Ghost Solution Suite

Hi Folks, first time posting.  

We're running Ghost 11.0.2.1573, and I've been using our system on a variety of hardware that includes HP Probook 6530b, 6450b, 6460b, and now, I'm trying and failing, to use it on our newest 6470b.  

The network chipset in the 6470b is Intel 82579v, which is the same as our 6460b units.  But it won't work on the new units.  I took the time to find the latest intel dos driver for the 82579v and use that in the boot wizard, and I still can't pull DHCP/start TCPIP in a ghostcast session with the 6470b (though the newly-created boot drive works great on the 6460b.   

I've gone through bios settings with a fine-toothed comb, tried various editions of Intel, as well as OEM Dell drivers (HP doesn't seem to offer the ndis2 drivers in their download packages) all to no avail.  They work onthe 6460b laptops but not our new 6470b laptops.  

Am I missing something obvious?  Anybody else having this problem?  

I'd be forever grateful if you could help me track down this problem and solve it.  It just seems incredibly strange that it all works on our 6460b models that use the same NIC, but not the 6470b's.   I'm really confused here.  

This thread was the only thing I came across in my searching, and I don't think it really contains a solution, am I wrong:  https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/ds-69-sp5-deployanywhere-msd-issue

Any ideas?  Help!  (And, Thanks in advance for said help!)

Your friendly, frustrated, helpdesk manager, 

-Matt

Using DOS with modern hardware is an increasingly futile exercise. The 82579 chipset is also not without its issues, even with the recommended WinPE boot environment. Just search this forum on 82579 to review past postings and sources of working drivers.

Ghost 11 did not offer a WinPE option as this was introduced at 11.5. However, you can roll your own using the instructions in this article: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe and once you have it working you can then try dynamically loading candidate drivers until you can get an IP address successfully. Search on DRVLOAD for past postings on how to load driver in WinPE dynamically.

Yeah, I think it's going to be time for us to switch deployment solutions, unfortunately.  We haven't bought up to the latest version in awhile becuse there's always been chatter about swtiching to MDT.  

I'm most flummoxed by the fact that the 6470 uses the same network chipset as the 6460, which works beautifully, while the 6470 doesn't initialize the nic at all.  So strange.  

It might be the same chipset number but a different fabrication version, and that could result in critical timing issues showing up. The other possibility is the bios version and configuration, so it might be worth a few minutes comparing bios settings between the two machines.

Finally, do not assume that all modern hardware is fault proof. It is easy to spend hours tracking down a driver fault that is in fact due to a failed NIC chip.

The other possibility is the bios version and configuration, so it might be worth a few minutes comparing bios settings between the two machines.

I did go through page-by-page, line-by-line in the bios to see if any settings stood out as different or changed significantly between models, and I didn't notice anything.  The only thing I do remember is that the new laptops have USB 3.0 ports on them this year, but not sure how that would screw up loading the driver, as I was able to image them manually with a USB HDD with no trouble.  I've got the image on three different pocket HDD's, and to get these laptops deployed I'm just going to have my student technicians image them in batches of three.  Thankfully there's only 42 of them this year so it won't be terrible, and I've already wasted three days on theses, so better to just get them done and over with, and look at fighting this battle on the 6470 model a little later once things slow down.