder3110a\plugin\penetcfg\penetcfg.ini file, see example below. ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [PostNetAutoRun] ; StarupFlag = CommandLine ; StartupFlag is a bit field that can take the following values: ; 0 = run hidden and wait (00 00 00 00) ; 1 = run normal and wait (00 00 00 01) ; 2 = run hidden and don't wait (00 00 00 10) ; 3 = run normal and don't wait (00 00 00 11) 3 = z:\scripts\menu.bat; The menu.bat file just uses standard command line syntax (DOS) which is most likely beyond the scope of any discussion thread posting. This URL may help you with various commands: Microsoft Windows XP - Command-line reference If you have setup the Ghost8 plugin in BartPE then you can call Ghost32.exe from a .BAT file by creating a file like my menu.bat and add the following line (the Ghost switches -FDSP -CNS -Z2 are optional) then you can put this .BAT file in the shared directory you are mapping too. z:\scripts\menu.bat "X:\Programs\ghost8\GHOST32.EXE" -FDSP -CNS -Z2 NOTE1: You could instead add the .BAT file to your BartPE CD and run it from there; however, it's much easier to modify and try different options by storing this file on a network share where you can quickly edit and run it without having to burn a new BartPE CD or modify the BartPE image on the RIS server. TIP2: Ghost supports a large array or command line switches including the ability to fully automate creating and restoring image files (the -clone switch). The best way to learn about the syntax for these switches is to read the Ghost_ref_Guide.pdf particularly Appendix A titled "Command-line switches". If you Google the phrase (or click this link) ghost_ref_guide you will find this .PDF if you don't already have a copy of it. So reviewing this example the pebuilder3110a\plugin\penetcfg\penetcfg.ini file has the Z: drive mapped in the [NetDrive1] section and the z:\scripts\menu.bat is ran from the [PostNetAutoRun] section automatically after TCP/IP is started up. The menu.bat file contains a line to run the Ghost32.exe app from the BartPE programs area (usually X:\Programs\Ghost8). I hope this makes sense and answers your question.

Got tired of sitting on the sidelines and decided to join up... In the last couple weeks I have setup Server2003+SP1 with RIS service so I can PXE boot BartPE from servers that I am building custom versions of Windows on and then capture the image with Ghost all from outside the Windows environment, too cool! I have used many posts on this forum to help out and just wanted to return the love (well when I can). My RIS install has all .OSC screens fully automated, and the BartPE build has a totally automated network startup, so just turning on a server pressing F12 and less than a minute later (I have a gigabit network) and I am at a custom .CMD menu prompt that runs from a network server! This custom menu allows me to install Windows, perform disk partitioning and formatting of RAW (bare) drives, perform McAfee A/V checks, run Ghost with custom switches, or fully automated Ghost scripted command files! The best part is no more press F6 to load mass storage drivers and no more slow speeds from Ghost because the BartPE environment supports native Network and Storage drivers so my Ghost is running at 1300+MB per minute (that's right 1.3+GigaBytes per minute)!!! One day I may try to use WinPE as well, but I am extremely happy with BartPE over RIS from PXE boot right now!

zbarre wrote> Is it possible to execute a .cmd script at the end of the startup of BartPE ? Yes it is I use BartPE from Server2003/RIS via PXE boot from server class machines. All I do is press F12 and I have the RIS .OSC screens fully automated to automatically login to RIS and run only BartPE (do you need anything more?) Check the following plugin directory: pebuilder3110a\plugin\penetcfg and look for the penetcfg.ini You can edit this .ini file with your favorite text editor like Notepad. I have bolded the lines that are critical to fully automating Network startup in BartPE and the line you asked for in particular is shown at the bottom of the listing shown below. pebuilder3110a\plugin\penetcfg\penetcfg.ini [General] AutoStartNet=Yes PromptForProfile=No ShowGUI=No ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [NetProfiles] Dynamic IP Address (DHCP)= penetcfg-dhcp.ini Static IP Address (Manual)= penetcfg-static.ini Custom from A:\= a:\penetcfg.ini Custom from C:\= c:\penetcfg.ini ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [NetID] ; ComputerName = CRS-PE Workgroup = crs.yourdomain.com PrimaryDNSSuffix = crs.yourdomain.com ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [FileSharing] StartFileSharingService = No ; AdminAccount = Pierre ; AdminPassword = 123456 ; AdminPassword = * (to be prompted for a password) ; AdminPassword = * ; ShareDriveRoots = Yes ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [NetAdapter1] ; SpeedAndDuplex = {10|100|1000},{Half|Full} SpeedAndDuplex = Default (for default settings) ;SpeedAndDuplex = 1000,Full EnableDHCP = Yes UseStaticGateway = No UseStaticDNS = No UseStaticWINS = No ;IPAddress = 192.168.75.2,192.168.75.3 ;SubnetMask = 255.255.255.0,255.255.255.0 ;DefaultGateway = 192.168.75.230 ;DNSServer = 192.168.75.200,192.168.75.201,192.168.75.202 ;WINSServer = 192.168.75.150 [NetAdapter2] ;SpeedAndDuplex = 1000,Full EnableDHCP = Yes UseStaticGateway = No UseStaticDNS = No UseStaticWINS = No ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ; You can map up to 10 network drives: [NetDrive1] ... [NetDrive10]; [NetDrive1] ; Drive = x: ; Drive = * (to use the first available drive letter) Drive = Z: NetworkPath = \\Server\Path UserName = Domain\Username ; Password = (leave it empty to be prompted for a password) Password = Userpassword [NetDrive2] ;same syntax as NetDrive1 if you want to map more drives ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [PostNetAutoRun] ; StarupFlag = CommandLine ; StartupFlag is a bit field that can take the following values: ; 0 = run hidden and wait (00 00 00 00) ; 1 = run normal and wait (00 00 00 01) ; 2 = run hidden and don't wait (00 00 00 10) ; 3 = run normal and don't wait (00 00 00 11) 3 = z:\scripts\menu.bat Just to claify there are other Netprofiles like "penetcfg-dhcp.ini" and "penetcfg.static.ini" but BartPE looks at the "penetcfg.ini" first and if you have the AutoStartNet=Yes and PromptForProfile=No and ShowGUI=No then BartPE will not look at the other NetProfiles and will opt to use whatever default settings you have made farther down in the penetcfg.ini file. Make sense? A slick trick is to map a network drive using the NetDrive section then run the .CMD or .BAT file from a the network drive, this makes it real simple and quick to modify the .CMD file and try different options. My current Menu.Bat has options for running Ghost (with switches of my choosing), installing Server2003, using Diskpart to partition RAW disks and assign them the correct drive letters and format them, run McAfee A/V scans, etc. Hope this helps you out...