Clean process to clone Windows (PC) image to Mac (Bootcamp) image

[Carter]

So far I can not find any smooth setups that I can use to take an image from a PC HD and image a partition or Bootcamp drive on a Mac.

We have a complex image built with Windows 7 here at the College and would be a incredible waste of time trying to re-build each image from scratch when we already have them all built and just need the odd Windows copy on a Mac.

I've looked into Carbon Copy, DeployStudio, Clonezilla & WinClone and so far no real luck.

Has anyone had luck getting this to work properly?

Thank you!

[Rozzer]

I have used SCCM and I think you can even do it with imagex or WDS.

[Carter]

We run WDS here for Windows Deployment so I will see if I can find a good document on how to boot a Mac with WDS.

[Rozzer]

You should be able to do it with bart PE but you will need to write a boot sector.

Ross

[Carter]

So far it has me confused with how to build a bootable disc lol.

[Carter]

Wll now, I downloaded the latest version of Clonezilla and gave it another try for booting and this time tried it on a MacBook as it would not work with a newer iMac and guess what .......... it booted the MacBook from WDS (Windows Deploy Services). I'm currently imaging the MacBook with a college image and eager to see what happens. This image may or may not boot because there are no BootCamp drivers installed. As this one comes down I'm also using WDS to Deploy Up a PC that I installed the BootCamp drivers on just in case this one does not work. Anyways, I'll update this topic once the image comes down. Below are Snapshots of the laptop booted with WDS.



fi1yI.jpg

7F2vP.jpg

[Carter]

**UPDATE**

Ok so the good news is that the process worked fine! I was able to let the imaging complete and the Mac rebooted and went through the "Sysprep / Out of Box Experience" and booted up fine. Everything seemed to work without an issue. I then installed the Boot Camp Windows Support files and rebooted and everything from volume, eject, right click, brightness etc. works without an issue.

Only issue now is that I can't seem to get Deploy Studio to image the BootCamp partition without getting the error message "an error has occurred". For the meantime this means I cannot image any newer computer with the image since the Clonezilla Live Disc is not compatible with new MacBook (Pros) & Desktops.

At least this is a good start


Clonezilla boot screen (Shown booted on a MacBook Pro but will not boot to WDS, used MacBook for WDS deployment)
FuEn5.jpg

Windows 7 Ent. Image booted after being imaged with WDS
xIdaa.png

[HodgeHi]

Deploystudio have changed the file name suffix with the newer versions. The windows images should now also end with .dmg. Maybe this is the issue you are seeing?

[Carter]

Doesn't work at all. I hit go to image up the partition then it goes to the next screen saying "an error has occurred". Hmm .... maybe I'll rebuild my DS server :-)

[HodgeHi]

What file is being used in deploy studio ? Is the file name ending with the .dmg? The version I'm referring to is the latest version that supports 10.7.3. If you haven't updated deploy studio recently, you may need to do this if running from 10.7.3.

I may be barking up the wrong tree though.

[Carter]

Im not tryin deploy an image so the .dmg extension doesn't come into play. I'm trying to image the MacBook so it should first start creating the image then when it goes to copy it to the server it would place it there with a .dmg extension.

I'm also running the latest version 131 of DS. May just throw it on my laptop and try using that. Maybe something wrong with the server. Not sure lol

[HodgeHi]

So you have created an image from the windows pcs hdds and am now deploying this image to the MacBook bootcamp partitions?

If so could you not just use deploy studios ability to pxe boot the pc and capture the image using that, to using the same system/software throughout?

[Carter]

***UPDATE***

I've successfully taken a PC Customized Windows 7 image (that was syspreped) and deployed it to an iMac i5.

The biggest issue I need to figure out is the sizing of the partitions. There is no way to image a Mac partition with a Windows partition if the source you imaged from has a bigger partition that the new destination partition. It doesn't matter if the physical size of the image is 1/10th the size of the partition, it will only work if the partitions are the same size or destination is larger.


For example:

Source
10GB Windows 7 Image that was imaged from a 60GB HD

Destination
iMac with 1TB HD that has been partitioned into a 40GB Partition & 960GB Partition

You will not be able to image the 40GB partition with the 10GB image because the original source HD/partition was above 40GB. I can instead image the 960GB partition because it is equal/larger than the original source HD/partition

........ hope that all makes sense


In short it is possible to take a PC with a customized image and get it onto a Mac

As soon as I get the chance I will make a detailed "How To" for this if people think this would be beneficial?

Thanks for the input everyone!!!

.

[mac_shinobi]

So instead of partitioning it as 40gb and the remainder on the other partition. Would it work if you partitioned it with 60 Gb as the main partition for windows and the remainder for OS X or whatever else ?

[Carter]

What I had to do today is partition a iMac today with a 30GB partition then using WDS I was able to then select the partition to image. Once imaged I used DS to image it up to the DS server. From there as long as the destination partition is at least 30GB it will work. This will be come an issue if you wanted to bring down any image to a destination and have a smaller HD than the one that was in the PC.