witch Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 (edited) We have bought some shiny new Samsung NB30s and I am currently attempting to image them. I built one machine, putting Win 7 pro on it and went into the bios to make sure it booted to the network ( in this case PCI-BEV-YUKO etc) so that we could use WDS - no problem. Then it was ready to capture the image to the server ready for the others. However, when sorting out the rest ready for accepting the image I went to change the boot order so they would boot off the network card and it was described in the list as PCI-BEV-N/A Is this because the netbooks come with Win 7 starter? Do I really have to let all 32 go through the tedious and time-consuming start procedure so I can put in the correct drivers? (it installs everything - office etc - very very slowly) There must be another way, surely? I am slowly losing the will to live and looking more incompetent by the day. The netbooks should have been sorted ages ago and I am just getting nowhere with them. I am praying that I have missed something really obvious - if you know what it is please feel free to laugh and point... Now where is that edugin? Edited March 30, 2011 by witch clarification
Brpilot99 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Basic stuff but could you not configure one with everything .. sysprep it and use ghost or fog or something similar to image the rest? Win 7 will make an image of itself so you could make the image and use it to image the rest ... If you do it this way you have to re-image and then sysprep the newly imaged machine before connecting it to the network
witch Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 (edited) Yes, that is what I am doing! BUT I need the ones accepting the image to be able to boot off the network card and that is what I am missing. Or maybe I don't understand what you are saying? What do you mean - Win 7 will make an image of itself? I don't have a license for GHOST in this school and I have never used FOG Edited March 30, 2011 by witch
featured_spectre Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Acronis home trial? will allow you to copy a laptop hard drive image to an external drive, then use that as your base and install on all machines?
Brpilot99 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 What do you mean - Win 7 will make an image of itself? Yes its one of the backup options .... You can save the image on an external hard drive and use it to restore to another (identical hardware) PC ... You end up with an EXACT replica of the original so you must run sysprep on the new one before attatching it to the network and joining it to the domain ....
sted Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 so they are just booting hdd by default rather than nic? if so often jnust keep clobbering the f12 key and they will net boot even if they arnt set to net boot first
Brpilot99 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Just another thought ... I was always under the assumption that the bios was nothing to do with the O/S so you can change the boot order even if the HDD is empty ..
witch Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 Right - I have let the machine go through its setup (yawn) and have looked in device manager and there are no drivers missing! But I still can't see the card to change the boot order in order to get it to see WDS to capture the image. I must be missing something...but what?
witch Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 I can change the boot order - but the nic is not there - it is described as N/A - that's the problem. If I hit F12 constantly, it seems to try but gets to the exiting PXE ROM bit and goes around again - never getting any further
edutech4schools Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Does the bios have an option for pxe boot if so select it then boot hitting F12
Brpilot99 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Go into BIOS/Boot/PXE OPROM and set it to always ... save and exit ... go back into bios and your PCI BEV should show your network card ....
himji Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 We had issues with notebooks and WDS. I didn't work on it but my colleague had to inject the lan drivers into WDS for pxe to work. Hope that helps you look in the right area
dhicks Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I can change the boot order - but the nic is not there - it is described as N/A - that's the problem. This sounds like a BIOS settings issue rather than anything to do with network card drivers. You probably just need to enable an optional "PXE boot" feature somewhere in your BIOS settings - your LAN card might be enabled but the PXE boot option might not be (they often aren't, by default). You often find the switch-PXE-booting-on option under "chipset" or "on board devices" headings, depending on your BIOS - I think Brpilot99's post above probably points to the right place. If you can't get the machines to PXE boot by themselves then you can use gPXE, which will load a PXE boot stack off CD, USB stick, SD card or floppy drive, then boot from the network for you. That contains drivers for most network cards and is a pretty reliable solution to getting most machines to network boot - I've used it on several of ours, running off old floppy drives, to convince otherwise reluctant workstations to PXE boot properly.
witch Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 Yes - thing is I have done the 'set it to always' bit and it still doesnt appear!
Singist Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I used TRK on a usb stick as a pxe boot server (sender) in much the same way after I built a new image with Windows 7 on 32 Samsung N150's. I did have to set the bios in each machine to boot from network/pxe yukon in this case, but this only worked after second attempt though, I think it needed to find it first to put it in the 'boot order list'. Worked a treat in the end. Hope you manage to sort them out :o/
ConTheITGuy Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Have you changed it to always and then saved and exited BIOS and then gone back in to change the boot order? I had this on some (actually shiny!) Samsung netbooks (200 of them :-o). Andy
witch Posted March 30, 2011 Author Posted March 30, 2011 Have you changed it to always and then saved and exited BIOS and then gone back in to change the boot order? I had this on some (actually shiny!) Samsung netbooks (200 of them :-o). Andy Yes, I did do this because on the desktops I have also got - I had a problem until I found this out! The thing is, the one I built for the image DOES boot off the network card - it is set to enable, always and appears in the boot list!! BUT it can't be a problem on this one machine as I have now tried 3 others. I have compared the BIOS and can see no differences. It is something stupid I have done and I can't see what - I'm probably not even explaining it so that you can work it out either! They aren't shiny, they are black and 'ripply'. I hate them
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