Deployment Solution

DS 6.9 SP6 - clean install.  WinPE x64.  Ghost64.exe version is 12.0.0.4570

I have a Windows 7 ghost image that I'm trying to use a regular "Distribute Disk Image" task to deploy.  The image has three partitions: System,OS and Data.

If I use the task to deploy that image the second partition (when W7 is installed) seems to be marked as dirty or damaged.  Subsequent tasks can't write to that partition and after reboot the OS fails to load.  The System and Data partitions seem fine.

If I check diskpart from within WinPE after the image is deployed then I can see the D: drive is listed as RAW.

If I manually run ghost64.exe it warns me "The following drives were not unmounted cleanly: D:".  If I go ahead despite its warning I can deploy the image and all three partitions successfully.  At this point the OS will boot and there is no sign of problems with that partition - no check disk repair etc.

I have another image W7 with a more conventional System and OS partition setup.  This deploys just fine with the same task.

Has anyone else seen this?  I'm pretty sure the image is ok.

To update this, it looks like un-ticking the "Prepared using Sysprep" option in the Distribute Disk Image" task deploys that second partition correctly.

Interesting.  Prepared Using Sysprep should only tell us to modify the Unattend file post-imaging where if you don't do it, then we wont do that.

So the question is - if you unmark this, what then happens when you boot it?  Was the image NOT prepared using Sysprep?

Both images were syspreped and captured using a job also created in DS.

I use a custom unattend.xml file post image deployment but I have also tried the stock "from inventory" version with the same results.

After the ghost deployment runs I can see a cmd window open and run a couple of firm copies which looks like the unattend.xml files being token replaced and injected into the newly imaged drive.

If I un-tick the sysprep option the image boots and runs with what-ever was in the unattend.xml when it was syspreped.

Here is what the partition and volume structure looks like post imaging.  Prior to ghost deployment the disk had been diskpart-cleaned and the system rebooted.  

This test was run with an x86 version of WinPE 4.0 and an updated version of ghost (12.0.0.6033) from DS 7.5 HF5.

I don't think it's ghost or PE that's the issue.

Is that screen cap the one that happens when it's bad?  What does it look like when things are working?

IMO - I'd call this in.

I'll get a screenshot but a working deployment has a nice n normal NTFS vol2.

My current guess is its the firm copy that gets included with that tick-box.

%ALTIRIS_SHARE%\Ghost\ghost32.exe -clone,MODE=restore,SRC=T:\Images\W7x64\R2\W7SP1x64R201.GHO,DST=1 -sure
RDeploy\Windows\firm.exe copy ".\Temp\d5000004.cfg" "d1p*:\aclient.cfg"
RDeploy\Windows\firm.exe copy .\temp\5000004.xml d1p*:\windows\panther\unattend.xml

I'm not sure what d1p*: does though?  Last partition or perhaps all partitions?  

firm is just a copy command.  The d1p simply tells it how to find the production partition.  The ghost image command is the only thing that might be doing that.  Though logic would say otherwise.  hmmm...  All firm is doing though is a copy... unless the new unattend is wrong maybe?  If you capture it after that line runs, you may want to compare both unattends.  Maybe the unattend is what's breaking it??

That's weird.