Ghost Solution Suite

We have been able to build these machines in the past, but as of about 6 months ago (July 2016) the process stopped working. We get the Windows error after the ghost image has been deployed and the first reboot takes place:

Windows failed to start - a recent hardware or software change might be the cause......  Info:  The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccesible.

No changes have been made to our image, it just stopped working. 

Is anyone able to assist with this issue and why this would suddenly stop. 

Thank you.

Can you build other types of PC? Do you use the same image for those other PCs?

Is it a Windows blue screen? What happens if you change the SATA emulation from IDE to AHCI or vice versa?

I would try adding the -NTEXACT switch to your deployment job and then deploying once more to see if that fixes the issue. Also if you have opened this image using Ghost Explorer it is possible that the image has become corrupted, doubtful but just a thought.

Same image goes down to other PC's fine - no issues.  Its not a blue screen but black screen with white text very similar to the Windows 7 screen when you power off and it says start up as normal etc.

Is this a BIOS setting - What happens if you change the SATA emulation from IDE to AHCI or vice versa?

What does -NTEXACT do?  Image goes down fine to other machines and weve tried more than one copy in different locations.

Thanks.

Have you checked whether the onboard chipsets have changed revision, for example?  The error you are seeing was something that Compaq machines used to throw whenever they changed a bit of hardware without bothering to tell anyone, and suddenly you needed a new NIC driver to get the machine to connect to the network properly.  One tool which I find very useful when working on build maintenance is to be found here: https://www.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyutility-assist-identifying-plug-and-play-drivers

Assuming the machines come in with an operating system installed by the vendor, you just run the utility and record all the drivers installed for plug and play devices by the vendor. Then compare with the same drivers from last time. Soon shows what has changed.

For your current issue, you need to build a machine manually from scratch using the old drivers and then see which one is no longer supporting the device(s) on the current hardware.  If nothing has changed at your end, then clearly something has changed in the hardware.

The list of Ghost Solution Suite switches can be found here.

https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH130961.html

NTEXACT - Enable an exact restore of the NTFS source volume layout. - This means the image will be laid down exactly how you created it, same partition locations etc... This switch has been found to be necessary on most Lenovo's and some Dells.

Yes, SATA Emulation is a BIOS setting under Storage. 

Thanks - we will try that.

FWIW - Lenovos come with a boot manager that I think uses some form of Linux as the underlying process, and the boot sector therefore has a non-standard format. Hence the need for NTEXACT.

worb68,

Did the -ntexact switch fix the issue you were having?

Worb68,

If your issue has been resolved, please use the Mark as Solution link on the most relevant post.