Ghost Solution Suite

So, we buy Dell E6410 laptops that come loaded with Windows 7.

I've created a bootable USB stick and a bootable DVD to boot these new machines and ghost our image onto them...which is an XP image.

There are times I want to update the image - and there is most definately going to be a time when I need to reimage one of the 6410s - so I have tried booting the machine using the same USB stick or DVD to do so.

The driver loads perfectly, and Ghost runs on the client machine.  However, when I choose to connect to the Ghostcast Server either Multicast, Direct, or Unicast it fails and I get the following:

Abort 19913, unable to start TCP/IP
Can't find DHCP server
Possible network setup problem.

Searching these forums for througout the morning shows me this is a pretty common problem.  Is there any information I can give you that can help you help me?  When it comes down to a user dead in the water and I can't image their machine there will be problems.

What happens to the network card between imaging it the first time, and then booting it up with our XP image?  Is it that I need a USB stick with one driver for the newly arrived Windows 7 computer and a second driver for the images, XP machine?  If so, which driver do I use?

Like I said, I've been searching these forums and saw it asked that the following information be provided:

NIC: Intel 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection

Instance Id: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10EA&SUBSYS_040A1028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&C8

I hope that helps because I'm not getting very far on my own here.

Using GSS 2.5.1.

First of all, you have not mentioned whether your bootable USB stick and bootable DVD are booting PCDOS or WinPE.  I would always recommend using WinPE as modern hardware such as SATA hard disks and optical drives just is not seen by PCDOS.

When it comes to drivers for network cards, the driver should be appropriate to the operating system you are  using to boot your machine. The operating system on the hard disk or in the image you are trying to deploy is nothing more than a collection of sectors and therefore has no relevance when it comes to the boot environment you are working with.

If you are using WinPE from GSS 2.5.1 then you will need Vista 32 bit drivers for the NIC, and for any other hardware needing drivers during imaging (eg hard disk /raid array)  as GSS's WinPE is based on the Vista kernel.

Having procured the drivers for the ethernet NIC, it still has to default to the correct speed, etc, and this may need a quick look in the driver INF file, as this often has a list of connection options with one specified as the default. It should be the usual 100Mbps full duplex, but it pays to check if you are having problems connecting. Avoid trying to use a wireless lan connection for imaging as setting wep keys to securely connect is nigh on impossible.

Finally, since it is quite simple to make a WinPE bootable USB hard disk, on which you can store images, there is nothing to stop you creating a portable recovery solution around such a hard disk and avoid all the hassle with network connections. Your rebuild time will also be a lot faster from a local USB hard disk than over a standard LAN connection.

Finally, the following posting lists a download location for the Intel NIC you mention:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/drivers-intel-82567lm-intel-82577-lm-intel-82578-dm

Well, I used the DOS environment to create the USB stick to image the new Windows 7 box.

Please forgive me if I'm being obtuse but in one sentence you say:

When it comes to drivers for network cards, the driver should be appropriate to the operating system you are  using to boot your machine.

Then you tell me to use the Vista driver, when the machine I'm trying to create an image from is an XP machine.  That's a bit confusing.

Also, how does the DOS USB stick allow me to lay an image on the Windows 7 machine, but not allow me to pull that same image off?

Can you please provide detailed instructions as to how I would create this WinPE USB stick?

I've followed the instructions here, including your recommended Vista driver in the build and it does absolutely nothing upon boot.

At the very least my USB stick starts Ghost...it just can't start TCP/IP.

Also, the link you provided contains over 300 files.

At a screen asking me to "Add a driver" which one do I choose?

>>Please forgive me if I'm being obtuse but in one sentence you say:

When it comes to drivers for network cards, the driver should be appropriate to the operating system you are  using to boot your machine.

Then you tell me to use the Vista driver, when the machine I'm trying to create an image from is an XP machine.  That's a bit confusing.<<

If you are booting PCDOS to image your machine, then you need to load PCDOS compatible NIC drivers as the operating system you are using to boot your machine is PCDOS.

If you are booting WinPE to image your machine, then you need to load WinPE compatible NIC drivers as the operating system you are using to boot your machine is WinPE V2, which is based on Vista 32 bit edition. Hence you would require Vista 32 bit drivers.

The operating system you are trying to image is not running during the imaging process, so is nothing more than a collection of sectors stored on hard disk which Ghost will read and store as a Ghost image. Therefore it is irrelevant if the operating system on your hard disk is XP, or any other version of NT - since it is not running, it has no requirement for any drivers specific to its version. I hope this clarifies.

Regarding the network card in your machine, I cannot think of anything that would change between initial imaging and later imaging, assuming you are using the same boot media each time. I assume that the images in each case are being sourced from a Ghost server and not from a local DVD for example?

How is your PCDOS boot configured from the perspective of the TCP/IP layer? Is it configured to use DHCP?  If so, are you able to watch the light on the switch that the machine is connected to, to check if the link light is on, and also to check what speed the NIC is connecting at?  One reason for the inability to connect to a DHCP server might be due to the NIC defaulting to a line speed that is not supported by your switch.  Could you try allocating a static IP address and subnet mask?

When it comes to choosing the appropriate driver, you have stated:

NIC: Intel 82577LM Gigabit Network Connection

Instance Id: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10EA&SUBSYS_040A1028&REV_05\3&11583659&0&C8

For PCDOS, presumably looking for the appropriate DOS driver for the Intel 82577LM has already been accomplished as you have been able to connect to your server using your PCDOS boot. 

