Deployment Solution

(Altiris DS 6.9, SP3)

I'm assumnig here that I'm missing something obvious, but hopefully someone can explain to me how to get around an issue we are having with deploying an image to a PC with multiple partitions.

Long story short, our laptop image has a C: and D: drive.  However, new laptops being purchased recently are coming in pre-partitioned with a C:, D: and E: drive.  Before our image will be applied to the newly purchased laptop we are having to manually delete the pre-existing partitions.

As I said, I think we must be missing something obvious, as I assume that Altiris DS should be able to handle these scenarios as I can't believe that hundreds of PC Engineers going to be content with the hassle of manually deleting pre-existing partitions before deploying their images to the disk.

Do you use rdeploy to image the machines?
if so you could use -nooem this would delete the OEM partition.
The command line to anly deploy the partitions present in the image would be something like this:

rdeployt.exe" -md -f"IMAGEPATH\IMAGENAME.IMG" -nocancel -noprompt -nobw -nooem -rescan -sz1:30720m -sz2:100p

In this example the firste parition would be 30 GB and the second partition would be the rest.

All the present command lines are the following:
-align:X                 Set partition alignment: X={cyl|track|none}
-bsl:N                   Set broadcast speed limit to N MBits/sec
-cmdline                 Show the command line parameters in text mode
-cfgfile:{NAME}          Set the configuration filename (default is lastrun.cfg)
-checkdisk               (The functionality of this switch has been disabled.)
-cX                      Set compression type: X={off|size|balanced|speed}
-ddio:on|off             Bypass the operating system cache for disk access
-dpos{1-2}               Specify the desired disk position if a disk will be removed after imaging
-dsconfig:{NAME}         Specify the DS config file to be copied after restoring an image
-dsstatus:{N.N.N.N:P}    Specify the ip and port to use for communication with DS
-dN[,N...][:N[,N...]     Specify the disks to process (e.g., -d1 or -d1:2 (disk 1 to disk 2) or -d1,2 (RAID on disks 1 and 2)
-forcegui                Force the gui wizard to appear even if it doesn't have to
-forceoem                Force the OEM partition to be restored even if it exists on the destination
-forcebf                 Force boot fixup in cases where it does not normally occur
-forcebw                 Force the BW partition to be restored even if it exists on the destination
-frm:{NAME}              Specify files to be copied to the boot volume after restoring an image
-f{NAME}                 Specify the image name
-grubdir:{DIR}           Specify the directory where the GRUB boot files are located
-guid:{guid}             Specify a GUID for a newly created image.  -guid:XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX
-h                       Show command line help
-help                    Show command line help
-?                       Show command line help
-ip:{N.N.N.N:P}          Set the multicast ip address and port.
-iosize:N                Set the size (in KBytes) of reads and writes to the image file (4-64k)
-i{ID}                   Set the multicast session ID
-i:{20-25}               Set the VGA screen mode (e.g. 23=640x480x16)
-kap                     Keep all existing partitions during download
-kprs                    Keep the existing recovery partition during download
-kp{1-31}                Keep an existing partition during download
-logdir:{DIR}            Specify an alternate directory path to write error logs to
-logo:{NAME}             Specify a path to a progress dialog logo bitmap (PCX in dos, BMP in windows)
-makeimx                 Create an image index file (.imx) to reduce media swapping
-mcastspeed:{speed}      Set multicast speed.  Range: 1 or greater.  1 = DS 6.5 and previous speed, 5 = DS 6.8 default.
-mcint:{N.N.N.N}         Specify the interface for multicasting. (can be DEFAULT)
-mclient                 Operate in client mode
-mconv                   Convert .img to .exe
-mdb                     Download and multicast an image
-mdd                     Copy one disk to another disk
-mig:{NAME}              Specify migration file. Prompts before overwriting the disk
-mmm                     Operate in multicast master mode
-mub                     Upload and multicast an image
-mb                      Multicast only
-md                      Download (restore) an image
-mu                      Upload (create) an image
-nogeocheck              Disable the geometry check when downloading raw volumes.
-nospacecheck            Don't check for available space on the volume where the image is being created
-noprompt                Prevent any need for user interaction, e.g. hitting <OK> after an error occurs
-nocancel                Don't allow the user to cancel the imaging task
-nolvm                   Disable LVM disk enumeration
-nooem                   Make the destination end up with no OEM partition
-nors                    Make the destination end up with no RS partition
-nobw                    Make the destination end up with no BW partition
-nt64k                   Force FAT16 to use 64k clusters (NT systems only)
-n                       Process the sources but not the destinations (null destination)
-postconfig              Do post configuration from within rdeploy
-password:{PWD}          Specify the image password
-poem                    Image the oem partition unless it already exists (see -forceoem)
-prs                     Image the recovery partition
-pb                      Image the bootwork partition unless it already exists (see -forcebw)
-p{1-31}                 Select the partitions to process (can be repeated, e.g. -p1 -p2, etc.)
-raid:N                  Specify the software RAID level
-raw                     Treat all partitions as raw
-raw:{1-31}              Treat the specified partition as raw
-rescan                  Tell the OS to reread the partition table after imaging
-restorebt               Restore the boot track during download
-restoresig              Restore the MBR disk signature during download
-retainstart             Retain the start sector of the first partition. (DOS partitions only, up to 2048 sectors)
-rscs:{NAME}             Make a recovery solution checksum file during upload
-splash:{NAME}           Specify a path to a splash screen bitmap (PCX in dos, BMP in windows)
-split:N                 Split the image at N megabytes during upload
-span                    Prompt for media between image segments (use with -split)
-szX[:Y]                 Resize partitions: -sze, -szf[!], -szX:e, -szX:eY, -szX:f, -szX:Nm, -szX:Np (X,Y=slot, e=existing, f=fixed, m=MBytes, p=percentage)
-sN                      Send to N clients
-threshold:N             Set the minimum number of clients needed to multicast
-throttle:N              Throttle rdeploy operations to N mbps
-text                    Run in text mode instead of GUI mode
-ve:{31-34}              Set VESA screen mode (e.g. 31=640x480x256)
-ver                     Display version information and exit
-wN                      Set the timeout (in minutes) for autonegotiation and client connecting
-x                       Make the image self-extracting during upload

I use the following diskpart script to clear off all OEM partitions and create a single blank partition.  Your image should then be able to do it's thing and create partitions.

The command to run the script would be:

Diskpart -s "f:\foldername\scriptname.txt"

The script is:


select disk 0
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
assign letter=c
active
format quick
exit

I had the same question last week.  I called Altiris support and they had me to in to my distribute disk image task and then from there a the bottom where it says 'Automation Pre-boot Environment" WinPE  they had me select advanced and then additional options.  on that screen there is a "delete the clients OEM partitions option (-nooem)"  that worked for us.

~@~