Ghost Solution Suite

I am running GSS 2.0 on Windows Server 2003.

I have a machine that has passed on.... I imaged another PC (same
model) and would like to push the image over the network via PXE boot
to do this. How do I do this?

The PC is booting into a PXE environment, one that is part of the
Symantec Suite. I see the Virtual Floppy that I can see in Suite,
what do I put in there to make it contact the GhostCast Server and
receive the image I want to deploy?

I tried to use Ghost Boot Wizard to create a boot floppy with network
support then use DeployCenter Virtual Floppy creator to copy all of
these files in there, then use PXE boot to choose that created virtual
floppy. All I get is a No System Disk error once I choose that. Can
someone tell me what i am doing wrong?

I have two different types of PC's. I would like the ability to push
a generic image of each to anyone with a problem. I used this setup
in my lab when I was teaching a Cisco class last year and it was
nice. Anytime someone messed anything up, ghost it, and we are back
to normal. Easy to use but I did not set it up.

How do I accomplish this?

Please help.

Thanks!

Hi Kevin,

By the sound of it, the floppy image you created in the 4th paragraph was what had the error. You didn't mention if you copied the boot data from the floppy you created with Ghost Boot Wizard into the floppy image created with Deploy Center Virtual Floppy Editor. Did you just create a new image in Virtual Floppy Editor, and then copy the files into there? Or did you create an image from reading the floppy in the drive? You need to make sure you copy the boot data into the virtual floppy file.

Another way you can do this use the 3Com pxe server that should also be in the CD. The Ghost Boot Wizard files work directly with the 3Com pxe server.

Good luck :)

Thank you very much for your suggestions.

I installed the 3Com PXE server which appeared to be much easier.... for a while.... :)

I created the TCP/IP Network boot image using Ghost with the session name, then set up the PXE Menu Boot file. I added the boot image to the Menu Boot file and saved it as deploy.pxe. I then added the PC I wanted to reimage to the BOOTPTAB file.

I started GhostCast Server and clicked accept clients for the session name I had programmed in. I then started the PC I wanted to reimage and received the following errors:

PXE-E79: NBP is too big to fit in free base memory
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM

What am I doing wrong now?

In the quickstart guide I also see this:

Turn on the client machines and configure MBA on the
client machine to boot PXE. You can do this with either the
MBA Configuration Utility, �MBACFG.EXE�, or press
CTRL+ALT+B when prompted at startup.

What does this do? The target machine is messed up and I need to push a base image to it. It is picking up an IP and everything when it boots.

Thanks a bunch.

Do I need to set DHCP options other than the 060 PXE Client? (which was automatically set)

Such as 067 Server name 068 boot file?

Thanks for your help.

I have been searching endlessly to overcome this issue. I found a post that stated this:

Increase the IRPSTACKSIZE. for more information refer to Microsoft web site.
on both source and destination.

These messages appear to be due to problem with how Ghost performs
caching. To resolve the problem, use the -WS- and -WD- switches to
turn off Ghost caching:

Ghost.exe -ws- -wd-


Any ideas? Thanks.

Hi Kevin,

Was the error:
PXE-E79: NBP is too big to fit in free base memory
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM
in booting into the pxe boot image?

Do you get to see the pxe menu at all? Or does this happen after you select the boot image?

Mike

It never made it to the PXE boot menu. It got the IP Address from DHCP then those errors popped up.

I've never seen this error before myself, but it sounds like a problem with how the boot menu was set up rather than the actual boot package.

it sounds like you've set it up properly, but i'll list what i do as well just in case

- i create a pxe menu (.pxe file) and then add options to the menu (such as boot package, boot from hdd, set default)
- while setting up the pxe menu file in the options tab i set the path to where the boot packages will be (relative to the TFTPROOT directory, so without any drive letters etc..)
- i then add the menu to bootptab file in the bootptab editor. when entering the pxe menu image location, i include its path relative to teh tftproot directory.

though by the sound of it, it sounds more like there's something wrong with either the server or the menu file.

is a menu able to show up when you set up a menu file with only 1 entry that boots into the hdd?

how large is your .pxe file? should be very small (about 5kb)

My goodness I was literally at my wits end. Thank you very much for your help!. It turns out in the BOOTPTAB file I loaded a .MNU file in for the image instead of the .PXE file. With that it started working and complained about the NIC driver. So off to fix that! THanks so much for you help!

hehe no problems :) glad to help.
good luck with the nic driver.

All set, picked the exact driver instead of the Generic PXE driver and all is well. Machine is fully reimaged and ready to go! Thanks so much for helping with this issue.