Ghost Solution Suite

What is the recommended, easiest bare metal restore (2008 servers, XP & Win7 clients) using Ghost SS 2.5? I really do not want to have to create boot USB\CD drives from DOS NIC drivers (like I did in Ghost 8).

 

Thanks

Hello,

Use 3com pxe which is bundled with GSS 2.5 CD. Instruction to setup the 3com pxe can be found under GSS 2.5 installer CD in "Extras" folder.

Thanks, quite a number of these .pdf's relate to ghost NT4, ghost 6 and 7, is this still the supported method? Should I be looking at the 'Boot services' pdf's of the 'DABS' pdf's. We run DHCP on 2008 server and need to multicast 50+ machines at any time (sometimes). All our computers support PXE.

There is also mentions of '3com client license packs'. Are these required?

 

 

 

 

it is also mentioned that 3com pxe does not work with vista, which would imply it will not work from win 2008 for win7 clients, which is my environment?

Hello,

I am not sure from where you are referring Vista does not support. Please refer Ghost implementation guide pdf as well.

Though there is no development on 3com (since this is third party) but It has been tested and it should work.

"There is also mentions of '3com client license packs'. Are these required?"

This is OEM version of 3com Boot services which is included Symantec Ghost.

Few more references for configuring 3com pxe

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH110129&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1311058866588

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH107441&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US&searchid=1311058866588

Thanks, I have followed your first guide TECH110129 very carefully but the clients just sit there trying to find a DHCP server after F12 boot.

The normal network DHCP server is on the same subnet but on a different server. This is working.

Opening 3com PXE server shows a tick in 'Proxy DHCP', so I assume it is enabled. I have also authorised the Ghost server as a DHCP server on my network.

 

 

Any ideas...?

 

OK, making some progress, have got it to get an IP from DHCP but now it says:

'TFTP download failed'

after getting the IP address.

Thanks 4 any ideas
 

Hello,

If you have configured 3com pxe and DHCP on different machine then you need to add the option 60 in your DHCP. Option 60 is for PXE clients.  It points a PXE booted client to the server that will service it via TFTP.

 

Thanks, this is now working!

One last thing some of our clients have network boot as the first option in their BIOS and these now boot straight to ghost. I know they cant actually do anything unless a session is running and also that this shouldnt be allowed in the computers BIOS, but can I set some kind of security on this? I thought the 'press F12 to boot from network' would always be there, but using this new 3com boot it doesn't seem to be?

 

Thanks

Hello,

Good to hear that it is working.

I dont see any option as such. I would suggest you to change the boot option for those clients.

OK last thing again.

 

I have created a TCP\IP Network Boot Image (I called it 'Restore') with the switches:

-clone,mode=restore,src=@mcp,dst=1 -sure –rb

This should (and does on my exisiting Ghost with RIS setup) automatically connect to a multicast restore session called 'p'

How ever now when booting I can choose that Boot Imag and it goes to the Ghost splash screen, I have to select 'multicast' and then type in the session name 'p'.

 

any idea why this is not working with no user input?

 

 

Hello,

I dont see any reason to fail this command. It should work.Please ensure the network connectivity between client and server.

it was the hyphen (on -rb) which had been copied from Word 2010.

Cool ! Nice to hear that your problem is resolved. Thanks for the confirmation.