Ghost Solution Suite

hi all, after installing a client on a machine, created a task to clone the machine with an existing image, but at first the task would initialised, and the client machine wouldn't boot up, I realised, I was missing the drivers, so I set up a dos template with the .dos for that NIC card, after that initialised the task again but this time it did boot up, but it wont finish initialising the ghost client so the task fails. I checked the log error at the console and it says
any ideas any body, oh question if you install the ghost client with a boot disk, can you use that client from the console?

thanks

Hi Jorge,

Most probably, the DOS template you used is not correct for the network card. When the client boot to DOS, and if it fails to initialize the network card using the drivers set, it will boot back to Windows again, since without network drivers it cannot proceed. As console won?t see any messages coming from DOS in this situation, error log indicates it as a failure to boot to VP.

If you look at the client when it is booting, you may see error messages saying it fails to initialize the network card. If you press F8 as client boot to DOS, you will be able to go step by step execution of config/autoexec and get the exact error message. What NIC do you use in the client and what was the template selected?

Regarding your second question, Ghost Client is a windows (or DOS) component that communicates with the Console. It is different to the Ghost.exe, which is the cloning tool. So if you boot with the boot floppy, you cannot use Console.

Krish

I'm having the same problem!

I've never had issues with Ghost 8.0, and then suddenly around mid-December I was unable to boot into the virtual partition on any of my machines - and I have three separate images. The machines use Broadcom 440 network cards, WindowsXP.

I tried everything: I set the config file on the client to force an IP, I made sure the client version was correct, I uninstalled/installed the client, I ran the debug to make sure it was communicating. I also pulled out my hair and swore. Nothing. I can transfer files, I can refresh the config, but the machines just won't boot into the virtual partition all of the sudden.

I did do an image onto one troubled machine using the boot disk, and it took -- and THAT machine can boot into a virtual partition just fine. But the source machine that provided said image ... IT won't boot into the virtual partition.

Any ideas??

What's in your WinXP machine, I mean has it installed all up-to-date windows updates from Microsoft and is there any other applications have been installed on the machine?

It is interesting to see the differents (if there is any) between two computers that the one worked perfect before and the one around mid-December?

Hi,

When clients do not go to virtual partition, it can happen in two different ways.

One is failing to create the virtual partition for some reason (for example, not having enough space, drive is too fragmented etc.) In this situation, client will not reboot but the task will fail.

Other common situation is not having the correct DOS network driver. In this case, client boot to DOS but fails to initialize the network card. When the ghost client (in DOS) detects that there is no network connection, it immediately delete the virtual partition and boot back to Windows. (Automatically reboot to Windows is done to ensure the manageability. Otherwise, it will stay in DOS till some one manually does this).

If the task fails, if you write click on the failed step in the task log, you will be able to get more details, which will help to identify the exact situation.

Krish

It must be a Windows update, that's the only thing that has changed between the unsuccessful machines and the reimaged machine. I'm about to update that one and try to pull it down again, and see what happens.

The error message I receive in the task log is simply this:

Details for: To Virtual Partition
Failed to reboot client to recovery partition

... which isn't very helpful, unfortunately. If it is an incorrect DOS network driver, why did it work for two years before? :)

Ok,it has now happened to the machine that had been working. The only change made was 13 Windows Updates.

Here is the full message displayed on the client (I had to videotape it and freeze-frame it, it went by so fast).

Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controlled DOS NDIS2 Driver v.2.45
Copyright (c) 2002-2003 Broadcom Corporation. All rights reserved.
Device-Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller, MAC Addres -0022xxxetc
LineSpeed - 100Mbps FullDuplex, IRQ - 5, Bus - 3, - 10

MS-DOS LAN Manager v.2.1 Netbind
IBM Netbind Version 2.1
Microsift (M) Mouse Driver Version 8.20
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1983-1992.
Copyright (C) IBM Corp. 1992 - 1993.
Mouse driver installed
Network installation failed. The something something
Duplicate IP address detected on network.

... and then it kicks back to Windows. These machines are on a dedicated subnet without DHCP, and this is happening to any machine I try to reimage.Message was edited by:
Renee Stephen

Hi Renee,

May be the DOS network driver is tired after working for two years :-)

Thanks for the detailed log, your DOS network driver looks OK since it complains about a duplicate IP address.

Do you have multiple network cards in these machines by any chance?

However, there is an error message with some thing failed. But if it is the network, it should not complain about duplicate IP address.

Could you press F8 when it is booting to DOS? Then you get a menu, where you can select single step mode. You can let it run each command one by one and see where it fails exactly.

You need to press F8 just as you get the first DOS message (Starting PCDOS..). If it does not display the menu but continues to boot, just restart by ctrl+alt+del and try again - you need not to run the task again since restarting at this point with a warm boot does not do any harm.

If you get in to step by step mode, say no to run ngctdos.exe at the end and you will get to a DOS prompt. Could you see the contents of \ghost\wattcp.cfg file with the 'type' command - this is a text file and it contains the IP address it uses. This address should be the same address use when in Windows. Does any other machine use that IP address? You can boot back to windows by executing ghreboot.



Krish

After searching, i found out that it couldn't see the DOS driver after I went through the process step by step. I downloaded the broadcom ndis driver, so what do i do so that Ghost can see this driver?

Hi Joe,

What do you exactly mean by not see the driver? Does it say 'nitialization failed' or something? Could you post the messages you get?

You can add a new driver using Ghost Boot Wizard, but first we need to find out what's going wrong.

Krish