Cloning multiple machines

[eanda10]

I have a major project coming up which I will have to roll out approx 150 machines with the exact same config what is the fastest way to knock this off ( I get paid by job not by hour)

I own a copy of ghost 2003 the image took 5 cds and when I went to load all it accomplished was screwing up my data on my HD that I had to reformat and start from scratch

also is there a way to save the image onto a device like an ipod and do the install so I don't need to walk around with 5 cds loading one after another?


thanks

 

[TimRegester]

I would load it onto a separate hard disk, set the hd as master open the case and connect the cdrom ide and power leads on ide channel 2 to connect to this hd. Boot from a floppy and run ghost from the hd this will put the image on the target PC HDD. reconnect the cdrom and reboot the image should then install. If sysprep has done it's job all should be ok

My only glitch was the bios not recognising the cdrom afterwards on some but not all PCs so I had to clear the bios (these were dell optiplex pcs.

 

[AlexIT]

Have a WIN2K server?

Setup RIS, image Win2KPro CD, RBF install first machine from Win2kPro image from RIS, install all common software, printers, etc. and RIPREP first machine back to RIS server. Now RBF 149 machines from the first machine image.

(If you have 1000T LAN from server to switch and 100T to PCS you can RBF about 20 at same time as it takes about 20 min for image traffic.)

Alex

 

[AlexIT]

Oops I meant IMAGE WINXPPRO CD to RIS server!

Alex

 

[zxarr]

Well... The way we do it here, is simple... First, check out 'Bart's Bootdisk' at

http://www.nu2.nu.

There you can build a DOS bootdisk that loads network drivers and even allows you to authenticate with a domain.

Now, create a share on a server or computer that has enough free space to handle an entire image. Copy the ghost.exe file into it. (You may need the ghost.env file too)

Load XP into a machine and configure it the way you want. Now, look on the XP CD for the sysprep tools. These tools allow you to set up XP ready for imaging. Very important!

Copy the contents of the deploy.cab into the c:\sysprep folder on the machine you are imaging from.
Run the 'setupmgr' file and answer all the questions you need to. You don't have to answer them all. The ones you don't answer, you will be prompted for when booting a new PC using the image. Make sure you only put in a * for a machine name!! This will make sysprep come up with a random name for the machine on the network. If you specify ONE name, then you'll end up with all your machines using the same NetBios name. Which won't work well.

Once done, close the setupmgr and run the sysprep.exe tool. Click the 'reseal' button and wait! Don't click it twice, or click 'Factory', that will screw thigns up.

Once it's done, it will shut down the computer.

Boot up with the Bart's bootdisk.

Map a drive to the share where you want the image to be.

Change to that drive letter

Run ghost

Dump the image from the machine into that drive letter

Once done, you will have a file that's at least 2 gigs in size. From now on, boot up with Bart's bootdisk on any machine you want to use it on, load up ghost from the share and dump the image back onto a new machine!

When you reboot the machine after it's all done, it will process the sysprep stuff you put in, restart and then you're into windows! Yay!

Just rename the machine on the network and away you go.


have fun. Happy imaging.