How do I ghost a MAC

[torledo]

Hi, Thanks for your replies.

You mentioned carbon copy and deploystudio- which app you want me to use to first copy the master image and restore it to the new macs?

 

i think in the poster is describing using CCC to copy a bootable OSX install onto a USB drive which you can boot from to allow you to image the master, deploystudio i think is the tool to use for capturing and restoring the master image.

 

:red face: if i've got that wrong.

[mtdmitchell]

i think in the poster is describing using CCC to copy a bootable OSX install onto a USB drive which you can boot from to allow you to image the master, deploystudio i think is the tool to use for capturing and restoring the master image.

 

:red face: if i've got that wrong.

 

I did this to 20 macs last week:

 

i created two partitions on the external drive (using a mac to create them

 

next i install the mac os to one of the partitions then boot the mac from the hdd, use ccc to create a image of the master mac on the other parttion.

 

then just repeat on the other macs

 

i set up the binding after its cloned

[steventaylor]

-

 

It's a four stage process,

 

if you follow each stage as seperated by the "-" in the previous post you should be ok.

 

You only need Deploy Studio and Carbon Copy Cloner for the first part of the instructions for creating the bootable USB HDD which you will use to collect and roll out your images.

 

Once you have a working bootable USB drive you can then rebuild your remaining macs (Mac Three) and the machine you used to create the usb hdd with your finished image at the end. You are just using that machine to get a bootable USB Drive with deploy studio installed, you wouldn't want Deploy Studio or Carbon Copy Cloner on your user machines.

 

I have slightly altered my previous post for easier reading, see below:

 

The process is as follows:

 

You need three Macs to start with, the first to create a bootable usb or firewire HDD

 

The second to create your images on

 

A third to test your new images on on

 

Boot up the first mac, do the apple software updates and install carbon copy cloner and deploy studio etc. Then set up Deploy Studio.

 

Use Carbon Copy to copy this install onto a usb hdd

 

You are now finished with this machine

 

All you want from this process is to copy the mac os onto the USB drive and mae it bootable. this should have you copy of deploy studio which you will use later.

 

-

 

On mac two build ur master mac and do all apple software updates and any applications etc, restart ur machine.

 

once restarted install Refit this is a bootpicker, just copy the efi folder from the application and paste it into the root of the machintosh HDD.

 

Launch bootcamp in utilities, set ur hdd partitions (I tend to have my hdd 3/4 mac 1/4 windows of the overall size) put in your windows xp disk and the utility will resart ur machine and launch the set up.

 

You will see the standard windows xp install screen (blue), accept the licence etc. Highlight the bootcamp drive then format as ntfs and xp will install etc. DO NOT SELECT LEAVE SYSTEM

 

once restarted install bootcam off ur os x disk, reboot the machine and configure xp as you like it with ur updates and apps etc, run sysprep and shut down.

 

-

 

attached the USB HDD to mac two and boot from this then collect the two images (mac and xp) using deploy studio, the image will be saved to the USB HDD.

 

-

 

Attached the USB HDD to one of the other macs you need to build and boot from it by pressing alt at startup, select the option to restore multiple os, create your partition sizes and select your two images. then you should be done.

 

 

If you follow this you should have no probs.

Edited February 16, 2010 by steventaylor

[armadillo]

Thanks a lot guys- I will give another go first tomorrow and will keep you up to date.

Regards

[steventaylor]

Once you have Deploy Studio working on the USB Bootable HDD it's really simple to collate new images and distribute images from it, I image all my macs off one 500gb USB HDD.

 

Then I thought I better use Carbon Copy Cloner again to clone it onto another back up USB drive!

 

If you need any help tomorrow please feel free to get hold of me at Blackpool City Learning Centre.

[armadillo]

Once you have Deploy Studio working on the USB Bootable HDD it's really simple to collate new images and distribute images from it, I image all my macs off one 500gb USB HDD.

 

Then I thought I better use Carbon Copy Cloner again to clone it onto another back up USB drive!

 

If you need any help tomorrow please feel free to get hold of me at Blackpool City Learning Centre.

 

Thanks for your help- I will let you know how I get on tomorrow.

[martinmorg31]

Did you want to 'Ghost' a MAC in the Riddick way?

[Guest theeldergeek]

Hi Paul,

 

Once you've created your desired image on one of the imacs, you'll need to take an image or snapshot of this imac, this file will have a .dmg extension, e.g yourimage.dmg

 

The way I go about this is to create a sizeable partition on the actual imac using Disk Utility then dump this image on the newly created partition, from there you can then transfer your image to the Netboot image directory on the OSX Server. (i.e. Volumes/Storage/Library/NetBoot/NetBootClients0).

 

Reading through the setup instructions of Deploystudio, it will guide you on how to install it on the server and creating your .nbi file etc.

 

Once all this is all set up and ticking nicely, you can then go the 19 imacs, depending on your network bandwidth, start them up in turn then hold down N key to make the imac boot from LAN (a spinning globe will appear during this process followed by the spinning gear) and discover the Deploystudio server, enter the login credentials and it will present the Workflow(s) you have earlier created when setting it up on the server, select the desired one, click 'play' and Bob's your uncle.

 

On my network I can successfully re-image about 8 imacs simultaneously.

 

Let me know if you require further info.

 

Hijacking the thread slightly....

 

I have a classroom full of 10.5 imacs, already installed, configured and connecting to an OD Xserve (no windows, no AD, just Apple )

 

One of the imacs has gone t1ts up, and I want to re-install it.

 

Does DeployStudio allow me to take an image from an already configured machine, and re-install to the broken machine, doing all the renaming 'bits' so the faulty machine will simply boot up as if nothing had happened?

 

Is it really that straightforward?

 

 

..

[Boon72]

if it's just a Mac then why not just use a firewire cable to clone a working Mac onto it?

 

install CCC on a working Mac and connect the cable to the broken one, reboot the broken one holding down the T key until the firewire symbol starts to float on the screen and then use CCC to image the Mac your on to the broken one which will show up as a target firewire drive

[armadillo]

Once you have Deploy Studio working on the USB Bootable HDD it's really simple to collate new images and distribute images from it, I image all my macs off one 500gb USB HDD.

 

Then I thought I better use Carbon Copy Cloner again to clone it onto another back up USB drive!

 

If you need any help tomorrow please feel free to get hold of me at Blackpool City Learning Centre.

 

Do I need to run bootcamp on the Macs I want to clone and restore Win OS to?

 

I hope this is going to be easier when I get my mac mini server!!

 

Thanks

Edited February 17, 2010 by armadillo

[armadillo]

Do I need to run bootcamp on the Macs I want to clone and restore Win OS to?

 

I hope this is going to be easier when I get my mac mini server!!

 

Thanks

 

Thank you guys for your advice and help- I eventually managed to clone the Macs with dual OS XP and OSX. Here it is what I did:

 

1- Installed deploy studio on one Mac.

 

2- Installed carbon copy or winclone onto a dual boot Mac (Mac above), then plug in the external USB disk.

 

3- Used deploy studio to transfer the Mac OS onto the external USB disk

 

4- Booted another Mac and ran bootcamp, partitioned the disk and allocated 66GB for windows. The total disk size is 320GB. Switched off the Mac.

 

5- Booted the Mac above onto the USB Disk by holding the alt tab on the keyboard before it boots to OS, then chose to boot to the external disk.

 

6- Ran carbon copy or winclone to restore the WIndows OS onto the external disk or bootcamp partition. restarted the Mac and windows started tor un disk check, after another reboot the machine was ready.

Edited February 22, 2010 by armadillo