Ghost Solution Suite

When I'm trying to create images, I'm running into a lot of problems with getting "Connection timed out with Ghostcode 19945" and occasionally "Connection timed out with Ghostcode 19922" error messages. I'm running Ghost Solution Suite 2.5.1 on a Windows 2008 x64 server. The images are being stored on a RAID 5 array on the server, coming off just a regular single hard drive on the client PCs. We have several different NICs in use including Intel PRO 100, Intel 82562 10/100, Intel 82566 gigabit, and Broadcom NetXtreme gigabit. I've got the current drivers installed in both the DOS and WinPE images. I've been using Ghost since the Ghost 8 days and never really saw this problem until we upgraded to GSS 2.5. It appears Ghost has become intolerant of any disk slowness on the server. It seems like there is anything more than a bare minimum of disk activity on the server, the creation times out immediately. I normally don't really see any hesitations or pauses on the client; it will act like it's building OK and then suddenly drop with the timeout error. Trying to build an image using WinPE fails 95%+ of the time. If I drop back to using a MSDOS or PCDOS client, I can get an image built most of the time as long as there is nothing else going on with the disk. I suspect that the fact the DOS client is a lot slower in general is the reason why it is more successful. I've tried various command line switches including "-slowfile" and adjusting the buffersize and nothing seems to make any difference. Forcing unicast or multicast didn't matter either. I never have any problems when I'm deploying images, though. Any help would be appreciated. It's a bit ridiculous that Ghost has such a short timeout period that it can't tolerate any disk activity on the server.

That is certainly odd behavior. Does this server have another role, like being a Domain Controller? A role like that can interfere with Ghost, since the OS will allocate resources to that role before allocating to a peripheral program like Ghost. Is this a DC? If so, can you test on another machine?

Thank you,

Randy

Randy,

The machine is a domain controller, but it basically manages two classroom labs and a handful of faculty offices.  At this point in the year, I'm pretty much the only one hitting it.

I did some more testing and installed a standalone hard drive in the server, not part of the RAID array.  If I pulled the images to there, the WinPE clients worked great..  Using gigabit network and the "fast" compression option, the client reported it was going at about 1800mb/minute.  When I tried pulling to RAID, I'd get about 650-700ish mb/minute right up until it died.  It's the sudden dropping without any warning that puzzles me.  It's not as if it stalls and then times out, it seems like it is going along fine and then just cuts right out.

Thanks for your help.

-Brian

Brian,

It is definitely worth testing from a non-DC machine. We just see these issues with DC servers. Here is an article:
I would recommend even trying this with Ghost installed on an XP machine, or maybe a similar server that does not have that role. It would be a good idea to test,  if only to rule out that as a factor.

Thank you,

Randy