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Custom XP Restore Disc


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First off, I'm not sure this is the best place for my question, so if it needs moving, please move it. I'm trying to create a CD or set of CDs that will require little to no user input and will restore a PC to a defined state stored on the disk, similar to what Dell and the other major manufactuers ship with a new PC. I've toyed with Acronis TrueImage, but the licensing for that scenario is a pain and I'm still not sure it will do exactly what I want. My current plan of attack involved the BDD and ImageX, which works very well and yields a 2gb image instead of 6-8gbs, and can be scripted within Windows PE 2.0 The issue becomes splitting this image across multiple CDs, as the machines in question do not have DVD drives and will not be attached to any form of RIS server. I've tried the technet articles on splitting an image but it must be a Windows Vista installation image it appears. If anyone has any ideas at all regarding this approach, including ways to fool the BDD/AIK toolkit, or just has an alternate idea I haven't tried, please let me know. So to recap, my requirements are as follows:

Unattended or at least very simplistic

Must fit on one or more CDs

Must be completely standalone

Designed for less computer literate users (I am not the one using the finished product!)

Any assistance is greatly appreciated, I figured if anyone knew how to pull this off, I'd find them here. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: Already read over:

http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t97593.html (Not suitable as it needs a DVD)

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...101383&st=0 (Haven't quite finished, might be exactly what I need from reading the comments... I'll report back)

EDIT2: Probably got it, just have to finish capturing my image and testing it. Second link was just what I needed, just have to wait and see what the facility for spanned images is. Hopefully it's smart enough to say 'Please insert disk X of Y.' when it needs a new part of the image. Planning to fully automate a PE2.0 disk set with these images, will be willing to post results and a guide/template for anyone interested in an 'almost OEM' restore procedure. Thanks to everyone on the board for their assistance, this is the only place I turn for Microsoft advice these days.

Edited by wintertiger
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