Ghost Solution Suite

Has anyone been successful taking an image of a HP DL370 G6 server (OS Windows Server 2008 R2)? 

Initially while trying to take an image of that system, Ghost would fail (Ghost client installed fine but wouldn’t even respond to the Ghost server and would never shutdown to boot into WinPE).  Would throw an error of oem13.inf, so based on prior experience, I knew it was complaining about the NIC driver.

So, after finding the proper drivers for HP NC375i Multifunction Gigabit Server Adapter, the target machine seemed to like it, as I saw it shutting down, taking the instruction to boot into WinPE, but after some time it fails.  Basically the image creation never starts, it just hangs at the part of where it’s updating PreOS files (takes about 20 minutes), then states that it failed to boot into virtual partition.

I have tried every possible NIC I can think of for this type of network card, 32 bit/64 bit; injecting them with the VISTA tag in the Ghost Boot Wizard, even using the 2003, and 2008 x64 tag.  So no luck so far with this particular machine.

We are using the updated GSSS 2.5.1.  Under the release notes it says Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems is supported.  So not sure what I’m doing wrong, but if anyone can provide some insight, I’d appreciate it!

Please note, we have had success with this new version of Ghost on other servers, but just not this one!

Open the faild to boot to virtual partition error If you right click or double click the error then you should have some options as to why it failed,    Most likely issues with the nic is correct but it would be good to confirm that.   If you have a multi port NIC are all interfaces plugged in?    It is possible that pe can't figure out what NIC to pull an IP from.

Also if it is booting down do the NIC's have a link and activity light and are they active?

I would build a boot CD off of the PE that you are using and then boot from it and you can then exit ghost and start to trouble shoot.  Can you do an IP config from PE?  Do you get errros that no network card exists in this state? likely the drivers didn't load.  If it just has an IP of 0.0.0.0. or another non IP can you do an ipconfig /release and then an ipconfig /renew to pull a new IP? 

If you already have an IP can you ping the server?  If you can ping the server can you connect to a ghost cast session manually from the PE disk? 

Each of these tests are to help figure out at what point you are failing at and then you can look to resolve that point.

cheers.

Forgive me if I am covering old ground, but the version of WinPE that comes with GSS 2.5.1 requires Vista 32 bit drivers, regardless of what operating system is present on the machine you are imaging.

However, as well as the NIC driver, you also need to ensure that there are drivers for your hard disk chipset installed into WinPE.  WinPE does have basic SATA support built in, but when you start working with server software, you normally find that the hard disk chipsets are not basic SATA, but are the more complex variety that supports different RAID configurations. These advanced chipsets need the correct drivers as well, and an inability to boot into the PreOS might indicate that these drivers are missing.

Edt,

Yep, already know about the Vista 32 bit drivers.  But when it comes to servers, it appears your best bet (if available) are drivers for 2003.  Those would be the closest to VISTA (and have worked on some other blade servers we use).  I have tried the NIC and Storage Controller drivers for the DL370 and have not come out successful.

I will try what the other poster suggested as well.  I will create a bootable WinPE (iso) with a preconfigured IP address, and see if I can get into WinPE that way, and try using the GhostCast Server instead of Ghost Console.

Again, I have tried getting the drivers from here.  I've tried 2003 and 2008 drivers (both NIC and storage controllers).  http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3890173&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=3890172&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4064#113100

Any other ideas?

While adding drivers to WINPE select Vista as applicable OS eventhough you have 2003 drivers

Dpak,

Thanks, but this I know already.  This has been attempted and still no success.  Please read above.

If it is a NIC driver issue and you can't just renew the IP (tested from the boot disk) then you could try a custom PE disk based on the 2008 environment I believe Edt has several good posts on building custom PE disks.   I have used Bart PE to build 2003 based PE disks and you noted that there are 2003 drivers so it would be worth trying.   It kind of depends on how many machines you are talking about and how often you will need to image these machines.  

Once you get a boot meathod that works you can still automate ghost some what so that you can pop in the cd, reboot, and it can automaticaly join the ghost cast session to create or restore the image.   Not as cool as the ghost console and client but not as bad as a fully manual meathod.

cheers.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe will give you a method of creating a WinPE boot disk independently of GSS, and the version used is aligned more closely with Server 2008 than the one in GSS I believe.

Ok Edt,

Thanks for that detailed information.  I followed the steps on how to create a customizable Windows PE 64bit ISO with WAIK, added Ghost64.exe along with the proper Windows Server 2008 drivers (both nic and storage controller).  I manually mounted the bootable ISO to the system in question (HP DL370 G6 server) with Daemon Tools.  The machine booted into Win PE just fine and I was able to launch Ghost64.exe.

Now, how can you use this modified version of Windows PE within the Ghost Console or within the Ghost Boot Wizard?  I'd like to be able to either push this particular Windows PE 64bit image out to the client (HP DL370 G6) to be able to attain the 1 to 1 network relationship with Console/Client or be able to modify the ISO (via Ghost Wizard) to be able to address it with an IP address to be able to communicate back to the Ghost server (via Ghost Cast Session).

