Norton Ghost over network, W2K 1

[marcAtBarsol]

My company is trying to start using Norton Ghost 2002, not the corporate version, to create ghost images of our computers, which run Windows 2000. I want to create images and put them on one of our servers over the network and can't get this to work. I created the network boot disk that uses the latest e1000 nic driver and uses MSDOS. I can't figure out where to go from here and would greatly appreciate any help from anybody who has done this before.

 

[nogarap]

We're using corp so slightly different. I've got DCs scattered around the country, with copies of the images on the DCs. I have 2 shares on the DCs, one with the ghost exes, and the other with the images. The ghost boot disk gets the PC on the network, and maps 2 drives, one to the executables, one to the images(Interestingly enough, I've found you don't actually need to insatll Ghost on the server. Copy *.exe from an exisitng ghost installation, stick in a folder and share.)Hope this helps.

 

[SWarrior]

Ghost images are a VERY VERY bad way to try to save yourself some installation time.

The ONLY way to successfully "Ghost" a system is to create a BASE install with NO applications, do NOT join it to the domain, and then use the utility SysPrep to prepare the install for system change. When sysprep asks for a reboot, you shut down, and STOP. Make an image of that file, and then you ghost that to your systems, and then utilize Unattended Install to complete the process of your software installations. It's very complex to set up, and you will want to test it a few times before you actually deploy it.

Here are some things that Norton Ghost does not admit to, but are facts. When you Ghost from one machine to another, your SID files are duplicated, so when you open applications from one machine, they will first try to open them from accross the nework on the original machine, thus causeing a great amount of network traffic.

Ghosting is NICE in theory, but on a large scale, it does not work. You will spend MUCH more man hours trouble shooting problems, and then end up re-building your PC's.

Been there, done that!
-SWarrior

 

[GVN]

Marc-
With your network boot disk, if you boot up a machine with it, can you ping the server that you are wanting to store the ghost images on? Can you also ping other machines on the same network? Let me know and we can go from there...

GVN

 

[ntinlin]

We use ghost without sysprep using a std. MS scripted install. All ghost really does for us is dump the image onto the client hard drive.

When system reboots it then gets XP installed from scratch with Office, Outlook, Acrobat etc. and joined to the domain. Only custom part is a little exe that hides the admin account and passwords from the end users.

Neill

 

[Seaspray0]

If you don't sysprep, ntinlin, then your PC's will all have the same GUID!

markatbarsol, here's what I suggest. Store the ghost.exe program on a network share. Use a network disk (i.e. bart's bootdisk or like) to boot from and log into your domain. Once that's done, map a drive letter in dos (net use d: \\server\sharename) to your network share. run ghost.exe from the network share and upload/download images.

If you are uploading an image, don't join it to the domain, pack it with all the drivers you may think you'll need, install applications, run sysprep to strip the computer name/GUID from the PC, then upload the image to use on multiple other PC's.

A+/MCP/MCSE/MCDBA