Ghost Solution Suite

Following on from https://forums.symantec.com/syment/board/message?board.id=109&message.id=4747 .

 

I assume no one checked after I replied (as it doesn't move to the top of a thread).  So anyone else got some more advice for me?

 

Thanks,

Chris.

Hi Chris,

 

Sorry about the delay. I didn't see anything unusual in the information you posted, so I will try to reproduce this problem here. 

Can you please check what network card you have on the client and let me know?

 

Adina

 

Hi Chris,

 

Did you check what is the network card on the client? I need this information to reproduce your problem.

 

Thank you,

Adina

Sorry for the delay.

The machines I've tested it on so far all have onboard SiS 900 LAN devices.

 

I will be trying it shortly (after I've finished making the image!) on a set of Gigabyte Barebones type machines with Intel 100 VE onboard LAN and see if I get the same result.

Just to keep you updated...

I made an image of a system with the Intel 100 lan adapter, and managed to unicast and multicast fine.

 

So it appears theres some reason why the SiS 900 won't complete a multicast.  Whether thats to do with it being an added-in network device as opposed to one SGSS is already familiar with I'm not sure.

Hi Chris,

 

I couldn't find a machine with SIS 900 netwok card here, but I will try to find one.

Although it shouldn't be any problem with using an added-in network device, can you try using the UNDI driver for this specific network card and try the multicast again?

 

Adina

Hi,

 

It is very rare but some of the drives do not support multicast, that's why Adina's suggestion to use UNDI drive might resolve the problem that you have, saying that, can you give me a bit more information on the method you used to add the SIS900 driver to ghost template directory and what file you have under your drive, it might help me to understand a bit more of the issue you have.

 

Cheers,
Oarh

Adina: I will try that UNDI configuration and see how that goes.

 

Oarh:  I selected one of the systems, right click - properties, client tab

Browse  next to "Use Manually Selected Template"

Edit

Add

NDIS2

Browsed to NDIS folder in the SIS 1.19 driver (http://www.sis.com/download/download_step1.php?id=153181)

Selected SIS900.DOS

File Date: 28/06/2002

Driver Name: SIS900$
Parameters:
; (optional) Adapter number
; SLOT = 1
; (optional) Media type
; Mediatype = AUTO

(Although as they have ; in front I assumed they were ignored)
Mode: Auto

No advanced settings

 

 

Also, I see in the SL119 directory a packet driver.  I could try that as well just to see if thats any better than their NDIS2 driver?

After some more testing, looks like both the NDIS2 and Packet SIS900 drivers do the same thing.  The Universal driver attempts to do something, fails and immediately goes back to Windows again.

 

I assume we cannot wrap up any of the other drivers that the SL119 package contains, as most belong to operating systems more advanced than plain DOS.  I assume the differerences between MS-DOS and PC-DOS would not affect this in any way?

Chris, since UNDI is not working too, it is better to verify that this is not something to do with the network. Though your clients worked with MC when changed the network card to Intel Pro, could we check if this configuration works as it is in Windows?

 

If you use Ghost32, you will be able to clone a partition while in OS. Ghost32 is in Console's Ghost folder.

 

Could you run the GhostCast server on the Console machine and Ghost32 on the client and try to deploy an image with multicast? If you don't have a free partition in the client, you can use a USB device.

 

If we cannot come to any conclusion with this, next thing is to get a packet trace. Would you be able to capture the network traffic using wireshark or some other tool?

 

 

Adina

Hi,

 

I'm still waiting for Chris' input regarding the steps I suggested him.

Do you have the same issue? Will you be able to provide me the information?

 

Adina

Hi,

 

Thanks for your comments.  I will try them out when I get some free time.  Unfortunately being the sole ICT Technician (albeit Network Manager apart from in title/salary) is very draining on my time.

 

I will try the Ghost32 method, hopefully some time today.

 

Thank you for your patience,

 

I took the machine I've been testing on (with the SIS card).  I added another HDD so that I could run Ghost32 and still image onto something.

 

This has worked, but this part ALWAYS works.  Obviously running it via this method does not run any further scripts (e.g. to re-connect to a domain, or to change the SID).  I can always clone an image with multicast, but it never progresses to a completed state.

 

Running it via Ghost32 doesn't do the same steps, and therefore would appear successful.  Thus, its not a fair test in this case.

 

So just to reiterate.  I can multicast an image back/forth from the SiS900 cards but I cannot do SID changes or any other consecutive change.  Whereas, with Unicast, it all works.

Hi Chris,

 

Sorry for the delay. We had a similar issue, although not exactly the same, for which we have a fix. Can you please do one more thing for us, to confirm it is the same culprit? Immediately after the clone is finished and the client remains in polling for the console status, can you run the commands Ctrl-X and then ngctdos? This should connect the client to the console and continue the task execution from where it was left. Please let me know the result.

 

Thank you,

Adina

Hi again,

 

I tried what you said and it just resumes "polling for bound server".  I hope thats what you wanted to hear!

Hi Chris,

 

If the connection with the console is not established after running 'ngctdos' and 'Ctrl-X', then most probably the IP stack is corrupted for some reason. I found a SIS900 card, but it is working fine with multicast here, so chances are something else causes this behaviour. What kind of motherboard do you have? Also, can you give us some more details about the network card, such as model number?

 

Adina

These SIS900 LAN devices are onboard.  The motherboard is an ABIT SG-80DC with the latest bios (dated 10/06/2006).

 

 

 

Hi Chris,

 

Since the client cannot find the console after ctrl-x and re-run, the network interface become inoperable.
This suggests that something is happening at network driver level. We haven't seen this behaviour with the devices we have on site, so the only thing left to do is to try to find this exact model of motherboard with SIS900 LAN. If I can find it, I will try to reproduce the problem.

 

Adina