Ghost Solution Suite

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  • 1.  Problems deploying images of Win7 machines

    Posted Jul 05, 2016 09:49 AM

    I've commented on this in my other (long and tedious) thread about other issues with GSS3.1 but as I'm getting desperate, I'll try a fresh thread as well.

    Basically, I can no longer deploy images taken from Win7 machines. The machines and images are unchanged, as are the tasks...yet now, if I try to deploy an image that worked a couple of weeks ago, the target machine will end up saying it has no OS installed.

    I was having the same issue with a couple of Win10 images I had as well but have managed to get usable images from a Win10 (I think) using the NTEXACT, NTIL and NTIC switches when creating the image.

    This has to be related to the UEFI/GPT thing but I have no idea why images that worked 2 weeks ago will no longer install onto the EXACT SAME target machines.

    For clarity, nothing has been changed on the target machines since the image was created and last deployed successfully. It's possible that I applied MP2 between the images working and not working but I can't be 100% sure about that. The notes for MP2 are sparse.....

    Is it possible to roll back the MP2 installation?  I DO NOT want to have to start from scratch at this stage!!

     

    Anyone??  Please!!

     

    TFL.

     



  • 2.  RE: Problems deploying images of Win7 machines

    Posted Jul 05, 2016 01:15 PM

    You don't mention what platform you are running your GSS on, but have you considered using System Restore to get you back to an earlier release?

    There is also the uncertainty you show over what might have changed, saying on the one hand that nothing has changed while a moment later speculating on whether you might have installed MP2 in there somewhere. At the very least you could check this via the Application Event log as this has date and time stamps for installs.

    Finally, it is helpful to have details of what hardware you are running on, whether you are using UEFI or standard BIOS, whether your bios is set to AHCI or compatibility mode, whether anyone may have modified router/switch settings without telling you, etc, etc.



  • 3.  RE: Problems deploying images of Win7 machines

    Posted Jul 06, 2016 04:52 AM

    Hi again EdT,

    Sorry - wasn't very complete was it!  Server 2012R2

    Uncertainty is indeed the main topic....I frankly don't know what the hell is going on here any more..  I did a bit more digging and MP2 had already been installed before the last successful deployment of at least one Win7 image to a classroom of machines. MP2 installed 20th, successful deployment on 23rd.

    Target machines are the dreaded HP450G3 laptops that have been giving me so much grief since day 1. UEFI, AHCI. Switches - well, I did firmware upgrades on them last week. What is your thinking there? Interesting that you ask.

     

    Tried to generate an image using the -IR switch last night. Created OK but attempting to deploy it to another (identical) machine prompts an 'Internal Error 8027' so that's no good either.

    I'm trying very hard to be patient with this product and accept that it's a complex topic. BUT...having spent a significant amount of money to update to the new version and provide a suitable platform for it, it simply doesn't work properly or at all in places. Worse, it changes from one day to the next it seems and I've now gone from a flawed but at least workable system to a non-working one....with no idea how it happened.

    The call for the original issue with the HP450G3 machines and Win7 is now in it's third month with no sight of a solution.....unless you consider that I can no longer get a single working Win7 image an effective solution to that particular issue I suppose....

    To date, not one single thing has gone smoothly with this product from day 1. The installation was a nightmare and it's gone downhill from there so confidence is low to say the least.

     

     



  • 4.  RE: Problems deploying images of Win7 machines

    Posted Jul 06, 2016 08:06 AM

    With any problem having this many variables, my personal approach is to remove as many as possible.  I would create a bootable USB drive (flash or HDD) with WinPE 10 on it and the necessary drivers to see your hard disk chipset, add the Ghost executables, and find out what actual switches are necessary to store and replace the images. With Win 7, I assume you are grabbing both the main partition and the tiny hidden partition otherwise the image will not work when restored.  Once you have the correct command lines in place to image drives with your range of operating systems you can then transpose the result into the Ghost Suite environment. At that point you will need to ensure that the correct NIC drivers are present in your WinPE boot environment.



  • 5.  RE: Problems deploying images of Win7 machines

    Posted Jul 22, 2016 02:38 PM

    I've been having issues when deploying spanned images using the samba (mapped drive) imaging method. Ghost32 will throw an integrity error between 75-99% and then terminate but the console still shows as "downloading disk image"

    Issue doesn't occur when using ghostsrv.exe to deploy an image or if i've combined the spanned image into a single file.

    Does this sound related?



  • 6.  RE: Problems deploying images of Win7 machines
    Best Answer

    Posted Aug 02, 2016 11:52 AM

    Well, I found a solution, but not what had gone wrong. After starting over with a set of product recovery discs and generatnig new images...I found I could once again deploy the images that previoously would then wouldn't...I have no idea! I made no changes to the server or infrastructure or clients.

    I've given up on those images now anyway, as they all exhibited the 17 minute delay before a client would communicate with the console which was a real problem i itself, although at one point, I'd have happily gone back to them.

    As of now, I have a 'base' Win7 image that I can reliably deploy, that doesn't display the 17 minute delay issue and that will work as a good starting point to build up the other images I need.

     

    How I got here and why stuff kept going wrong for no reasons I was able to determine.....dunno.