For an appropriate Vista 32 bit driver for use in WinPE, you have already quoted the PNP ID for your NIC above.  If you download a driver set for the 82577LM and locate a Vista 32 driver, you can open the INF file that is part of the driver file set, and check that the PNP ID is represented in the INF file. The way that windows plug and play works is that the PNP ID of a device is read by Windows, and the INF file library is checked to find if an INF file is present that has the PNP ID in it. If one is found, then the necessary drivers to be loaded are also listed in the INF file. If one is not found, then you get the dialog asking you to provide a driver disk, etc.

One thing I will mention is that a Windows 7 standard installation consists of two physical partitions, one of which is only 100Mb in size, and one which contains the majority of the system files which users see as the C: drive normally. Both are necessary for Windows 7 to start successfully after imaging.

When you deploy Windows XP to your systems, are you first wiping all existing partitions off the hard disk?

Finally, PCDOS has no support for SATA devices, and all new hardware comes with SATA hard disks as  standard. The system bios usually provides a "compatibility mode" so that the SATA hard disk can be made to emulate the older parallel ATA standard. If you are using PCDOS as your boot environment, you would need to switch on compatibility mode for PCDOS to be able to read a SATA hard disk.

WinPE supports standard SATA natively so offers a better all round solution as a boot environment, and it also can be booted from a USB device or an optical disk.

OK, so after, what...45 minutes of creating the actual WinPE USB stick I'm staring at a machine that booted to a command window saying "echo off".

After about 30 second the machine rebooted.

Can you please simply provide step by step instructions as to how I am to pull an image from this Dell E6410?

When you deploy Windows XP to your systems, are you first wiping all existing partitions off the hard disk?

No.  I simply insert the USB stick, boot to it, connect to my ghostcast server session and it drops an image on it.

I am still struggling with this.

I cannot, for the life of me, no matter what I use (be it DOS, WinPE, this driver, that driver) create a boot disc or usb stick to pull an image from a Dell E6410 with Windows XP on it.

As I stated I in my earlier post I've followed the directions on many of your different pages as to how I could go about doing this and none of it works.

We purchased G.S.S. 2.5.1 because we were told we needed it in order to image 6410s.  Now, I can image  Windows 7 without 2.5.1 using a DOS usb stick...yet cannot find the solution to pull an image from a 6410.

Can you please simply provide the instructions for doing what I need to do, without linking to this or this page as I've poured over them already.

For instance...

1) Download this driver

2) Unzip it to Folder A

3) Start Ghost Boot Wizard

4) Select X

5) Select Y

6) Select Z

etc

I personally don't have a DELL E6410 to play with, so I cannot give you step by step instructions.

I assume the XP image on these machines is being installed manually, and I also assume that any existing partitions are being removed prior to installing XP.

Any boot environment you create for Ghosting images needs to be able to access both the hard disk and the network. Your machine uses a SATA hard disk which DOS cannot see unless the bios is set to compatibility mode. If you have created a WinPE boot CD, you should be able to view the files on your C: drive from the command prompt - if you cannot, then the correct drivers have not been loaded for your machine.

Your last posting has a lot of "does not work" statements but there is no detail of what error messages you are getting, whether it is the same error each and every time, and what precise steps you have taken.

At this point, I would suggest that you log a support call and talk through all the steps you have taken with one of the technicians. They will check whether you are running the most recent release via LiveUpdate (11.5.1.2266) and may be able to advise you whether your particular setup requires either patch 2269 or 2298.

I would also recommend checking whether your DELL systems have the latest bios and whether DELL support are aware of any Ghost issues with their E6410 machines.

I described my problem exactly...word for word, verbatim.

The driver loads perfectly, and Ghost runs on the client machine.  However, when I choose to connect to the Ghostcast Server either Multicast, Direct, or Unicast it fails and I get the following:

Abort 19913, unable to start TCP/IP
Can't find DHCP server
Possible network setup problem.

How does the boot environment I created for Ghosting images access both the hard disk and the network when running Ghost against the Windows 7 machine, but not the Windows XP machine?  Same driver, what's changing?

If my machine uses a SATA hard disk which DOS cannot see unless the bios is set to compatibility mode, and there are no changes made to the BIOS between imaging how are the SATA drives seen when the computer arrives in the door, and 11 minutes later when it's imaged they are no longer seen?

Did you find this thread: http://news.support.veritas.com/connect/pt-br/forums/dell-latitude-e6410-issues-booting-ghost?page=3  ?

The user found that setting a static IP address appeared to be a key step in imaging this machine. 

Google also points to various bugs in the system bios and it would seem that A07 may be the latest version.

It might sound daft but have you tried using a different or new USB pen, i had that issue before and i had 2 usb pens i was using to boot up about 30 PC's to send an image to and one of them started doing that error exactly. So i tried  the other pen and it was fine, but some times that made no difference but failing that you could try reseting the Bios.

And if it might be better to use the WinPE boot instead of DOS and make sure add a Vista 32Bit driver for the network card your using in the WindowsPE Editor.

To do so you need to select WindowsPE when you run the Ghost Boot Wizard then click edit and copy one of the original templetes provided by the software (Preferably WINPE not WINPE-512) and basically give it your own name, so in case things corrupt for some reason and you only knacker yours and not the original and then need to reinstall the software.

Thanks

James

Obviously make sure you've not set it with a manual I.P and set it to get one from the DHCP, so everything should really be next, next, next til it's created your USB boot disk nothing else should need changing.