thesimpsons

It is slow when the system gets the image from the ghost server. Ghost indicates the speed of getting the image on the screen. It tells you how fast the data transfer from ghost server to the system you want to image. On the different controller, the speed was fast as I expected (1600MB/min or above). But on this particular Serial Attached SCSI the speed was very slow (300Mb/min) considering the new Serial Attached SCSI suppose to be faster than regular SCSI (called parallel SCSI.) Do you think it is becasue ghost doesn't support this new type of controller or it is becasue BartPE with the driver problem on the controller? Thanks.

Anyone has any ideas why ghost is very slow on the Serial Attached SCSI drives when booting up from BartPE and connected to ghost server over gigabit network? This is not multicast. The speed was 300MB/min or less while the speed on parallel SCSI was above 1600MB/min. Thanks.

Hi Everyone, I have new Dell Precision Workstation 490. I tried to re-image from ghost server using BartPE as a boot disk but the speed was very slow when trying to get image from ghost server. It was about 200MB/min. This is way too slow compare to others Dell that I have. The average speed for other Dells is about 1500MB/min on the gigabit network. I figured this is becasue of the SCSI controller on the Dell 490. So, I took another SCSI controller along with the hard drive and put them to the Dell 490, the speed when downloading the image was great again. I don't know if this new SCSI controller is supported by bartPE and Ghost 8.3. Here is the information on the SCSI controller: http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/...69&libid=46 It is called Dell SAS 5/iR Adapter. It uses the new hard drive that looks similar to seriral ATA. It is something like Serial SCSI. The interface looks exactly like the serial ATA. One more thing, is the PXE boot on BartPE with Windows 2003 RIS faster than the BartPE boot CD? Any ideas? Thanks.

Hi Indy, Can you show me how you work on BartPE boots with PXE and Windows 2003 RIS? I really to see how this thing works. Thanks.

Well, I tried to ghost Vista beta2 and it worked fine when adding switch. But, it failed again when i tried Vista new build (5472, CTP released a few days ago.) I mean I did the same steps, but it failed just like before adding the switch. I don't know why. Do you guys have any ideas about this? About the recomendation from fizban2, i had a hard time trying to figure out which one I should download to run the imageX and others. I downloaded BDD and WAIK but found nothing that could help me to run imageX and others. Please advise. Thanks.

Ghost80 will work with Vista. I have to add the switch -fdsp when doing the re-ghosting. Without the switch, the error will come up when the system starts.

Thank you very much. I will try that and let you know the result. Was you be able to do it with Imagex?

Can you be a bit more specific about this? Wher can I download this program and is there any article about this? Thanks.

Hi Everyone, I am wondering if any of you out there have been trying to ghost Windows Vista? I have 12 Dell Precision and would like to install Windows Vista on all of these machines. One of the method I have tried was to install Windows Vista Beta2 on one machine then ghost this machine to the file server. The ghost process went fine without any problem. However, another dell 380 machine with the same hardware configuration would not run Vista after the ghost process is done (run ghost from image.) It keeps saying that the system is misssing winload.exe file. I mean, I have done quite a lot with ghost for other operation systems but never have any problem like this. Do you guys experience some proplems like this with Windows Vista? Thanks.

It WORKS!!! Thanks a lot, guys. peshuteject.exe /eject:x /reboot works GREAT. Thanks again.

Here is the bat file: z:\ghost32.exe -fx -sure z:\eject.exe z:\shutdown.exe -r -f Where Z is the mapped drive. As I looked into the directory I saw that X:\i386\system32 I noticed that shutdown.exe is in here. However, X drive is the CD drive, if the system eject the CD drive then the shutdown.exe won't execute. Even when I copied shutdown.exe to RAM drive which is B in this case, shutdown.exe still could not execute. I tried peshuteject.exe, the same result. System ejected CD but won't reboot. Any ideas? Thanks.

I tried your method but it doesn't work.

Do I have to put those into PEbuilder as a plugin or just put the execute file in the mapped drive and the command in the bat file? Thanks. using peshuteject.exe can only eject CD but not reboot the system. Is /shut is the right switch?

The first two commands you recomended works fine. After finished getting image, ghost exited, system ejected CD but would not reboot. The problem here is that the bat file contains these commands is on the mapped drive, when CD is ejected it would not execute shutdown command. Is there any way we put this shutdown command somewhere else to make it execute? Is it posible to put in in RAM disk?

Now, this bat file is located on the mapped drive on the network, right? I can put eject.exe on the same mapped drive and issues run it from the bat file. But what about shutdown -r -f ? Is it on the same mapped drive or it has to be build in with PEBuilder? This shutdown.exe can be found in C:\Windows\System32, right? The question is whether shutdown.exe can be execute after the CD is ejected if shutdown.exe is on the same mapped drive? i will try this method tomorrow and will let you know the result.

