Symantec Ghost dump image file problem with FUJITSU Realtek 8139 LAN

[ABAMOTO]

Dear all:
I am trying to deploy XP Pro... Ghost went beautiful getting desktop images and deploy to multiple computers.... Now I am trying to deploy onto our fujitsu notebooks, and the problem occurs.

The LAN is REALTEK 8139 family. I went to REALTEK website to download DOS driver, and used Ghost to create a boot disk. After that, I use Nero to burn a "bootable CD" with that boot disk. This is what I did with the desktops.

When I booted from CD Rom, the notebook screen displayed a string of garbage characters. I went to BIOS and disable quick boot, and the notebook would display "no boot filename received" PXE error.... What happened? Is something wrong with my LAN hardware or (However when I created a default xp pro image, LAN was working fine. I am not sure whether something went wrong after I performed a sysprep though)

HELP ME... I have got like 5 notebooks.... @_@

 

[mattjurado]

Does this happen on all of the notebooks? Can you boot off of the cd on any of them?

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[Tightpants]

I created a ghost image of a fujitsu notebook today strangely enough.

Are you trying to create a Drive Mapping Boot Disk in Ghost? I created one in Ghost 2003 using the template already in Ghost so I didn't need to download the NDIS files. I also used an external USB floppy drive after my earlier failed attempts at creating a boot cd - see thread931-1063442. The boot floppy I created today would not work with MS-DOS but was fine with PC-DOS.

If I was restoring the notebook I would boot using the Drive Mapping Boot Disk and restore the image files across the network.

Your situation may be slightly different but hopefully some of this may help you.

 

[westredd]

I am understanding that you are booting from a CD in order to access the network in DOS in order to use a ghost image stored there. Sorry if I am misunderstanding.

Try using a floppy disk for booting rather than a cd. I seem to remember that there is cause to write to the boot disk when loading DOS drivers from boot up. Even though it seems as though this wont help, give it a go.

ta

West

 

[ABAMOTO]

I tried to create a network boot disk...and it was to dump the image to server for deployment onto other fujitsu notebooks.

I did try to use an external floppy but that would not even read my flppy disk... In my BIOS there is an option to enable floppy but this does not seem to work well at all.

This has happend to two of my notebooks, same model...

 

[ABAMOTO]

there is no floppy for the notebook... it is pretty slim... I should've ordered a floppy ATAPI removable when I purchased the notebook @_@...


How come creating a bootable CD from floppy failed? I used Nero and it worked for my desktop deployment (broadcom is the LAN NIC)

 

[westredd]

How come creating a bootable CD from floppy failed? I used Nero and it worked for my desktop deployment (broadcom is the LAN NIC)"

I don't know why but it did!

 

[Tightpants]

The link to thread931-1063442 shows a varying degree of success in trying to create boot CDs. Hence I bought the external USB floppy drive -

http://www.iomega-europe.com/eu/Products.aspx?productId=Floppy7in1

I had to plug in the floppy drive with the disk inserted before switching on the notebook computer. During the boot sequence I pressed F12 to enable the boot options and selected to boot from floppy. It took a few attempts to get the timing right with the F12 key.

 

[danjwalker]

Just for iinfo - PC-DOS reads the partition table differently to MS-DOS. If you clear the partition first, you do not get the garbled message when booting from the cd... Don't know if this will help.

Also, I use a USB pen drive for my ghost exploits. Its faster and easier than using the cd as you can change things if you need to. Kicks ass in my opinion.

 

[Tightpants]

danjwalker

Can you describe how you configured your pen drive as a boot device? It would be very useful to be able to do this as an alternative to using an external floppy drive. Thanks.

 

[bcastner]

Tightpants,

There are BIOS issues, there are some things that cannot be done with a USB pen drive, but there are a whole heckuva lot of things that can be done.

There are three elements to make a USB flash drive bootable on a system:

** The host system must support booting from a USB flash drive.
(Please check with your system manufacturer.)

** The USB flash drive must support booting in general.
(Please check with your USB flash drive vendor.)

** The USB flash drive must contain boot/system files.
Typically, vendors of USB flash drives that support bootability will
provide you with a tool that will make the drive bootable.

USB Flash Drive FAQ

http://www.usbflashdrive.org/u*sbfd_faq.html

quoted from - Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

----------

It is a fun puzzle to sort.

Best wishes,
Bill Castner

 

[ABAMOTO]

I think my BIOS does not support USB floppy bootable. There IS an option of "enable USB emulation for floppy". However, when I contacted Fujitsu Support I was told that USB floppy is not bootable for that notebook series.

I think I will need to try MS-DOS instead of PC-DOS. However, MS-DOS requires formatting floppy from win 98 environment. Does anyone know how to get this done? I don't have any Win98...

I guess the easiest way is to get a removable floppy drive for the notebook for around $70. I will still try to use MS-DOS if possible. But from this experience, I learn in the future I should always purchase a removable floppy drive for my company's notebook just in case things like this happen.

 

[Tightpants]

Thanks bcastner for the info about making a bootable USB pen drive. This sounds like the same sort of puzzle I had trying to make a ghost boot cd!

Abamoto... Do the notebook computers have CD writers? You could Ghost to CD-R as an alternative.

I agree that if you are buying a batch of notebooks it's not a bad idea to buy a removable floppy drive for at least one of them.