Thanks for your help,

ghost rider

I am not able to figure out exactly what you are trying to do.  I had assumed the intention was to image the server, and I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you were trying to cold image the server. In other words, you would boot into WinPE, run Ghost from there and image the shut down server hard disk to another storage resource.

From your last posting, it would appear that you are running WinPE from within the server operating system using Daemon tools, and I very much doubt that you can image the hard disk in this way, from within what I assume is a virtualised WinPE session.

As a side note, there is really no need to build a 64 bit version of WinPE for imaging. The version used by GSS is entirely 32 bit, because if you boot into WinPE, your operating system is not running, and the task is then to just read and image disk sectors, which has no dependency on the actual O/S present on the hard disk.

Edt,

That's quite all right.  Let me try to explain.

So, the whole purpose of seeking your solution was because it seemed it would fix the issue, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Ghost does not handle the workings of drivers properly unless they are of the OS variety when VISTA came out (and below) and/or at least being the 32 bit kind.

I have been able to Ghost other servers with a 2003 OS, found the proper drivers for it, injecting it with the VISTA tag in the Ghost Wizard, and everything went smoothly.

However, I'm not having much luck doing this process with my HP DL370 G6 server running 2008 R2 OS.  I have tried injecting 2003 and 2008 drivers of both NIC and Storage Controller, doing the same process as I have in the past with the Ghost Wizard.  When I push instructions to the client from the Ghost console to create an image of itself, it goes through the cycle of powering down acting as if it will eventually work.  But it doesn't.  Basically the image creation never starts, it just hangs at the part of where it’s updating PreOS files (takes about 20 minutes), then states that it failed to boot into virtual partition.

Now I have come to the point of your proposed solution, thinking that creating a 64bit version of Win PE may solve my issue.  Am I correct in that assumption?

I created the 64 bit Win PE from your instructions and merely just tested to see if the machine would even recognize it, and it did.  But, how can I implement this within the Ghost Console?  It's totally pointless to create this 64 bit version of Win PE since the 32 bit will already work if you manually boot from it and store your Ghost images on an attached external hard drive.  I've always been able to do that with no issues.  I am ultimately trying to do this in a network environment.  These HP DL370 G6 servers aren't even in my visual presence, they are across town which I can get to them remotely. 

So is there a way to get this newly created Win PE to work in this fashion?

Again, thanks for any assistance.

I do not know Ghost well enough to be able to confirm whether or not you can integrate alternative versions of WinPE into the existing mechanisms. My thinking was that with an alternative edition of WinPE to play with, you could establish whether or not a compatible set of NIC drivers could be located which would allow you to connect to your network. WinPE allows drivers to be loaded dynamically from the command line as long as you have the INF and SYS files plus any other supporting files available locally.

The requirement for Vista 32 bit drivers is down to the version of WinPE that Ghost uses. WinPE version2 is based on the Vista kernel, and as the 32 bit version of WinPE is used in GSS, you need 32 bit Vista drivers for compatibility.  The Windows 7 WAIK contains WinPE V3, which is based on the Windows 7 kernel, and therefore is likely to support 2008 R2 drivers as well, as R2's kernel is very similar to the Win 7 64 bit edition.

So what your situation seems to boil down to, is a determination of which drivers can be found for the HP NIC  (I'm assuming that the option of using a different NIC in this server is non-viable).  Is this NIC actually using an HP chipset or is it using one of the mainstream NIC chipsets from the likes of Intel, Broadcom, Realtek, etc.  If you grab the PNP ID for the NIC, and google on it, it may throw up further information that might help track down alternative drivers. Solving the driver issue so that WinPE can boot and made a network connection is the ideal objective.

I will make some enquiries to find out whether GSS can work with alternative releases of WinPE, but if any other users reading this posting already know the answer - please post below!

My enquiries confirm my suspicions that the current implementation of WinPE in GSS is so carefully tailored to the requirements of Ghost, that replacing it with a later version is not possible - at least not to us mortals. WinPE 3 was planned to be integrated into GSS3 but that project was canned by Symantec.

If you are just trying to back up the server why not use a tool that was built for server backups?  Backup Exec System Recover was never built as a deployment tool it has always been a back up tool   It also takes live images and can be controlled from a centeral point so you don't need to be infront of the machine you can remotely do all that is needed.     Ghost is/was a deployment tool first and then had some back up abilities added to it.    With as many limitations as you have it doesn't seem like ghost is the right tool for the job.   

Edt has identified a way to manualy make back ups and there isn't a way to Inject the newer PE files into the ghost console.   At best you could PXE boot rather than CD boot that server and then ghost cast or even use the ghost console client from PXE but either way it is looking like ghost isn't the right tool with out more manual steps to shoe horn it into working.  

Check out BESR it is a better tool based on your limitations.

cheers.

Thanks again for your help