Hi Indy, All of your ideas are vrey valuble. I have learned a lot since I joined this forum and read all of your recent posts. The idea of having user press any key to boot from CD is very cool. I think it is the best solution for the current environment I am working on right now. I will read that post about having users enter key as the system boot up and try it tomorrow. As of ejecting the CD, I included the eject.exe program to the bat file and it worked. But if the command after ghost.exe -sure -rb then the system would reboot without ejecting CD. If I put the eject.exe before ghost.exe then ghost won't execute after the cd is ejected. So, they can only work one or another, not both. So, I think having user enter key when booting up from CD is the best solution right now. I will try this tomorrow and let you know about this. Thanks again. About BartPE with PXE/RIS, I will try to learn about this from the site you recommend.

Hi Indy, I have tried the method of issuing the command shutdown -r -f but it did not seem to work. The way the users in our compnay use the system is that they always assume from the BIOS setup, CD would be the first priority to boot. So, everytime they put the CD in, they don't have to worry about which key to select to boot from. This may lead to the problem when adding -rb switch to ghost to ask the system reboot after finished getting image. The system we have is automated so that when the user finished selecting the desired OS, they would walk away then come back, the machine should be ready for them. All the steps of booting up, join the domain, and others processes already automated. So, if CD is the first priority, then I have problem. If hard drive is the first priority, them my method of having switch -sure -rb after ghost32.exe works fine. As of booting up from PXE/RIS, I would like to know how that would work so that I can get rid of boot CD. Thanks again for your excellence posts. If you like, I would try to experiment all the methods you suggest. I have some pretty good automated ideas from the current company I am working now. Please let me knowabout the PXE/RIS so I can try this method.

Hi Indy, It's nice to learn a lot of stuff from you lately. I am new to this BartPE stuff so I have learned a lot from your posts. Now, how do I make BartPE boots from PXE/RIS so that I can get rid of boot CD. Can you give me an idea of how to set this up? Thanks.

Hi Indy, That was an awsome works that you put up there. I will tell you the current environment that I am working in now. We have a QA lab that runs about 1000 Dell machines which has about 10 different models. The challenge is to come up with the ghost system that will allow users to boot with CD (BartPE), determine system type, come up with menu for OS type, from here user will select OS he/she wants and get ghost image. The system will automatically eject CD and reboot once it finished getting the image. We currently have this kind of system running under DOS boot disk combined with Perl script. The problem with DOS is that it takes too long to download the image when running ghost with DOS. With bartPE, I am able to get the image much faster with ghost32. That's the reason why I like to automate the system running with BartPE bootdisk. So far, I am able to make the sytem bootup and autmate all the steps to ghost. From here, I can select ghost images manually, getting the image and reboot the system automatically after the machine finished getting the image. I can't make the machine eject the CD right after it got the image then reboot. I can only either eject the CD or have the system reboot, but I can't do both. Any ideas how to achive this? How about the menu that allow users slect the OS type? Thanks.

Hi Indy, That was an awsome works that you put up there. I will tell you the current environment that I am working in now. We have a QA lab that runs about 1000 Dell machines which has about 10 different models. The challenge is to come up with the ghost system that will allow users to boot with CD (BartPE), determine system type, come up with menu for OS type, from here user will select OS he/she wants and get ghost image. The system will automatically eject CD and reboot once it finished getting the image. We currently have this kind of system running under DOS boot disk combined with Perl script. The problem with DOS is that it takes too long to download the image when running ghost with DOS. With bartPE, I am able to get the image much faster with ghost32. That's the reason why I like to automate the system running with BartPE bootdisk. So far, I am able to make the sytem bootup and autmate all the steps to ghost. From here, I can select ghost images manually, getting the image and reboot the system automatically after the machine finished getting the image. I can't make the machine eject the CD right after it got the image then reboot. I can only either eject the CD or have the system reboot, but I can't do both. Any ideas how to achive this? How about the menu that allow users slect the OS type? Thanks.

PCIScan runs under DOS. Well, it will give you some information about the system, but you have to difine the values from another file so that it can give you the system type. It won't scan the hardware level as you indicated. Do you know what command or switch from ghost that will eject the CD after it finsh downloading the image and reboot the system? I know there is a switch that will do the reboot bot not the one that does the reject of the CD.

Hello Indy, Thank you very much for your post again. I have learned a lot for your posts. There is actually a method that allow you to detemine they type of system you boot from. Have you ever heard of something called PCIScan? This program will allow you to scan the system and return with the value to detemine the system type. It will look for the vendor name and code. We can create a file with name and code...when pciscan run, it will compare the name and code then return with the system name. From here, the system will display the message like "You are using Dell280" then come up with menu that ask users to select the type of image they want to get...If you like I would love to discuss with you about this...Thanks again.

Thank you very much for your post. i was able to amke this stuff works following your post. I have have something else in mind to get these steps automated. 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.

Thanks for your help. Here is a situation: I have different kind of Dell workstations, how do I create scripts that will able to determine the type of machine it boot from (ex. Dell620) then select the type of images then eject the CD after finished getting the image...What command that will allow the system eject the CD and reboot after it finished getting the image? Thanks.

Hi Indi, Thanks for psoting. 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.