Jake,

Even with a Ghost Boot Partition, a client in the OS would be required. An option that would work, I believe, is a PXE setup where you can boot a machine so that it appears in the Ghost Console and is eligible for tasks. This is a great setup and does not require a client installed. Here are instructions for this setup:

How to use the 3Com Boot Services (and SolarWinds TFTP) with Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 using WinPE
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/on-technology.nsf/docid/2009060307534660

When making the boot package, make sure to choose the TCP/IP Network Ghost Client Boot Image.

I hope that helps!

Thank you,

Randy

Thanks for the reply Randy!

Unfortunately PXE booting isn't an option for me. I'm imaging many servers with many different OSs, and unfortunately I have to be able to say I want this VMDK/GHO to go on that specific piece of hardware (in an unattended fashion). Using Ghost Casting outside of cloning adds a lot of variables to my equation, mainly setting up a unique session name for each server that's going to PXE boot, and making sure my destination hardware somehow gets that session name unattendedly.

What Ive been doing works, I was just hoping to speed things up and get a little more stability. I currently install the ghost client on my VMWare image, and then deploy it via a clone task. I guess I'll stick to doing that.

Thanks again!!

-Jake

Jake,

You may consider a one-click virtual partition. You can make this through the boot wizard. This would also allow you to boot to Ghost by double-clicking an icon. You would just go through the boot wizard and instead of choosing a CD/DVD/USB, you would choose the one-click virtual partition option. This is not a console client, but you can run an operation this way.

Thank you,

Randy

You can have ghost cloning to VMDK directly as opposed to from any preOS. You can address VMDK files just like GHO files either on the command line or from Ghostcast server or from the Console. You dont even need two partitions if you only want to clone to VMDK as a regular file on your filesystem.

Even if you still want to have a dedicated ghost boot partition you can still address VMDK in your other partition as dst=2:\clone.VMDK.

Thanks for the reply Eugene!

So I'm cloning from a VMDK, but I don't think that matters for your suggestion. I tried to clone a ghost boot partition that I built via the boot wizard to my server. It deploys it just fine. When I try to then clone my VMDK to drive 1 partition 2 (via the clone task) it fails on loading the drivers. I was unable to create a boot partition with Deploy Anywhere. While building the GBP it fails everytime about halfway through adding drivers, the only way that I was able to create the partition .gho was to uncheck "include deploy anywhere...".

So basically, how can I add Deploy Anywhere to my GBP. And if I can do that, will cloning a VMDK to partition 2 automatically look to the GBP for those drivers?

Thanks again!

-Jake

Have you ran the LiveUpdates? If the version in Help > About... in the Ghost Explorer is not 11.5.0.2165, you will need to run LiveUpdate until it is at that version (up to three times). After that, try creating the GBP again.

You do not need to include all DA drivers with GBP. In fact by default GBP gets overwritten every time you perform a task from the Console. This is so that you do not have a stale configuration on the client. DA will query server for all drivers that it needs as part of the clone task if you add DA to the clone task so you do not need to include drivers in GBP.

I am not sure what you mean by "failed on loading the drivers"? Is DA failed or building GBP failed? If DA failed it is possible that you do not have correct drivers in DA database. Inspect Console error log and if so add those drivers to DA via Ghost boot wizard Winpe editor.

Randall -

I'm running 11.5.0.2113, so I'm little behind the version you mentioned. I'm in a disconnected network, so I'll try to see if I can find the updates and manually apply them.

Eugene -

The "failed drivers" error came when loading VMDK to the partition 2. If I just lay the VMDK down on the entire HD it finds the drivers in DA just fine, but not when I lay down a GBP to partition 1 first and then attempt to lay down the VMDK to partition 2. I'm using the exact same VMDK both times.

Once again thanks for both of your replies!! This is definitely moving me in the right direction!

-Jake

Randy -

Running the LU files got me up to the newest version, however it took my ability to create a boot image that contains the client, my only options now are Standard GBD, TCP/IP Network Boot Image and TCP/IP Network Ghost Client Boot Image. None of these options appear to work for me, I'm not PXEbooting nor do I want to, which is why I was deploying VMDKs via a clone task. So now I'm lost on how to create a GBP with the new updated Console. I'd also like to role back since I was using the boot image Image Type in the boot wizard to build my partition.

-Jake

It should not take any abilities to create packages that contain client exe. In fact all Winpe based packages contain all ghost executables (including DA as well). For DOS we only included certain exes due to package size limitations but WInpe has no limits of that kind so everything is included. You can also change batch file to run on the very last page of the Ghost boot wizard before it creates the package.

I think I am guessing your problem with VMDK in that when you are laying it out a partition 2 you are deploying it as an image expecting to go to partition 2. However VMDK is treated is just like GHO images - which means an entire disk is included. Which means that you can deploy VMDK and GHO to a disk but if you are to deploy just a partition from VMDK to a partition on the real disk then you need to use partition syntax just like for GHO, eg:

ghost32 -clone,src=my.VMDK:\2,dst=1:2,mode=prestore and so on