Ghost Solution Suite

Hi

We use ghost console to deploy images to muliple machines using the ghost client.

We have just purchased some Dell E5430's, but looking on the website there does not appear to be any Vista drivers available to create the WinPE PreOS

1) Is there a recommended route to follow when this happens?

2) Is it worth me even trying the Windows 7 drivers in the PreOS?

3) Failing any solution to this, I guess I should revert back to PC-DOS and DOS NIC drivers?

Thanks for any help :)

Andy

What NIC chipset are these DELLs using?  Generally, major vendors tend to use Intel, Realtek or Broadcom chipsets and drivers are often available from the chipset vendors' websites.

It is indeed worth testing the drivers from Win 7 to see if they are also Vista compatible. If you are unfamiliar with DRVLOAD, have a look at this article: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/do-i-have-correct-driver-winpe  as it describes how to test candidate drivers dynamically from the WinPE command line.

If all else fails, you could build a WinPE 3 boot environment using this article:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/adventures-winpe-31?om_ext_cid=biz_con_cmgr_cp_20120221_pm

but you would need to do a bit more "hand cranking" to add drivers manually as you would not have the Ghost Boot Wizard to do it for you. WinPE3 is based on the Windows 7 kernel so of course can use Windows 7 drivers.

I don't think reverting back to PCDOS is an option any more, as machines are increasingly not supporting DOS drivers, and DOS does not support large hard disks or SATA natively.  Ultimately, we are all left having to find hand cranked workarounds for the growing limitations of Ghost while we wait for Ghost 3 to be released (if it ever is).

Hi Edt

Thanks for your help

Speaking to Dell I have the following

Chipset - Intel QM77 - http://www.intel.com/content/www/eu/en/chipsets/performance-chipsets/mobile-chipset-qm77.html

NIC - Intel 825xx

The machine itself reports

Chipset - Intel 7 Series (QM77)

NIC - Intel 82579LM

I am struggling to find any reference at all to these on the Intel site

Hi Edt

I have spent most of the day on this and exhausted all avenues apart from bulding my own WinPE 3.1 environment.

Looking at you post (which is excellent btw), the instructions seem to indicate this to be a solution to

'create a Windows PE 3 iso image, which can then be used to create a WinPE 3 bootable CD or DVD or used with VMWare as a bootable iso image'

I have a specific scenario where I need to push a multicast image to many machines via the ghost console.

Will your solution work for this?

Looking at previous WinPE enviroments I have built using Ghost Boot Wizard, I can see the different builds in C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common

My understanding is that your process wil basically create a boot.wim and bootmgr that I can then pop on a USB drive and boot into. However looking at what has been created previosuly I see extra files such as the driver.manifest file that I understand I will need. Do you have any advice here?

Search THIS forum using 82579 as the search term. This particular chipset has proved to be one of the most challenging to get working with WinPE 2, but there are several threads where users have posted links to drivers that DO work with this version of WinPE.

I have not explored using WinPE 3 with Ghost Console as I prefer imaging from a local USB hard disk especially where you can get USB-3 running by adding the USB-3 port drivers to WinPE.

However, as others have succeeded in getting the 82579 chipset working on WinPE 2, going to WinPE 3 may not be necessary.

If you are multicasting, I assume you are aware that your switches need IGMP turned on.

thanks Edt, I have it working!

For anyone else that reads the thread I used this driver with a Dell E5430

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/downloads/intel-nic-82579-lmv-drivers