Ghost Solution Suite

Hello,
Does anyone know if it ispossible to convert/migrate a W7 image created in SCCM OSD (ISO or WIM) into a format that can be deployed via Ghost?
 
Our company has built and deployed a W7 image using SCCM's OSD.  We would like to use this image at the Disaster Recovery site, though the company that runs our DR site, only supports Ghost forms of deployment ie GhostCast, not ImageX. 
So my problem is, how do I get my image into a format that Ghost can deploy?
 

TIA
Frostygills
 

1. Deploy your image to a test machine, either hardware or virtual.

2. Create a Ghost image from there.

There is no simple "translation" utility to convert WIM or ISO files to Ghost files.

The alternative is to provide your DR company with the means to use your WIM files. This is the technology that Microsoft have used for a number of years so there is really no reason for your DR company to be stuck in the dark ages with only one method of imaging available.

Thanks for the response EdT.

The WIM builds the image as it deploys, thus Ghosting after it has built will be a clone and we cannot run Sysprep as it will not go back onto our network as desired.

Is there any way to preload the WIM onto the disk and execute the Task Sequence using Ghost?

I've spoken to the DR company and they will not move away from Ghost as all their other clients utilise it, but as you say, only support one imaging method is a bit odd.

I guess it all depends on the actual method your DR company uses with their version of Ghost.

Basically, once you have booted to WinPE and made a network connection to the Ghost server, instead of running Ghost32.exe with a bunch of command line parameters, you just call the appropriate version of Imagex with the necessary command line options. However, it is worth mentioning that unlike Ghost, imagex does not automagically use existing partitions, so it is worth starting with a clean drive by scripting some partition clear and create operations using the DISKPART utility in WinPE.

The WIM does not necessarily "build" the image as it deploys, as I have created builds on XP which were then sysprepped, and compressed into a WIM file. The Wim files were deployed and the machine would then complete the build by running a scripted mini setup.

Bear in mind also that if you create an image of a non-sysprepped Windows 7 build and deploy it to a different machine, even if an identical model, Windows 7 will detect this and will need to be re-activated. That should be no problem if you use a KMS server but it is something else to think about. Running sysprep also strips out any activation so you would again need to have a KMS server or a volume MAK key in your build. Apologies if I am covering old ground but there's no indication of your design decisions in the earlier postings.