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Restore Image from DVD - How to get the CD-Rom source drive letter to be dynamic?

Updated: 21 May 2010 | 2 comments
ToreM.'s picture
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I have a small challenge someone might have solved already.. :-)

I've got computers I need to restore from a DVD, and I've pretty much solved that in terms of using the Ghost Boot Wizard and additional console switches to start it automatically.
The challenge is when a computer contains more then one partition (from manufacturer), my static mapping for CD to D:-drive is failing, as the drive letter is taken, and my CD-Rom drive is then mapped to E:

From the Implementation guide, I can see that there is a @CDx-switch, possibly managing my CD/DVD source to be dynamic.
The switches I'm using today (wich works great with one partition) is:
-clone,mode=restore,src=D:\xp745img.gho,dst=1 -sure

Anyone able to help me out?

Regards

ToreM.

Comments

EdT's picture
13
Oct
2009
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DOS or WinPE boot?

I had a similar situation a few years back using a DOS boot from a USB stick - sometimes the boot would be to A: and sometimes to C:
The solution was to use a batch file to test for a marker file in each possible drive letter and when found, you would then progress to the appropriate set of switches for that particular drive assignment.
Have recently done similar for a WinPE environment using Imagex rather than Ghost, but the principal of searching sequential drive letters for a marker file still worked perfectly, this time in vbscript.

If your issue has been solved, please use the "Mark as Solution" link on the most relevant thread.

KeithBrownGDC4S's picture
13
Oct
2009
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Watch out for the /setosdrives

EdT's solution is the only way I've found to do this as well.  (My script checks the drive label, but the gist is the same.)  For some reason, I cannot get the @CD switch to work.

That being said, another thing I've learned:  You'll notice the default commands created by the GBW include a call with a /setosdrives switch.  Be sure to find the drive letter AFTER this command is executed.  In fact, I moved this to the top of my script.

The problem I kept running into was I would find the drive letter, create a parameter file, then execute the two lines created by GBW (using the parameter file on the final ghost32 call).  Everything would work great up until the point where Ghost tries to access the image file, then it would fail.  I finally tracked it down to the fact that /setosdrives was rearranging all my drive letters!