[SCCM 2012] PXE OS Deployment Woes...

[cmorgan]

Hello all,

 

after the previous problems (which turned out to be my fault anyway) with the windows firewall on my SCCM clients, I have a new problem.

 

Deploying the ClientMgr package to the computer during the Build & Capture task sequence seems to make the entire process fail & error out.

 

Ive tried some stuff that was listed on TechNet social, and Im now stumped, trying different things to get it to work.

 

Stuff ive tried:

[*]Made a new ConfigMgr client package using the /SMS_

/Client source files
[*]Removed & re-distributedthe package
[*]re-distributed all applications inside the task sequence
[*]re-distributed the OS installed
[*]Grabbed the smsts.log File (no joy in there either)
[/list]

Heres the last bit of my smsts.log file:
[code]

 

Any help is muchly appreciated. I will also let people know if I find an answer. Others could be in my shoes too!

 

Thanks!

 

EDIT: Just having a look in my log a bit further up, It gets past the "Apply operating system" stage on the OSD, but from the log, it says it has only just partitioned the disk. strange.

Edited June 29, 2012 by cmorgan

[irsprint84]

I m going to say do another easier way than using capture:

 

How can I capture an image using capture media in ConfigMgr 2012 - Configuration Manager 2012 - www.windows-noob.com

[cmorgan]

Right ok, I have used that guide before. We captured one WIM image using that method.

 

I think the problem is with the installing of the OS and less of the capture of the OS.

If I cant install an OS, how can I capture it?

[irsprint84]

Well you mention 'build and capture'

 

I uploaded with media cd in guide the WIM then I created a task called 'install image' my sequence attached.

[cmorgan]

Right, here is a screenshot of what ive got for the task sequence so far.

 

Ive removed the *capture-ness from the sequence, and it now solely deploys windows from the disc WIM.

 

Heres the screenshot.

[shadowx]

We spent about 6 months trying to get SCCM to work here and frankly I have done very little with it, but the two guys I work with who dealt with SCCM had to reverse the partitions in the Task sequence, for some reason SCCM was trying to restore the Image partition 0 to the DISK partition 1 (Which actually meant it was trying to whack the full C drive into the partition which is the "System reserved 100mb" partition, hence failing.) The other thing was to partitition the second partition as a percentage, so on a 160gb disk put the C drive at 159.XXgb and then the second, system reserved 100mb partition to "Remaining space" and let it get on with it.

 

But to be honest our SCCM server has been installed about 3 times, randomly stopped working for a few weeks then with no changes made started working again (It's done that twice) and we never got the Build and Capture rubbish working, we found the same guide linked in this post, just making a CD to capture a working machine.

 

Frankly SCCM is not ready for use and my advice is don't buy it. It's pants. Alternatives would be something like Ghost (for imaging, or Clonezilla) Impero has a wicked deployment tool as part of the whole package, GPO (Bit dodgy) or scripts.

[cmorgan]

Getting a 0x8000FFFF error (or something along those lines) when it goes to partition the disk. Tried your suggestion shadowx.

 

More to come on monday.

[irsprint84]

We spent about 6 months trying to get SCCM to work here and frankly I have done very little with it, but the two guys I work with who dealt with SCCM had to reverse the partitions in the Task sequence, for some reason SCCM was trying to restore the Image partition 0 to the DISK partition 1 (Which actually meant it was trying to whack the full C drive into the partition which is the "System reserved 100mb" partition, hence failing.) The other thing was to partitition the second partition as a percentage, so on a 160gb disk put the C drive at 159.XXgb and then the second, system reserved 100mb partition to "Remaining space" and let it get on with it.

 

But to be honest our SCCM server has been installed about 3 times, randomly stopped working for a few weeks then with no changes made started working again (It's done that twice) and we never got the Build and Capture rubbish working, we found the same guide linked in this post, just making a CD to capture a working machine.

 

Frankly SCCM is not ready for use and my advice is don't buy it. It's pants. Alternatives would be something like Ghost (for imaging, or Clonezilla) Impero has a wicked deployment tool as part of the whole package, GPO (Bit dodgy) or scripts.

 

You must be having a laugh! took me about 4 days, was very easy to setup everything up and everything works perfectly. We have now given helpdesk and 2nd line support more control and free's up time for us to concentrate on projects.

 

One example someone phones helpdesk and PC needs wiping, they send a advertisement to the user, they click in software centre and it copies all their user settings, wipes OS, puts down software and WU and users network credentials to get back on domain.

 

We were wasting man power on people going out to build PC's and had 100s of images (Now 3)

 

If you follow the guide int he link I sent you exactly it works perfectly. Have you put command logging on your boot images to check errors?

[irsprint84]

Getting a 0x8000FFFF error (or something along those lines) when it goes to partition the disk. Tried your suggestion shadowx.

 

More to come on monday.

 

Have you followed the windows noob guide to the exact word?

[adamf]

Never seen that error before, but one thing I did notice that you don't have in your installation properities of Setup Windows and ConfigMgr is the FQDN of the management point. I have this in all of mine:

 

SMSMP=SERVER.DOMAIN.LOCAL

Edited June 29, 2012 by adamf
can't spell!

[cmorgan]

Never seen that error before, but one thing I did notice that you don't have in your installation properities of Setup Windows and ConfigMgr is the FQDN of the management point. I have this in all of mine:

 

SMSMP=SERVER.DOMAIN.LOCAL

 

Right. Im guessing this just goes straight into the properties of Setup ConfigMgr & Windows.

 

Ill give it a shot once I get it to partition the disk again,

 

RE: The partitioning bit - Following shadowx's guide of making the System Reserved partition first, then the rest as one partition is failing a bit and I dont know why. Here is the current failing setup. (The HDD for deployment is 500GB.)

 

Im going to try this setup now to see if it wants to play ball.

Edited July 2, 2012 by cmorgan

[RabbieBurns]

Can someone point me in the direction of a guide for PXE etc I have read a few guides for sccm 2012 but none have mentioned whether i need to install the wds role on the sccm server and none that i have read have said anything about adding options to the dhcp server which I believe is necessary?

[irsprint84]

For SCCM 2012 dont install seperatly, when you add the PXE role in SCCM it will install WDS itself.

 

sccm console -> Administration -> Site Configuration -> Serevrs and site System Role -> (Pick you DP) -> Properties of Distribution Point -> PXE tab -> tick Enable PXE. This will install WDS and everything

[RabbieBurns]

For SCCM 2012 dont install seperatly, when you add the PXE role in SCCM it will install WDS itself.

 

sccm console -> Administration -> Site Configuration -> Serevrs and site System Role -> (Pick you DP) -> Properties of Distribution Point -> PXE tab -> tick Enable PXE. This will install WDS and everything

 

what about dhcp options and boot images etc?

[cmorgan]

what about dhcp options and boot images etc?

 

Sorry for the shameless bump,

Incase you haven't got an answer yet...

DHCP - I ended up setting the server's fixed IP address into our DHCP server. I didnt have to to make it work, but it seemed best practice to do seeing as some clients didnt manage to find where to PXE boot from.

 

Boot images - SCCM seemed to make its own images for x86 and 64bit from the default ones included in the Windows AIK. I think it was a prerequisite, not too sure to be honest. Once SCCM was installed, it had 2 images there waiting for me. You dont "have" to stick with them though, I made a custom WinPE image from the default WAIK wim file and about 900 odd drivers for networking, keyboard, & chipsets. Sure its a tad bloated but we can boot everything from that one image at the expense of an extra 1m~ of boot time via PXE.

 

Hope this helps,

Conor M