Hello,

I think that this article, assuming that you have Ghost Solution Suite 2.5, is a bit better:

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

This is simpler, and is a better setup, in my opinion.

Thank you,

Randy

Ghostcast server has a parameter in auto-start mode "how many clients to wait for before starting ghostcast session". All you need to do is to change that parameter when you build PXE boot package or leave it blank and then Ghostcast server will always wait for you to click "start" button. Then you wait on as many clients as you wish.

Thanks! This seems to have put me on the right track. I am successfully booting to winpe via pxe on all 12 machines. Ghost loads properly, but I am unable to find the session I started on my Ghost server.

The reason for this, I suspect, is that WinPE doesn't seem to have an IP address loaded for the client requesting a restore. Running ipconfig at the command prompt shows me that TCP/IP is not loaded. I doublechecked my WINPE configuration in the Ghost Boot Wizard, and it does include a network driver for the interface that these a860's use (Realtek 81xx all in one driver). What do I need to do to successfully start TCP/IP w/ DHCP client service in the winpe at startup?

Thank you!

I ran "net start" from the command line in WinPE, and DHCP Client is running but running ipconfig still gives blank results.

It is also worth noting that when I tried to execute the creation of the WinPE boot disk in Ghost Network Boot Wizard, I got an error stating that I was missing boot.wim. I resolved this by deleting the existing boot.wim and extracting boot.wim from the main cab file in the install directory of the downloaded product.

Your WinPE image may not have the correct RealTek driver included. 

**WARNING! HOT SPORT OPINION!

For PXE booting, you're better off avoiding WinPE, unless you're running deploy anywhere.
:)

DOS has it's pros and cons, but it should be easier to use in your situation w/ the UNDI driver. We have some older Dell Deminsions that use the b44 broadcom driver. It's strange because I can image 1x of them just fine w/ the UNDI driver, but if I image multiple PCs it will fail everytime. Using the latest Broadcom b44 driver they work perfectly. You may need to experiment w/ different driver combinations, but it's really easy to create new boot images w/ the ghost boot wizard. Good luck!

Randall, I can't figureout why you're so big on the Solar Winds tftp. :) I agree that's it's better than the 3com one, but I think tftpd32 is even better in a Windows environ. Maybe I'm just biased because I hate software that includes banner ads. In a perfect world I would use xinet.d's tftp.

Thanks again for the quick reply.

I am now restoring the 12 computers...however the restoration process is taking much longer than usual (4.5 hrs remaining with 48 MB/min transfer rate on all 12 computers). I am using a netopia firewall between this network and the production network. The firewall is not bloacking any internal traffic. I am using a 24 port D-Link switch. The Windows 2008 server is running DHCP for the network.

I remember seeing a similar thread discussing this particular issue but I am unable to find the discussion. I think the solution had to do with using an alternate driver. Unfortunately I don't see a different Vista compatible Dell released network driver for the a860.

@ MrGuitar: I agree that the PC-DOS environment seems to be a bit quicker to boot, but I have tried 5 different variations of NDIS drivers that all result in failure.

I'm getting further with the WinPE method...but I'm hoping for much faster restore times. In Task Manager on the Ghost server, my network interface is only showing 0%-2% utilization. Is it likely this is due to poor performance of client nic drivers?

Is this problem only happening on this model PC or NIC?

You might need to broaden the scope of what you're looking at.

Do you have any powered off PCs connected to your D-Link switch? I know it sounds crazy, but if you power down a Dell Optiplex 755 a multicast session will go at the same speeds you're describing. If you unplug the NIC or power cable the speeds pick right back up. I don't really know why this is happening - my best guess is the NIC negotiates w/ the switch at 10 Mb and because the switch is cheap everything runs @ 10Mb. Just my unsubstantiated guess.
Try isolating the server & clients on the switch and see if that helps?

Thanks for the tip MrGuitar, I'll isolate my next batch of clients to see if that helps.