[Ghost] Image Netbook without doing it over network?

[Jamo]

Clonezilla - About

Clonezilla is so much easier btw, you can create a recovery DVD which you can use on multiple stations etc.

Alternatively why not set up a WDS or MDT server? Bit confused about why you cant ghost over a vlan because of spanning tree? PXE boot to a remote vlan won't work without IP helpers, if you have symantec ghost just pxe boot to your domain and use the menu to chose the local hard drive or USB to take the image from?

[Little-Miss]

When ive tried pulling it from USB it crashed at 32%...

[TheLibrarian]

IIRC whenever I've used Ghost over a switch that is detached from the main network I required DHCP, DNS / WINS.

For this I used TFTPD32 TFTPD32 : an opensource IPv6 ready TFTP server/service for windows : TFTP server on the temporary Ghostcast 'server'.

It probably goes without saying you'll need a copy of ghostsrv.exe on the temporary Ghostcast 'server'.
If the image coming from a USB drive is a problem then copy the image to a local drive.

DO NOT CONNECT THIS PC WITH A DHCP ETC. SERVICE RUNNING TO YOUR MAIN NETWORK.


The other way would be to get something like this: Dual bay USB3.0 docking station - Storage Depot

This way does require taking the drive out of the netbook, but it does work very nicely and if you have USB 3 very quick.

[Duke5A]

I can do it from local USB drive but dont really wanna do 20 like that....

EDIT: Didnt work!

Can you PXE boot from this location? The idea is to have your switch setup, all your netbooks plugged into it, with a single desktop/laptop also plugged into it that has a local copy of the image and the Ghostcast Server executable. The switch will have a link plugged into your building network so you can PXE boot all of the netbooks. Once they're booted, you can use Ghost32 and join them to the Ghostcast session that is being hosted off of the desktop that you have plugged into the switch with the rest of the netbooks. Before you start the imaging process, unplug the link to the building network and let it go. Once the Ghostcast session finishes, plug your switch back into the building network so your freshly imaged netbooks can pull DHCP address and join the domain.

You're still booting off of the school network and relying on it for addresses, but the Ghostcast session is being hosted off of the network. This will get around any issues you may have with not being able to multicast across VLANs.

Hope this helps...

[smudge1977]

Hi

If you dont mind purchasing software try acronsis. it is what i use and works great i did a batch of 30 machines that were to bee off network and using one to install all software. just need usb drive and boot cd which comes with it.

Its in usual places to evaluate :->

rgds
James

[techie211]

You could always try using this on you xp client?

Dual DHCP DNS Server | Free software downloads at SourceForge.net

this is what I use. Makes my laptop a DHCP server. and with a switch I can image 15 at a time. depending on image size. I use Hiren's BootCD v9.9. comes with TCP/IP with Ghost.