creating a Ghost Network boot "CD" 3

[mlchris2]

I need to create a Ghost Network boot "CD", I have some servers that dont have floppy drives in them. I normally boot a pc/server with a Network Boot Disk and then use a second disk that contains the ghost applicaion. It works fine.

I did some searching online and found a bit of information on creating a boot disk... but nothing that was close to what I needed.

Here is what I have done so far...
Using Roxio and my Network Boot disk, I created a
bootable cd. It boot and connects to my network just
fine.

Here is my problem...
I cant seem to get a bootable cd with the ghost application on it. I have tried using a program called MagicISO to create a boot disk image and I cant get it to work.

For those with some insight, I sure would appriciate your assitance.

Mark

 

[ACraib]

Try using the PartPE boot disk as this will allow you to run WinPE and ghost from the same CD.

It also allows you to install a number of other utilities onto the CD making it a very useful "get out of jail" card.

 

[Tightpants]

mlcrhris2

I managed to create a read-only boot floppy using a static ip address and PC-DOS so this is a step forward. However I tried to be a little clever by adding CD support and the Ghost exectutable in a manner similar to Tangz uses. It failed and ruined my working boot floppy. I will try and create it again and burn it to CD because this will probably work for me.

Colmmac

Thanks for your suggestion but my images will take up too many CDs to make it viable.

ACraib

PartPE looks like it is the best option and there are other benefits too.

 

[Tightpants]

I have made a BartPE boot disk. Before creating the disk I added ghost.exe to the list of optional files to install. The disk booted fine and loaded the correct network drivers but ghost.exe will not run! I says it is not a valid application.

 

[justanITguy]

Mark,
I have created my network boot disk using the wizard, and have both Nero and Roxio on my machine, but I can't figure out how you "then used that floppy and created a bootable cd using Nero or Roxio." I tried with both programs and I guess I am just doing something wrong because I found where to make a bootable CD, but both ask for the image file. When I browse to the disk, there isn't one there to use. Should I be using Floppy Emulation and have the Image File circle checked in Nero?

Thanks

 

[mlchris2]

IT Guy,

I used both Roxio and Nero and had no troubles, I used the default settings for both, which took the image from the floppy I created with Norton Ghost 2003.

I used Floppy Emulation 1.44MB in both programs.

insert the network boot disk on the A:\ and start Roxio/Nero, create a bootable disc. There should be an option to get the image from A:\ or floppy. It will read the files from the A:\ and create an image file and then brun that image file and 2 other files to a cd and then the process is complete.

I dont know what else to tell you... It was very straight forward and I didnt use any settings other than the default Ghost and Nero/Roxio settings. The only issue I had was getting Ghost.exe onto the bootable cd. I am still working on a solution, but the fix I have now works great.

Mark

 

[justanITguy]

Mark,
Alright, I got the CD made using Nero just like you said, and it boots up pretty good until it says: Write protect error writing drive A Abort, Retry, Fail. The same problem that some other people seemed to be running into while trying this same thing. I guess I am confused on how you point it to the GHOST.EXE file on your server also, because I hit Abort and then it said to hit Ctrl+C, then change to the appropriate drive letter and type 'Ghost', but I can't get that to work either. Maybe I just missed something since I don't have too much experience with any of this, but can you help? Thanks in advance

 

[Tightpants]

I have managed to create a read-only drive mapping boot (floppy) disk using a static IP address and MS-DOS. Once I had created the disk I had to boot from it without the write-protect table enabled then the second boot I made it read-only. I had a couple of errors but selecting "fail" got me through.

Once it had booted I used net use u: \\computer\share to map a network drive on another machine. I had already copied ghost to this folder on the other machine.

I next changed to u: drive then ran ghost.exe and it worked!

I then tried creating a CD from the read-only boot disk but Roxio did not recognise the floppy as bootable. In the end I used WinImage to make an image and imported that into Roxio. Although the resulting CD did not work I think it might be due to my CD drive - I had a similar problem with the BartPE disk which worked fine on my laptop but not on this computer.

My conclusions are... It is possible to create a Drive Mapping Boot CD to run Ghost from a remote location, but you need a floppy drive to make the disks in the first place. What would be much easier if Ghost had a "Drive Mapping Boot CD with Ghost" Wizard! If you haven't used it before, BartPE is definitely worth a look for much more than this application.

 

[mlchris2]

TIght, you summed it up perfectly... Norton needs to create a utility for such an occasion... maybe if were lucky, we could see it in the next release.

ITguy, its been awhile since I've created the disk, but I think I ran into the "Write Protect Error" as well. I think I created the bootable cd using Roxio instead of Nero and that fixed the problem.

In order to get to the ghost exe on the server, you have several options. #1 - you can manually execute a "CD X" to change to your mapped drive or directort where ghost exe is located and then manually execute the exe. #2 - you can modify the Autoexec.bat file on the floppy and insert the command to "CD to the proper directory" and the "execute the ghost exe".

 

[Tightpants]

Thanks mlchris2.

In the meantime my USB floppy drive arrived today. Plugged in and booted up first time with my Ghost drive mapping boot disk! Thanks vexas.