Clone OS Image

Hi all,

I have a medium network with about 100 computers - all identical hardware wise and all running the same Windows version (XP Pro)

It is the end of the year which means that it is time to do rebuids. We usually do each machine manually. This time I thought I would give the network image boot disk option a go in Norton Ghost but I have had absoutly no luck.

I want to have a image of a computer build sitting on my main server and have a boot disk that will boot each machine and pull the image off the server so that in the end I have 100 identical computers.

This is the first time I have tried doing it over the network (instead of manually) but trying to do 100 computers manually takes a very long time.

Can anyone suggest what I can do or provide anything that may help me to get this to work. It is top of my list of things to do at the moment.

I would appreciate any help people may have.

Cheers

 

Network ghost

I am assuming that you want to boot the computer with a Ghost boot disk, access your server, and copy the image across the network. A few things,
1. Which version of ghost
2. Are you on a domain
The important item with the boot disk is support for the NIC you are using. If you go to http://ghost.radified.com/ there is a lot of info on using ghost. I do this across my network all of the time.

 

Hey dr_gle,

Thanks for your reply

What you described is exactly right. In answer to your other questions:

1. Norton Ghost 2003 (I think it might be the personal version - not pro)
2. Yes all my computers are on a domain

With the NIC - I have had some sucess - I have managed to get the driver loading when then computer boots from the disk - but it still has some errors about binding or something.

I have had a look at radified's site already and followed their steps but have not had any luck.

Are you able to do me a step by step on what you do (if possible) or if you have any other info that might help me I would appreciate it.

Cheers,
Phill