Ghost 8 Corp Network Boot CD help

[NoUTurn20]

Ok I have ghost 8 corp and I use it at work to image/restore about 40 Dell dimensions 3000's over our gigabit network from a Ghost Cast server. None of these PC's have a floppy drive so booting has to be done off of CD. What I want to do ultimately is create 1 CD that has the network boot files along with the NIC driver and Ghost.exe on the same CD so I do not have to swap CD's. Ghost 8 allows me to make a 2 disk floppy set for the network boot disks but again no floppy. I did however make the set on another PC and used nero to write each 1.44mb disk to CD. These CD's will boot just fine the only problem is me having to burn 1.44mb of data to a CD and then having to make 2 CD's. I tried using winimage to make an image of the first bootdisk, convert it to a 2.88MB image and then inject ghost.exe into the image but when I burn that image to a CD it won't boot. I also tried making a bootable CD Barts way which I was not very fond off and for some reason I could never get it to load my NIC NDIS driver. I don't want to boot into a PE or anything like that. It seems If I had a physical 2.88MB floppy drive and disk this wouldn't be a problem but I do not. I need a bootable CD using the Intel 10/100 NDIS Nic driver. If someone out there knows how I can do this or has a 2.88MB floppy disk and drive and a copy of Ghost 8 corp and would like to make a network boot disk set with the intel drivers on one disk and then send me the floppy image I would be more than grateful.

[gfincher]

Ok I have ghost 8 corp ...

If you have Ghost Corporate Edition , then you should have ghost32.exe that would allow you to use WinPE (or Bart's PE) to boot into a 32-bit environment w/support for most NIC's.

Also, w/Ghost Corp, you could get totally away from floppies using the Ghost Boot partition or Ghost virtual boot partiton.

Hope this helps.

XPAddict

[Noise]

Ya and once you figure that out, you can can enjoy the blissful happiness that come with 100 PC's being built with ghost images.

I hope you have a good help-desk.

[TurricaN]

It seems If I had a physical 2.88MB floppy drive and disk this wouldn't be a problem but I do not. I need a bootable CD using the Intel 10/100 NDIS Nic driver. If someone out there knows how I can do this or has a 2.88MB floppy disk and drive and a copy of Ghost 8 corp and would like to make a network boot disk set with the intel drivers on one disk and then send me the floppy image I would be more than grateful.

From my experience, 2.88 MB drive flawlessly (no bad sectors) operates on modified 1.44 MB floppies with moved index hole, this is done to match http://www.pcwking1.netfirms.com/DISK1.JPG / http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad254/inteltetrium/DSC00233.jpg

Edited April 4, 2011 by TurricaN

[submix8c]

1 - Get WinImage (Trial Version will do)

2 - Read Disk#1 and save it as an IMA (not IMZ)

3 - Copy all Files/Folders from the Floppy to a "Hold" folder

4 - Copy all Files/Foders from Floppy#2 to the same "Hold" folder

5 - Change Format of the IMA in WinImage to 2.88

6 - Import the contents of the "Hold" Folder into WinImage

7 - Save new 2.88 under another name

- - (you already have the original 1.44 floppy set as "backups, so no prob)

There are only a few files/folders in the Floppy#2 that are not on Floppy#1 (wouldn't have fit onto 1st 1.44). The Autoexec.BAT is exactly the same between them. You might have to alter it so it doesn't ask for Disk#2 (don't remember). Most Burning Software allows you to specify an IMA (NOT A COMPRESSED IMZ) as the Boot Image ("expert" feature). Norton/Symantec does this with their AntiVirus CD's.

1 CD with a 2.88mb Image to boot from (in the CD "boot sectors").

Um, hope all of those PC's have the same Network Card, otherwise it's gonna get "hairy"...

(note: can't remember if you need "floppy emulation" or "no emulation")

EDIT! DOH!!! TurricaN, this is an ANCIENT topic you bumped...

Edited April 6, 2011 by submix8c

[TurricaN]

I mentioned real 2.88 hardware, not emulated one.