Ghost Solution Suite

I too have a number of Win7 boxes that came pre-installed with Win7 home edition, and I need to put on Win7 Enterprise Edition but the Ghost Task fails because ghost does not support a system that has multiple boot partitions (which apparently these new machines do).  This is a documented limitation.

Is there a ghost task that I can run that can basically boot into WinPE, reformat the drive, and then let me run my Imaging task so that I can install my ghost images of Win7 Enterprise?

If so how?

Hello,

I am not sure the document you are referring to about ghost does not support mutliple partitions. Ghost does support multiple partitions.

You have several options.

1. Through console you can create image task and select source drive 1 but do not select any partition. Provide appropriate image store path.

2. Boot the machine in Winpe. Write command (assuming you are installed os on disk 1)

ghost32.exe -clone,mode=create,src=1,dst=<network location / select another drive connected to machine>

3. While restore image you can boot into Winpe and provide following command (assuming your image has both recovery partition and os partition),

ghost32.exe -clone,mode=restore,src=<network image repository location / select another drive connected to machine>,dst=1

Please let me know if you need further clarification / help.

4. Restore partitions one by one (first recovery partition and next os partition).

See TECH108161 article says Multiple boot partitions - console is not compatible with machines that have dual/multiple boot partitions.

The URL I used was  http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH108161

I haven't tried what your suggesting but it seems like it should work.  After getting "To Virtual Partition" error, then reading the tech article I figured it just wasn't possible.  NOTE: At the time, this happened, I didn't check the "detailed error code" that occurs with "To Virtual Partition", and I've been fighting with getting drivers loaded so maybe the error I was getting was actually due to drivers and NOT the RESTORE partition.

I'll have a chance to test this again sometime soon.

Do you know if the RECOVERY volume is considered a 2nd "boot volume"?

Hello,

I think you are confused with "dual boot partition" and "multiple partition". Ghost doesn't support "dual boot partition" but does support having multiple partition. Please try with the suggested option earlier and let us know whether it works for you.

I tried option #1 above, and got an error.  I created a Ghost Deploy Anywhere task (selecting Clone, Deploy Anywhere, Configuration, Software & Files Actions).  The image I'm using is a Win7 Enterprise image which is not a backup of the original system.  The image is a new image that I want to use. 

In the Clone tab, I only see "Destination drive=1", no way to select a source drive.  The image I'm using only has one drive so maybe I don't see that choice because the image only has one drive in it.

When I run a Ghost Image task , the following steps appear:

1. File(s) updated on client (success)

2. Updating PreOS files (success)

3. Prepare configuration (success)

4. To Virtual Partition (failed)

The details for the "To Virtual Partition" failure say:

Failed to reboot client to recovery partition

This is why I didn't think ghost supported systems with the recovery partition.

I'll try one of the other suggestions as well to see if they work.

Hello,

Reason for this error is - Missing critical drivers in preboot environment. Please check and add the appropriate network and storage drivers for the client through Ghost Boot Wizard.