Deployment Solution

Trying to image some new Dell 960's that we got in...and unfortunately, out of the box, the default setting in the BIOS is for RAID. When it gets to the imaging portion it fails, giving our favorite 'RDeploy: Disk not found' error. If I go into the BIOS and change to 'RAID w/ ATA' it works just fine. So, I guess the question is...does anyone know how to get it to recognize the disk with the default settings? I've added the updated iaAHCI/iaStor files (not that it needed it...but just in case). It's something to do with the RAID oviously, so maybe i'm missing some configuration or this is just a limitation...

Thanks!

The only way that I have come across is to do a new image, but make sure that when you install windows when creating the image to do an F6 and install the SATA/eSATA/RAID drivers. Unfortunately, Windows XP does not have native support for it and most people (myself included) just leave the BIOS at ATA as it works fine for the majority of our users.

A note though, if you plan on using eSATA devices (especially on the new Latitude e-series machines...i.e. the external Media case), eSATA will not work in ATA mode at all.

Also, in a pinch, you can do the following steps:

1. Change the BIOS settings to either RAID or AHCI mode.
2. Boot off of your Windows XP disk
3. Do an F6 during the start of the setup and install the mass storage drivers
4. Don't do the recovery console, but after that screen you can do a repair installation. It works, however, I have not determined if there are any negative impacts from doing it this way.

I understand what you're saying...but Windows doesn't have native support for SATA either - you have to build it into your image, which i've done. Usually though, you don't see the effect of this until after it images, it reboots and then bluescreens. Every time i've had an issue with it getting the 'disk not found' error was because the Deployment Console couldn't recognize the configuration. That has been remedied in the past by adding the correct drivers to the Console...but it doesn't seem to work this time. That's why I was wondering if it was a limitation.

I do images with IBM and Dell servers as well with the RAID drivers built in, so I know it does work....but this model's configuration is different than ones i've seen before.

I wonder if Linux or whatever automation os you are using is having a problem seeing the drives?

that's exactly the problem. exact same thing used to happen with sata drives before we all started including the drivers into the Deployment Console so it could recognize them. The problem here is....there ARE no Raid drivers for this model on their website. Even after building it out using the RAID w/ ATA option there aren't any leftover objects in the device manager. What it's trying to recognize i don't know. That's the confusion...

Well what is your pre-boot environment? If it's WinPE2.1 then add the vista AHCI drivers to it, for WinPE1.6 add the XP drivers, and for Linux add this driver http://www.symantec.com/connec...river-linux-automation

If you are using DOS....no clue, SOL?

more info: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/dell-optiplex-960-and-imaging-linux

It's WinPE 1.6 (WinPE 2.1...can't get it to boot correctly. I have another thread about that). The correct drivers for the SATA drive are there from the AHCI inf...hence the reason it will actually image as 'RAID w/ ATA'.
The default RAID option out of the box won't work though - which is confusing since there are absolutley no RAID drivers for this machine. You can check Dell's website. This is baffling to me.