Laptop Imaging

[gibbo_ap]

can someone please recommend me a decent/quick laptop imaging program?

we have loads of work to do on laptops and need a quick way of doing it, we do them individual normally but thats cus we need the data back or there not enough machines to warrant it. 25 just arrived and CBA update and config each one

[techtopia]

Acronis True Image. Build the laptop, install Acronis, create bootable media, uninstall Acronis, boot from bootable media, image laptop to external HDD or network. You then boot the laptops to be built from the boot media, and re-image from external HDD or network.

NOTE : The reason you uninstall Acronis above is so that it doesn't appear in your disk image. Otherwise, you will re-image all 25 machines with Acronis on!

If intending to re-image from network, you need to be sure that when booting from the bootable media and loading Acronis, it sees your network. This is normally OK if the hardware on which you created your bootable media is the same as the hardware you intend to build, as during the media creation stage, it loads the drivers for the NIC from the host machine. If you try booting a machine with other hardware/NIC than your original machine, there is no guarantee it will see the network.

[leco]

Another vote for Acronis but I use Snap Deploy. Procedure much the same as above, has added bonus of being able to strore the template for future deployment, edit the template, variety of ways of booting including PXE.

[sted]

wds/mdt if you have a 2003sp2+ server works well and is free just requires pcs to be sysprepped (but ideally if tehy are networked at least thats not a bad thing

[mac_shinobi]

clone zilla or FOG ??

[maestromasada]

wow! the best one you could ever try is Terabyte Unlimited Image for DOS, just buy it! I used to use Acronis, Symantec and such, all time-consuming-click-click-pray-pray. With Terabyte I boot the laptop from a flopply memory stick emulator and create a backup on a additional hidden partition on the latop or a portable drive. Have used Terabyte for a couple of years and not a single corruption I've found, is just such a great program.
And no,no, I don't work for them at all. The program is simple and it just works
Hope it helps you.

[mac_shinobi]

wow! the best one you could ever try is Terabyte Unlimited Image for DOS, just buy it! I used to use Acronis, Symantec and such, all time-consuming-click-click-pray-pray. With Terabyte I boot the laptop from a flopply memory stick emulator and create a backup on a additional hidden partition on the latop or a portable drive. Have used Terabyte for a couple of years and not a single corruption I've found, is just such a great program.
And no,no, I don't work for them at all. The program is simple and it just works
Hope it helps you.

They do other stuff and it works great

TeraByte Unlimited :: Boot Manager :: Partition Manager :: Drive Image :: Disk Copy :: Drive Wipe :: Hard Drive Utilities

[maniac]

I use FOG for imaging all my machines, it just works! Imaged over 600 machines with it, takes about 6 minutes to pull down a 11GB image.

For a quick and dirty imaging solution, you can use PING - http://ping.windowsdream.com/ which will backup/restore from a USB hard drive or memorystick, and boot from the same.

Mike.

[kevbaz]

Another vote for Fog here, does imaging and alot more and completely freeeeeee

[FreeWill]

I can recommend MDT with WDS. To learn how to use it can be frustrating but once you master it, it can save days.
Once you've got a good image you boot from the network, enter desired machine name (or if configured with SCCM I understand it will pull details from a database automatically?) and a few more clicks, come back 40mins later and you have a machine which has the right image, name and is a member of the domain. The same image works across different hardware, any additional drivers required can be injected at OS install time.

If MDT is installed on the same server as WDS you can enable multicasting which allows multiple machines to be done in parallel in the same 40mins.

For a free product it works very well; I'd urge anyone who is considering a different OS deployment option to spend the time learning how to use MDT with WDS.

(Assuming it's Windows deployment and not Linux).

[morganw]

I would go for Fog if are using Windows XP, it's currently missing some functionality for Windows 7 though so if you want to run that I would look more towards WDS. I'll vouch for Fog as never having let me down, just re-imaged about 600 PCs with no issues. I found it faster for unicast deployment than WDS as well.

[jcs808]

Not sure if I'm missing the point of the OP, but we have one of these for duplicating hard drives.

Hard Drive Duplicator - External SATA Docking Station | Standalone HDD Duplicator |2.5in, 3.5in SATA - StarTech.com

If you shop around you'll find it cheaper. They're great machines, next to no time to set up (just take it out of the box and plug it in), quick and ideal for duplicating small batches of hard drives.

[mdrabble]

I use FOG for imaging all my machines, it just works! Imaged over 600 machines with it, takes about 6 minutes to pull down a 11GB image.

I'm just being totally lazy now as I have major CBA syndrom setting in, can you point me towards an idiots guide to setting up and using FOG please