[fog] Installing FOG

[Jobos]

@3s-gtech

I'm going to try enabling the administrator account and using that to make the default profile. From what Google tells me I might get lucky.

 

@morganw

Nothing hidden apart from the default partition win7 makes.

 

@TechieWils

Yes I've set the answer file to keep the drivers and that works fine. I'll double check the fog setting when I'm back there next week.

 

 

Thanks everyone for their help with this

[TechieWils]

No worries, thought it's about time I started paying back all the help this forum has given me.

 

Like I said fog 0.29 and 0.30 never worked right for me. Let us know how it goes Monday.

[3s-gtech]

0.29 and 0.32 have been fine for me with 7, up till now. My 0.32 install has managed to spontaneously break, to the point where I can't do anything involving the tftp server, despite not having touched it, for permissions errors. Uploading an image with FOG sets the created file as root (not the fog user) so the FOG service can't access the file, and has a strop. Not had any luck changing the umask, and I can't get the ftp service to run as fog despite setting that. If necessary, I'll just nuke the whole thing and start again, my images aren't precious.

 

Jobos - using the administrator account may work better for you. With the right arguments in unattend.xml it plays pretty nicely. It will always get deleted though, but recreating it is easy enough. You'll obviously lose all settings, but you should be able to transfer these to the default user during sysprep (never tried it myself, I cheated!)

[morganw]

If this workstation is new it may default to using EFI boot and the Windows installation may partition the disk using GPT instead of MBR. That could cause problems, you can check in the disk management MMC snap-in in Windows. Also try booting FOG into debug mode and list the partition layout with fdisk -l. Run this before and after imaging to see if partition table stays consistent. If you are using GPT partitions then fdisk can't work.

 

It is possible to install Windows 7 from the install media and not have the separate 100MB partition. This might be worth a go if you run out of other things to try.

[Jobos]

Had a big rush job on so not had time to do any further testing the profile but running fdisk -l seems to give an error.

 

 

So it looks like the hidden partition is stuffed

[morganw]

Yes. That is post imaging, right? I presume it doesn't say that beforehand?

[Jobos]

That was before imaging. I'll reimage and report back.

[Jobos]

This is the disk info after imaging As you can see the end of sda2 is 1 cylinder more than before imaging.

 

I've taken another image this time with fog set to multiple partition single disk and that works fine on the desktops so just sending that to a different type of DC7900 to check that works.

 

Edit:

Well the image works with the other type of DC7900 so I'm happy with that. While I was playing with fog I reinstalled win7 deleting the partitions and letting win7 create a new one. Fdisk listed the partitions as shown in the first screenshot. I took an image using single partition single disk but when reimaging the client wouldn't boot and gave the same error as before so it looks like I must use the multiple partition option.

Edited May 31, 2012 by Jobos

[KK20]

As an aside, I have created my W7 image within a VM. I have had no issues imaging and deploying this through FOG. Initially I forgot about the 100mb system partition and set fog to upload the image as SINGLE partition. this still worked just fine on my first test PC. I since then use multiple partition model within fog and all is still well.

[nutso]

I think FOG automatically takes the system partition in to account. It may need the Host OS section to be set to Windows 7 before you upload the image, but all of my Windows 7 images are set to Single Partition and I've had no trouble deploying them. It's preferable to use Single Partition where possible because FOG can automatically resize the partition for you.

[KK20]

Sorry I forgot to say, I *did* set the host OS to windows 7 before upload so probably the same as you (i.e. have no issues). I only use a single partition on my PCs so I simply tell unattend.xml to expand. Edited June 15, 2012 by KK20

[localzuk]

As promised here's the guide I used to start me off building a Windows 7 image:

 

[ATTACH]13983[/ATTACH]

 

I found a couple of gotchas with this so far.

 

1. The 'AutoLogon' part under OOBE in the AIK says to add the password, however for the life of me I could not figure out how to do this within the software. I ended up saving the unattend.xml file, then copying the password section from the later local accounts section and pasted it in using notepad. It then appeared in the AIK software.

2. If you have the Fog Service installed on the client, and you have it set to join Active Directory or similar, then your machine will restart whilst it is trying to set up the drivers. To resolve this, I added a net stop "Fog Service" to the setupcomplete.cmd file, and then a net start "Fog Service" to the end of the RemoveD.cmd file.

3. The script for removing the drivers folder refers to deleting a C:\D folder. This isn't needed any more, as that folder is auto-cleaned by the driver tool now.

[Jobos]

I found a couple of gotchas with this so far.

 

2. If you have the Fog Service installed on the client, and you have it set to join Active Directory or similar, then your machine will restart whilst it is trying to set up the drivers. To resolve this, I added a net stop "Fog Service" to the setupcomplete.cmd file, and then a net start "Fog Service" to the end of the RemoveD.cmd file.

 

That's a very good point. I didn't need to do this as I told sysprep to keep the existing drivers as all the machines are of the same model.

[localzuk]

Oh, also, I found that the driver packs aren't 100% with our laptops - in particular, the multi-card reader and the free fall sensors didn't get installed on an Dell Latitude E5420. So, I crafted a custom driver pack using the instructions here: [Tutorial] Making your own DriverPacks for n00bs (Page 1) - 3rd Party DriverPacks - DriverPacks.net Forum

[KK20]

Fujitsus need an ACPI driver too, nothing critical though.