One possible solution depends on whether your machines have a BIOS which allows the machine to be "Asset Tagged".
Asset tagging allows you to write a unique machine identifier into the bios, which can be read using WMI.
Thus your build image would need something to run at first boot which reads the asset tag and renames the machine to the string that is set in the asset tag, before rebooting the system so that the change is implemented.

I know that Lenovo and HP machines allow bios asset tagging, and I expect other mainstream suppliers provide the same sort of functionality. HP is simple - it can be done directly from within the BIOS configuration entered during bootup. With Lenovo, it requires reflashing of the bios using WinPhlash with the asset tag on the Winphlash command line (for most of the current models). These steps only need to be done once unless the motherboard is changed.

They only use Lenovo systems. and i can see it has an asset tag there. So this might be a great solution.

Do you know of programs that can check the BIOS asset tag and automatically change that name?

EDIT: i know there is a program called WSname that can do this. But it seems like all links to it are dead.

There are no generic programs that change BIOS asset tags as far as I know.
In the case of Lenovo, you need to grab the latest bios update from the Lenovo website - choose the EXE variant rather than the ISO.
Running the EXE then unpacks the bios files into a folder from where you can access the WinPhlash help file.

You can thereafter run Winphlash.exe interactively, and set the bios asset tag in there (you need to set the phlash.ini so that the advanced tab shown up), or you can do it from the command line:

winphlash.exe /S /MODE=1 /DPC:"ASSET-TAG" _01B8100.FL1

The filename ending in .FL1 is the bios update file - note that I have it starting with an underscore but the original had some other leading character that was not reproduced faithfully when writing the file to CDROM - hence the filename change.

Each Lenovo model will have a different file for the bios, and some models have more than one bios, depending for example on whether your model provides AMT support or not, so it is important to get the right file.

Finally, the code to access the asset tag uses WMI:

 Set colSMBIOS = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select SMBIOSAssetTag from Win32_SystemEnclosure")
 For Each objSMBIOS in colSMBIOS
    strAsset=objSMBIOS.SMBIOSAssetTag
    strAsset=Trim(strAsset) 'Get rid of any leading or trailing spaces caused by asset tagging finger trouble
  Next
wscript.echo strAsset

If you grab the "WMIExplorer" utility off the internet, you can use this to check any target machine for the values reported for different WMI calls.

One of my clients used Lenovo models extensively and adopted this exact methodology for naming their machines - the ComputerName was the asset tag, which was set and labelled physically on the machine when it first arrived through the door.

strComputer = "."
Dim objWMIService
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colSMBIOS = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select SMBIOSAssetTag from Win32_SystemEnclosure")
 For Each objSMBIOS in colSMBIOS
    strAsset=objSMBIOS.SMBIOSAssetTag
    strAsset=Trim(strAsset) 'Get rid of any leading or trailing spaces caused by asset tagging finger trouble
  Next
wscript.echo strAsset

Cut and pasted the code from my script, but forgot that the initialization stuff is at the top of my code. The above should now work, but will return a blank message box if the asset tag is not set.

 i think i misunderstood something a long the way.

the script works fine, and shows the asset tag name.

What i need is a program that can change the netbios name to the asset tag name. So when it boots up first time after a clone, it changes its name according to the asset tag in the bios

 Do you run the ghost cast from a designated computer? wouldn't it be easier to use the ghost counsel and create a task to ghost them?

I take care of 200+ public ps'c in the library for my university, and I have all the computers imported into the counsel and have the computers split up in to groups for 10-30 and after the clone is done, it will configure the computer name. The name is set on the counsel so that you dont need to touch each computer.

I run the ghostcast and PXE from a designated computer. 

I have looked into ghost counsel. Does it just have a list of all the computers and their mac or ? how does it keep track of all the computers.

nicwic-

This site (www.hardware-independent.com) is one option for for dealing with the driver issue.

Rgds.

Naming:

Get your machines setup w/ the correct names & have ghost client installed. Create a new task to "Refresh Configuration." This will capture thing the current machine settings for things like host name, static IP info (or dhcp), etc. This will give you your default configuration. Next time you image a PC, your task will have clone & configuration checked. At this point you can think of the Configuration box as "rename."

Don't run Refresh Config until you want to change some of the default configs. Piece of cake- enjoy.

I've never done this but would love to make this work.  If I'm understaning this correctly..you would have to capture the settings for each computer, creating a kind of template for that computer.  How would this automatically rename the computers, or would you have to run the "Refresh Configuration" on each each computer manually?  I have over 400 compters in a school.  We image frequently and have to go around renaming each computer.  A real pain.  We're on a Novell network so sysprep isn't an option.