imaging 10 laptops

[RabbieBurns]

we haven't ever used any image deployment or anything like that, but ive got to rebuild 10 laptops tomorrow.

I was thinking of somehow just doing one, and then imaging that and putting it on the other 9.

We don't have network boot or anything like that available. I was thinking of maybe making like a custom boot/install dvd or something?

How would I do something like this?

[SimpleSi]

Build one machine, partition disc into 2 and save image of 1st partition into 2nd.

Boot into normal windows and plug machine into fixed network.

Create 2 partitions on other machines using a Linux Live CD - copy partition across the network (assuming Linux disc has net drivers for your ethernet device)

Restore image from 2nd partition on 1st one.

This will almost always work but to speed up.

replace using net with USB 2.0 external hard drive if available and faster than using net.

If image software/hardware combination lets you, use iamge software to directly place image onto USB drive thereby negating need to muck about with partitions (but having a ready to go image on another partition is a quick way or restoring a machine )

regards

Simon

[strawberry]

sysprep, driveimagexml and bartpe is the free solution.

use sysprep to remove the identity of the machine, use bartpe to boot into the new machine and use driveimage xml to take an image of the machine in its new unidentified state.

[RabbieBurns]

cool, thanks both, ill give it a go tomorrow.

[SimpleSi]

I don't sysprep, I just use NewSID afterwards.

regards

Simon

[mac_shinobi]

Not to hijack the thread but I do know there is ping ( PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) )

Was just wondering what people thought to it as a backup solution, also a list of other free ones is available here :

Free Hard Disk Backup and Restore, Hard Disk Image and Cloning Utilities (thefreecountry.com)

Have to scroll down the page a bit before it starts to list them

[Arcath]

I have been using FOG, does all your imaging through the network, just upload from laptop 1 and deploy to laptop 2-10

[renegade]

We tried PING for a while, it is good in that it will take BIOS settings in the image but it is not the easiest thing to use, unless you use linux on a regular basis. We don't use linux regularly cos it is a chore, so after a couple of weeks without doing an image you forget what to do!!

Its just much easier using our ancient version of Ghost!

[Jiser]

We been using clonezilla.

[srochford]

I also like clonezilla. You can use it either to do one machine at a time (copying image from DVD or network share) or doing many images with multicast.

Just before I left my last job we reimaged about 600 machines with Linux (we donated them to various charities) and did them in batches of up to about 40 at a time using a fairly low spec (2GHz Celeron) machine as "server"

Web site is here - click the server edition link in the left side menu to get more info.

Key thing for people (like me!) who find it hard to remember the arcane commands etc that packages like this use is to document them - all good IT departments will have a wiki or similar in which to keep stuff like this. Even if there's only one of you it's really useful to have notes of what you did last time so that you don't keep reinventing the wheel!