Ghost Solution Suite

I have been runing Ghost solution suite for a few years.  I only take images of laptops and deploy images as needed.  Up until now I have only done Windows XP.  I have my first batch of Windows 7 64 bit laptops.  I was able to take a stock image and an image f a configured laptop.  When I tied todeploy the image onto the same make/ model laptop, I got a corrupted image error abut 75% of the way through the process.  I also noticed that taking an image and deploying an image takes much much longer now than it did previously.  It takes about 3-4 hours to create an image and almost as lng to deploy before it errors out.  I am currently using Ghost 11.5.1.2266.  The laptops I am having the issue with is a Getac S400.  Is there smoething I should be doing differently with a Win7 64b machine vs. Windows XP? BTW, I am using PC DOS to create a boot CD, then I boot from that CD into ghost.  I create a job name and pick the image I am deploying.

Realistically, it is time you moved to WinPE. PCDOS has no support for SATA which is pretty much the standard hard disk technology these days, so unless you have compatibility mode selected in the bios, PCDOS may not be able to handle the hard disk at all.  Also, have you compared image size between XP and Win 7 ?  There is a substantial difference which may account for at least some of the slowness you are seeing.  Finally, have you checked that the NIC on your machine is running at its maximum speed?

I will try the WinPE and see if that makes a difference.  I was having problems getting WinPE to work when I first tried to create a boot disk.

Please look at this article written by a fellow user: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/creating-and-using-winpe31-image-gss-251

It takes you through the process of making a more up to date WinPE boot environment which can use Windows 7 drivers, rather than the antiquated version in Ghost which needs Vista 32 bit drivers.

I read the article you posted.  Honestly, I think that is way too complicated for me.  Here is what I did:

I created a WinPE boot disk.  I selected all drivers and I checked the deploy anywhere drivers.  I created a session in Ghost cast and loaded the WinPE disk in the laptop I was attempting to take an image of.  I booted from teh CD and selected multicast.  I entered the correct session name and on the ghost host machine I clicked accept clients.  Thats were I get hung up.  The laptop never sees the session and it errors out with a connection issue.  The NIC is an Intel 82579LM.  I am pretty sure its a NIC driver issue but I am unsure where to get the proper driver and how to add it to the boot package.

Search this forum on "82579" - this chipset gives more problems than all the rest put together. There should be at least two posts with links to Vista 32 bit drivers that actually work under WinPE V2.

Nola26,  you can also call in and request the download info for the Ghost Boot Disk Creater 3.0 if you have a support contract.  Mention tech223404  This will allow you to create PE 4.0 boot disks and use windows 8 drivers for your boot disk.   The 8 drivers are more plentiful than the PE 2 vista based drivers. 

Plan to take some time with the new boot disk creator it is slow to build and slow to add drivers. 

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH223404

Attached to that kb is the steps to create the new boot disk.  Also I tried to put a short video together with the steps in case that would be useful to any one. 

http://symantec.com/connect/videos/symantec-ghost-30-boot-disk-tutorial-tech223404

You will likely need to add drivers for that NIC  see the following document and video 
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH227489

http://symantec.com/connect/videos/adding-drivers-symantec-boot-disk-creator-tech227489

Cheers.