[wds] Custom image deploy fail

[jmak]

Hi all

 

A couple of months back I started out using WDS and MDT. I successfully created my image on the MDT workbench, but never got the WDS working - I was trying to set it up as standalone and then add clients to domain. Have since virtualized server at school so having another go at WDS with a dedicated VM on the domain. I seem to have the 2 parts working but not joined together - my image works when tested from MDT and WDS can deploy a plain Windows install disk to a client, so PXE boot etc is all working. I pointed WDS at my deployment share and added boot and install images through the console. When I PXE boot I get a choice of operating systems to install; the plain windows disk and the customised image in my deployment share. If I boot to the windows install disk, it proceeds to setting up windows and asks for credentials. Using a domain admin account, the install then completes. If I choose the custom image, I get a windows solution accelerator splash screen which then asks for credentials. Using the same credential as before, I get an error message: cannot find network. I have tried entering the domain name in the formats contoso, contoso.local, CONTOSO, CONTOSO.LOCAL and contoso.LOCAL

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance

[rich_tech]

permissions on the deployment share that sounds like to me or a wrong/non-existant share being in a sequence, though if I was diagnosing, I would be going through it all, the sequences and the bootstrap.ini to see what was errant.

[Jamo]

If when you get into the solutions accelerator screen, you can press F8 and a command window will pop up. Do normal network diags in here, ie ipconfig, ping your gateway/MDT server.

 

Sounds to me as if either your server isn't configured to look for itself correctly (ie no DNS or the DNS name is wrong in the bootstrap.ini) or the network drivers arent installed for the particular machine type. The second is easy to test, just image a VM, if it works and the physical machine doesn't then its time to inject some drivers!

[jmak]

Thanks for help above. Pretty sure it was this:

 

sounds like to me or a wrong/non-existant share being in a sequence

 

Basic error I originally installed MDT on my PC and put the deployment share on a USB disk (with the idea that I would be able to move it easily later on). I did copy the Deployment Share to our file server and pointed WDS at the new location. However I didn't update the details in MDT. I have now updated the Network path of the properties of the deployment share to point to the new location, but I need to add a Local path. My Deployment share isn't local to either my PC or the WDS server. Do I need to move MDT to my WDS server? And if so, can I move everything across easily or do I have to create a new task sequence?

 

I was advised to create my image as a VM to minimise compatibility problems for a universal image, but was also advised that I shouldn't create the VM inside a VM. That's why I ran MDT from my PC rather than put it on the server. If you're running MDT on a VM, do you build the image separately and then import it?

 

I'm using a domain admin account at the minute to avoid issues with folder permissions - aware that this isn't best practice and will update once I have everything else working.

 

 

Thanks again

[sted]

mdt dosent need to be on the same pc is wds (though its probably easier and apart from hdd space its not a big resource hog). You can move mdt between pcs yes but i suspect there may be some hidden gotchas. In the past ive just copied the folder to a backup drive and re imported apps/images/drivers and rewritten task sequences to be the same(ish) to be on the safe side

 

definitely create images in a vm if for no other reason than if you snapshot before sysprep you can go back and edit them without having to start from scratch/increase the sysprep count

Edited July 16, 2015 by sted