Windows failed to start after Windows 7 64bit image deployment.

[profit10]

Hi,

 

I'm having a problem with a new Windows 7 64Bit image deployment on a different hardware model to the original capture.

 

I clean installed on one of our new machines we have, installed software, updates, added drivers etc. Sysprepped and uploaded to WDS. I've then deployed this image to all our new machines and it works perfectly.

 

When I try it on a different model, after the first restart from installing the image it begins loading the Windows screen then gives me the following error:

 

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

 

 

I haven't created an image for a while, or created a 64 bit one so unless I'm forgetting something from before or there are differences between 32 and 64 bit then I'm really stuck.

 

Any help would be great.

 

Thanks.

[LeMarchand]

Did you use a 64 bit unattend.xml? (Though as the image works elsewhere it's probably not the problem!)

 

Did you/could you inject drivers for the "B" machines into the deploy image? I tend to create my images in a VM as this means no driver conflicts.

[profit10]

Yeah it is 64 bit unattend.

 

I add all my drivers to the image before capture.

 

But Windows 7 is hardware independent, is it not? So it should at least boot up even if I were missing drivers?

[LeMarchand]

I add all my drivers to the image before capture.

 

But Windows 7 is hardware independent, is it not? So it should at least boot up even if I were missing drivers?

 

IIRC I've had problems when network drivers that MS doesn't "know" weren't in the deploy image, but now I think of it the image wouldn't even deploy. Unless there are some esoteric drivers you're missing...

[profit10]

I've experienced that before, and you're correct, it won't deploy.

Not sure what drivers I could be missing.

 

I just found this on Google, about the only person I've found to have this same error after sysprepping:

 

"For the record, the problem here was simply that my old WinPE boot wim was attached to the Win7 image. Once I'd updated to WinPE3, all was well"

 

What does he mean by attached to the Win7 image?

[LeMarchand]

What does he mean by attached to the Win7 image?

 

Sorry, no idea - I've always used WDS/PXE booting to get the job done.

 

Was wondering if there was some weird chipset or HDD driver missing, but if all the drivers from the "B" machine were exported and made available to the image I can't see why it's not picking them up.

[free780]

Capture should be done a virtual so it's driver neutral. Hyper V ideally.

[LeMarchand]

Wild guess: Did you put the drivers in the image by dropping them into C:\Windows\System32\drivers ? If so should some of them be in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\drivers ?

 

If that's all OK, do those areas get checked in the post-image boot?

 

As @free780 reiterated, you might be better of creating a new image as a VM. (Then you can add missing drivers later).

[chazzy2501]

I'm now using WDS on 2012R2 and you can just place the drivers on the server and it'll install them to your generic (no driver) image! (Such an upgrade from 2003!) Also you can WMI filter the PCs (In WDSs Driver Packages) so only some PCs get specific versions of Drivers. (Useful for me as I know Dual display messes up on our Elitebooks if I don't use a certain old version on the Intel Drivers)

 

FYI Creating the Image on a VM (but if using VMware change the hard disk from scsi to IDE or it won't survive the sysprep)

[profit10]

I have tried putting them in the syswow64\drivers folder and no joy.

 

I think I will have to create a new image from a VM.

 

The machines are now getting slightly further. They get to 'setup is starting services' before restarting and going in a loop.

 

Any ideas about this?