ghosting to new PCs

[david12345]

hi we want to buy some more PCs to put on the network, the type currently on the network are now not available.

we understand we can't use ghost to

take an image from an existing PC to put on to new pcs as they will have different chipsets and hardware drivers .

We could buy different PCs but I am not sure if any would allow

the ghosting? Any solutions?

 

the current PCs on the network are Dell Optiplex GX520 Desktop Base Unit

80Gb disk Drive

512Mb Ram

Pentium 4 2.8GHz

6 USB Ports

DVD/CD Writer

3.5" floppy drive)

 

and we were thinking of adding new PCs eg

 

Dell OptiPlex™ 755 DESKTOP

(Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor E4500 (2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 cache) ASF 2.0 system management

Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Professional SP2 With Media & VC Label - English

Memory 2.0GB 667MHz Non-ECC DDR2 SDRAM (2*1,024MB) Memory

Hard Drive 160GB (7200 rpm) SATA Hard Drive

3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive

Optical Devices 16X DVD+/-RW Drive & SW Solution )

[djones]

Yes you can use ghost to do what you want. You would need to use sysprep to prepare one machine before creating the image and in the sysprep.inf config file, specify the hardware and location of necessary drivers etc for both machine types. When you deploy the ghost image to either machine type, mini-setup will run automatically and load the correct drivers for that machine.

 

The nice part of all of this is that you can then have sysprep automatically join the computer to a domain for you plus a few other useful tasks.

 

I use this method (and have both the GX520 and 755 machines plus others) and have put together a guide that may help you:

 

http://www.midteq.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=47&Itemid=68

 

There are some sections that may not apply depending on how far you want to go but the most relevant bits to you are probably the sysprep and drivers sections.

 

Dave.

[david12345]

Yes you can use ghost to do what you want. You would need to use sysprep to prepare one machine before creating the image and in the sysprep.inf config file, specify the hardware and location of necessary drivers etc for both machine types. When you deploy the ghost image to either machine type, mini-setup will run automatically and load the correct drivers for that machine.

 

thanks Dave, it sounds a bit complicated , but thanks anyway.

[djones]

thanks Dave, it sounds a bit complicated , but thanks anyway.

 

It really isn't. I thought so too before I actually started playing with it and for years put off using this 'mythical beast' they called 'sysprep'! Instead, I just loaded up one machine type with all software, ghosted and then used NewSID to change the name and security IDs. I then repeated this for any other machine types. This meant that I had to create, store and maintain several different 'images' which was relatively easy and straight forward but time consuming, took up a lot of storage space and was generally a right royal PITA.

 

Once I bit the bullet and finally investigated using sysprep I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was. I did come across a few issues that made my life harder initially but with those two machine types (GX520 & 755) you really shouldn't have any difficulties.

 

The basic steps are:

 

1. Load one computer with all software etc

2. Download and extract all driver files for both machine types and store on the hard drive (e.g. C:\Drivers)

3. Extract and store sysprep files on hard drive (e.g. c:\sysprep)

4. Create sysprep.inf configuration file (this can be created for you using the sysprepmgr.exe program that was extracted in step 3.)

5. Run sysprep.exe and shutdown.

6. Turn on and ghost.

7. Deploy image.

 

There is an excellent video tutorial on this site (at the bottom) that may be of further help to visualise the steps.

 

Don't be daunted or put off - if you can use ghost, you can use sysprep. It will save time in the long run.

 

Dave.

Edited March 1, 2008 by djones

[FN-GM]

Do you need to download Sysprep?

[djones]

Do you need to download Sysprep?

 

sysprep is available from the Support\Tools folder on a Window XP CD. You will need to extract the contents of the Deploy.cab file (double click) to get all the associated files. The latest (SP2) version can be downloaded if you haven't got an SP2 CD available.

 

With the SP2 version of sysprep, to avoid the Administrator profile being copied over your newly tweaked Default Profile you will need to download and apply hotfix 887816 before running sysprep.exe.

 

Dave.

[FN-GM]

cheers

[Osprey]

If you are using brand new machines from Dell which are preactivated, why use sysprep when you can use the built in Ghostwalker in Ghost. It changes the SID, keeps the licence key that the workstation came with (they are the same on each one!) and leaves the activation as was.