Ghost Solution Suite

I posted before about my issues with Dell Optiplex machines that have Intel 82566 Gigabit network cards.

Basically the issue I'm trying to resolve is to have the Ghost Boot CD actually able to contact the Ghost server.

What's happening is that when the machine boots using the CD, it cannot locate a DHCP server. It appears that the network card is not being correctly accessed.

This is what appears on the screen when the CD loads.

Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection Driver v5.02 013007
Copyright 2000-2007, Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Single network interface connection found in slot 0x00C8
Slot not specified for driver instance 1.
Loading on PCI device VEN_8086&DEV_10BD&SUBSYS_02111028&REV_02 in slot 0x00C8
Media: Copper   Autonegotiated Speed/Duplex: 100 Mbps Full Duplex
Permanent MAC Address: 001AA0D0FC8C
  Current MAC Address: 001AA0D0FC8C

Can anyone give me an idea of what the problem might be and how to resolve it?

I use the latest e1000.dos NDIS2 driver and created the .iso with the Ghost Boot Wizard on The Ghost Solution Suite.

Hi,

What is the model of the Dell machine you use (If I have it, I can have a quick look). What version of Ghost do you use?

When you say cannot find DHCP server, is that the error message from Ghost.exe?

Krish

Message Edited by Krish Jayaratne on 03-06-2008 06:47 PM

The Dell is an Optiplex 755, and the version of Ghost is 11.0.2.1573

The "Can't find DHCP Server" error is reported after the PC boots from the CD and autoexec calls ghost.exe

You have an older version of the 82566 driver.  The current (I think) is 5.05....There's a zillion threads about the #$!$ Optiplex 755 here, a quick search will yield you tons of answers.

To start with, download the latest-greatest from Intel - skip the Dell website, and don't use the driver that came w/Ghost either.  The Intel one is calle Pro2k or Prodos.exe, some such silly name.  Expand it out, and you'll see an obviously named directory that contains the NDIS2 drivers for your 82566DM NIC in the 755.

Now, run the Ghost Boot Wizard.  Don't bother trying to update/edit the existing Intel driver that comes w/Ghost, too much hassle.  Easier just to create a new one.  Run the Ghost Boot Wizard.  Select Network Boot Package.  Select Add, and select NDIS2 Driver and click OK.  Click "Setup" button, and browse to the directory w/the DOS NDIS2 driver for your NIC in the laptop  The GBW should then fill in the rest of the info for you.  Give it a name - something obviously different from whatever is already there, just so you don't get them mixed up.  Once you have the new template loaded up, recreate your boot floppy/usb/cdrom/pxe and give it a whirl.  I think you'll have much better luck.

If that doesn't work, try the UNDI driver.  That works pretty well for 755's as well.

Otherwise, once you boot, hit F8 while booting.  It should step through, line-by-line, the bootup in the autoexec.  You might see something indicative there.

Good luck,
PH

I get the exact same result using the 5.11a driver as with the 5.05 driver. The problem is not booting the machine. The CD will boot the machine. The problem is that it can't make use of the network card and so can't access a DHCP server or session.

The Ghost console will work with this particular set of machines. In watching what the Ghost Console does, it gets the same error that I get when trying to boot from the CD, but seems to ignore it and get the address anyway.

I think I may have found a resolution to my problem. By introducing a delay between the time the network card is bound and the time that an attempt is made to get an IP address for the machine, it seems to be able to use the network card successfully and locate a DHCP server. I think the main problem was I was trying to immediately start the session. With floppies, there is already a delay introduced because they are slow. But with CDs, the boot time is so fast that I guess the network card couldn't be properly initialized.

Odd, that's a new one.  I've never seen that behavior offhand before.  Our boot process is pretty fast (PXE so it's all in memory booting.)  I didn't realize Intel came out w/newer drivers, I'm still at 505, I'll have to go get that 5.11 you mentioned.  One thing I've learned over the years, heavy-duty NIC driver investigation is always worth it for me (I tend to use and stick with the same machine, same config, for about 3 years - getting the best NIC performance can save me a lot of hassle over that time period.)

I'll see about putting in a second or two delay between the last statement in my autoexec.bat right before it starts up ghost.exe.  I haven't run into this problem yet, but I may as well **bleep** it in the bud if this delay is a working solution.

Good luck, and thanks!
PH

Paul,
     Just to follow up. The delay idea seems to work to get the machine to see the network card. Either a delay or running ghost.exe a second time seems to work.
     However, the Ghost Boot Wizard gives you very limited control of the autoexec.bat file. You can add extra lines, but they will be placed before the important lines in the autoexec.bat, and there's no easy way to edit the autoexec.bat file. So what I did was simply take all of the lines beginning at \net\netbind up until the call to ghost.exe and add them to the autoexec.bat file. When the first attempt fails, the second attempt (which is from the ghost.exe that is automatically placed into the file) works. With Ghost version 11.0.2, even after doing all this before the ghost session would start, an internal error was thrown and the session wouldn't start. There was really no way to debug this, so what I ended up doing was using Ghost 7.5, and so far it works okay. The only problem is that in running the Ghost session, the speed seems to be limited to about 200 MB/min even after I force it to use 100 MB full duplex.

"The Intel one is calle Pro2k or Prodos.exe, some such silly name.  Expand it out, and you'll see an obviously named directory that contains the NDIS2 drivers for your 82566DM NIC in the 755."

I downloaded the latest PRO2KXP.exe from Intel... how do I "expand it out" so that I can get the NDIS2 files?  I need to get a Ghost 7 boot floppy disk. I have Windows 2003 Server Standard running on Optiplex 755 with Intel 82566DM-2 Gigabit Ethernet.  Thanks!

You probably have the wrong one.  Pro2kxp.exe just double-click and it'll install like normal.  But this will give you Windows level drivers.  If this is for a DOS boot floppy (or PXE or CDROM) you actually need the *DOS* drivers, not the Windows drivers.  Go to intel.com and type in 82566dm, and it'll return a couple search results.  The one about gigabit PHY is the one you want.  It'll then give you a drop-down list of operating systems, and at the bottom is DOS.  Click GO and you'll see the page that lets you download PRODOS.EXE.  Go through a few click-thru EULA junk and eventually you'll have prodos.exe on your computer.  Just double-click on it, and it'll ask where you want to expand it out to (basically a self-extracting .exe, you can probably expand it with 7-zip too.)

Once you've expanded it out (I think it defaults to C:/Intel/ or something like thath) you'll see a PRO1000 and PRO100 directory.  You want the 1000 directory (gigabit not just fast) and in that directory, you'll see DOS folder.  THose are the drivers you're looking for.

Run GBW, create/add a new NIC template.  Click on Setup so it'll try and auto-configure it for you, and find that directory (C:/Intel/PRO1000/DOS) and GBW should be able to fill in the blanks for you.

Good luck,
PH

Hi,

 

I've the same issue with that intel 82566m driver not loaded by the ghost boot disk.

I use Ghost Boot Wizard 8.3. First select Network Boot Package >  Add NSDI2 driver > browse to intel driver e1000.dos > give a name to the driver > select use PC-DOS > don't  ovveride firewire control and bios usb control > load to a usb disk.

 

Then, after booting with the usb disk boot . The driver was not loaded and the ghostcast tab is not activated in the Norton gui.

 

Hope someone can help out there.

 

Thanks,

Trim