Clone/Image Windows 8 Problems

[nimrodel]

Hi,

I am in a bit of a fix and could do with some advice! for years, I have been using a Ghost bootable memory stick to image PCs and laptops, both Win XP & 7. Works perfectly by booting to USB and copying image to external hard drive.

 

I now have 6 new Acer Netbooks running Win8. I set up the first with all the software I needed and created an image as I always have done. however, UEFI boot confused me and I had to go back to legacy boot to get it to boot from USB. I then ran sysprep but it ran for hours so I had no choice but to close it down. Bad mistake. Netbook is now corrupt. Meanwhile I used the image I created to set up one of the other netbooks. Appeared to work but "no bootable media".

 

So, I have 2 disabled netbooks and desparately need to find a way to get them working. Does anyone have any advice for anything that will clone/image a Win 8 64 bit netbook (no CD/DVD drive)?

 

If the answer is WDS, I would need very clear step by step instructions as I have never managed to get this to work even on XP and 7. I should add that I am running Server 2008 R2 but these netbooks will be standalone workgroup teacher laptops, not part of the domain.

 

Half term now so no rush but any help greatfully received.

 

Cheers

 

Dave

[Michael]

That is weird Sysprep ran for hours. Never seen that myself, but you're right switching it off was a bad mistake. If these machines don't have disc drives, you can buy USB disc drives just to image with/boot from.

 

WDS I would of thought would be similar/same as with Windows 7, but for a handful of machines that's a lot of work!

[free780]

Doea your version of ghost support 8. Is there anything in the answer file that coild cause issue. A refrence image should be done in a vm to avoid sysprep errors with drivers.

[free780]

Also make sure you dont have a virus checker in the ref image.

[mikeyd101]

I've used WDS to PXE network boot into and deploy MDT images (xp, win7, 2003 and 2008) but not used it for deploying win8 but presume its a similar process. If you have the windows media/iso/wim you maybe able to network boot into that with WDS.

 

It's not a easy/quick thing to setup and took me a couple of months to figure out all the features we use (out of box drivers, extra applications for installs, modifying MSI installers etc). Straight Machine clones / Builds should be able to figure out in day or so. Easiest is probably ISO/WIM source extraction then deploy to machine for getting up and running, but will need drivers / updates on top of that. Machine image capture will get you closest, provided machines are the same, and you can get a clean capture, which sounds like part of the problem.

 

Sysprep should take machine out of the domain to prepare for capture.

 

There are some great videos by this guy on YT: DeploymentArtist's channel - YouTube

 

Good luck with your deployments, I know they can be frustrating.

 

Mike

[free780]

Johan is a legend. Use mdt. Do things the ms way. It makes life easier.

[nimrodel]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm no further on. My version of Ghost is just will not work with Windows 8. I have never had much success with WDS (hence why I used Ghost for Win 7 deployment), but the netbooks will not be part of the domain (standalone workstation teacher netbooks) and WDS seems to need Server 2012 whereas I'm using Server 2008R2.

I currently have 3 netbooks still boxed up, 2 that I've tried to image (with Ghost) and completely broken and 1 working one. I'm thinking I'll have to install all the programs on each one in turn and re-install Windows 8 on the broken ones. Only other option I can see is to make them all Win 7 machines and use Ghost.

 

Thanks

Dave

[sted]

wds dosent need 2012 it will run on anything from 2003r2 up (granted 08r2+ have some extras that can be handy)

 

id also rather than using bare metal wds use mdt there is plenty of documentation out there and getting it to do the basics really is easy (it can even sysprep pcs for you)

[jugglerjoe]

I unfortunatly have never used ghost or fog to deploy images to machines however have used WDS and MDT a hell load and setup it up fine a couple of times now on server 2008R2 servers.

do you know/remember where you get stuck using WDS + PXE Boot?

 

If you really cannot get the PXE boot to work. MDT has a very good media ability built in so just need like a few 16GB-32gb drives. Or however big you need for your image + drivers and everything and your all off.

[nimrodel]

I tried to use WDS a year or so ago and spent a few weeks (which I could ill afford to spend) trying unsuccessfully to get it to work. The main issue was that the clients would hang without ever picking up WDS from the server. Trouble is, the documentation is about 500 pages long!! As I work 10 hrs a week I just haven't got the time to read it all. There are other resources on the internet but nothing "concise" which would allow me to get it working within a few hours. This is why I ended up with a USB stick with Ghost on. It means going round to each PC that needs imaging but in the long run it's quicker than trying to get my head around WDS.

All I want to do is to capture an image of a reference PC (netbook in this case, with all the software installed) and then put that image on other identical netbooks. I don't need to sysprep really as the netbooks will not be joining the domain. It should be easy, and it was with Ghost, but the WDS method seems very long-winded and complicated, unless I have the wrong end of the stick completely!

Thing is, by now I could have installed Win 8 and all the software individually on all 6 netbooks manually but instead I've spent probably about 20 hours trying to get automated methods to work! :-(

[jugglerjoe]

mmmm if you are possibly up for trying this still. It sounds like a DHCP Issue where it cannot find the boot image on the WDS server. I believe its something like option 63 bootfile name and another option need to be set.

 

Also are the netbooks intel/amd based?

 

I am the same. id rather spend like a week making a software package than rolling it out manually to every machine xD

[sted]

if its installed on a dhcp server there are 2 boxes you need to tick on install (or properties you can change later) related to dhcp options 60/67 iirc. Assuming you on 1 vlan it should pretty much just work

[jugglerjoe]

Yeah i remembered it being in the install now, haven't done it for like a year and a half now >_<

we have multiple VLANS but it only needs to work on 1. no idea how that was setup here as that bit was done before i was here >_<

[LeMarchand]

I've not tried this (not deploying Win 8 yet) but could you not use a bootable Clonezilla stick to create the image? Would be the same sort of thing as your Ghost Stick.

[nimrodel]

A good idea in theory. I did try Clonezilla a few years ago but for some reason which I can't remember, I didn't get it to work.

Anyway, just spent 3 hours today trying to create a clonezilla USB stick but no joy! 1.5 hrs to extract the files from ISO and then hangs at 33% creating bootloader. No option to re-start and just create bootloader...seems I would have to sit for another 90 mins waiting for it to overwrite files that are already there! Grrr.....

Anyway, the boss wants the netbooks working, so I have decided to install Windows & the relevant software manually on each one. At the end of the day, it will only take a couple of days at least it will definitely work!

Thanks for your help with this.

Edited June 17, 2013 by nimrodel

[LeMarchand]

I used WinSetupFromUSB to create a multiboot key with XP/7/UBCD4Win/PartedMagicx32 and Clonezillax64. Might be worth a go another time.

 

I'd also highly recommend the Zalman VE range. The VE models allow you to boot from ISOs stored on the disk, which seems to work with most machines I have tried. certain models also have a write-protect switch built-in.