Hello everyone,

Maybe I missed a functionnality in Ghost but here is my problem.

I have one server hosting my ghost images and the ghost server etc...

I have two computers with different hardware and OS.

I can create images through PXE boot Linux but my question is, How can I save those two different computers with different filename in an automatic way ?

When I boot via PXE it will load the PXE Linux from my TFTP server and then boot it on the computer. My problem is if I enter a filename it will use the same for both.

Is there a way to check if file exists and if yes change the names ?

Or maybe I'm doing it wrong ?

Thank you for your help :-)

William

Hey guys,

I have a bit of a problem and I am hoping someone here can help clear some things up. This is kind of long so here we go...

I am working for an university in their IT department and we recently recieved a lot of new computers to replace the older ones. The new ones we got in are the HP z230's. The ones we replaced are HP z220's. I learned that the z230's require WinPE4 to clone and the ghost console cannot send tasks to these machines, they can only be cloned by manually booting each one to a ghostcast server. It took a while to pull the z230 image and we were getting some random errors so we decided to use a z220 image and push it onto the z230 machines to see if that would work. While going through the ghost cast prompts it asked question(1873): "The source is MBR and was captured on a BIOS system. The destination system appears to be UEFI, convert destination disk to GPT?" Since the z230's were already GPT I didn't understand why it was prompting us to convert to GPT but we clicked Yes and the second question(51932): "If image don't have system reserved partition, then use CESP(Create EFI System Partition) switch. Do want to continue?" We also answered Yes to this one as well. The clone went through and everything seemed to work (except for the resolution was a little messed up but overnight the machines auto adjusted and in the morning they were fine). Some of the drivers however were missing, mainly the graphics card so I believe it resorted to the integrated one. So we cloned the whole lab (around 24 machines) and it seemed to be working fine. However, I still thought we should use a z230 image on the z230 machines so we redid the image and got it working and pulled it. When we went to clone it prompted us with the same 2 questions, which I found strange since the image machine is GPT and the target machines are still GPT (we checked through diskpart). Now, everytime we try to clone a z230 with the new image, it gives us a BSOD after completion. My question is, are these machines now unable to receive an image that is not from the z220 image, or is there a way to get these machines back to normal and use a z230 to clone? We've tried completely wiping the drives, using disk part to clean and convert to GPT but everytime the same result. I am not sure what needs to be done at this point but everything we have tried has failed. Another strange thing is that when we try to clone the z230 the main partition is the E drive for ~450gb and the C drive is a system partition for 100mb.

We are trying to clone machines running Windows 7x64 Pro

We have GSS 2.5

Thank you,

Kyle

We just received a new shippment of Dell Latitudes E5440 with Windows 8.1.  I'm using 3Com Boot Services for a PXE and TFTP server to use Ghostcast server (11.5.1.2266) to capture and load images for our deployment of a department standardized image.  After I got the out-of-box OS setup as I would like to have it I create an image using Ghostcast, with all default options.  In order for me to capture the image I need to place the BIOS settings from uEFI to Legacy to boot from the NIC to hit the PXE server.  After I image a new laptop, I need to boot into the BIOS settings and change the boot options back to uEFI boot but when it boots I get the following: "error code 0xc0000225 \windows\system32\winload.efi".

I use a USB that I had loaded Windows 8.1 on. I am able to boot into the WinPE and used the command prompt to run the following commands:

 x:\windows\system32\bcdedit /set {default} device partition=c:
 x:\windows\system32\bcdedit /set {default} osdevice partition=c:
 x:\windows\system32\bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=c:

After I run the commands and then reboot the laptops boots off just fine.  My problem is that I would like to not have to do this with every laptop I image and was hoping there was a way to incorporate these commands somehow or if GhostCast sever can do something to correct this error.  Any suggestions?

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-us/b26a0560-b3a1-4236-b0de-35065ac38575/missing-or-corrupt-winloadexe-0xc000000e?forum=itprovistadeployment

Hello All,

I've imaged thousands of machines over the years broadcasting using Ghostcast server. I've run into an issue that I'm hoping someone has seen/heard and will be able to assist me with. My company recently purchased 200 Lenovo Yoga tablets and I have created an image for them. These tablets do not come with optical drives, so the plan is to image them via Ghostcast as I have in the past with many different model tablets without issue. 

I have created a USB Ghost boot flash drive and it works without issue. The problem I have is that I can't find a Vista based driver for the internal NIC and I know that WinPE requires that version driver to work with the WinPE boot environment that Ghost recommends. The NIC is labeled within Device manager as "Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller". The only drivers available from Lenovo are Win7 and Win8 64 bit, and the driver I downloaded from Realtek didn't work either. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Many Thanks

Hello,

First time writer, decently long time reader. I have an issue that has been  haunting me for the past few days.

I work for the IT department at a Community College in Port Huron, MI. Recently, I was given the task of ghosting and reimaging three mini laptops, provided to me by the assisted learning department.

Normally, when reimaging computers/ laptops, I merely stick the machine (asks me to choose either Intel or Broadcom NIC drivers, then I load the ghost client, and botta-bing botta-boom), and I'm all set to go. However, when I stuck my first mini laptop, I get the following message:

*** BEGIN MESSAGE ***

Starting PC DOS...

IBM Protocol Manager Version 2.1

MAC/DIS to Packet Driver converter loaded. Version 1.19

Copyright 1991 FTP Software, Inc. All rights reserved.

Portions Copyright(c) 2000-2004 Symantec Corporation

Broadcom Ethernet DOS NDIS2 Driver v11.4.2 (080613)

Copyright (C) 2002-2008 Broadcom Corporation. All rights reserved.

Could not find any device

The driver failed to load.

MS-DOS LAN Manager v2.1 Netbind

IBM Netbind Version 2.1

Error: 33 Unable to Bind

Microsoft (R) Mouse Driver Version 0.20

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp. 1983-1992.

Copyright (C) IBM Corp. 1992-1993.

Mouse driver installed

Loading...

Network initialization failed: the DOS-mode client cannot proceed

No packet driver present

*** END MESSAGE ***

The laptop is an HP Pavilion TouchSmart 10-e010nr, running 64-bit Windows 8.1

I am still relatively new to the ghosting world, so please bare with me if you can. Also, feel free to request more information if necessary

Hello,

We are trying to image  DELL Servers R520, however when we select the source disks I doesn’t show up like if they are not recognized.

I have created a creating a custom boot disks including all the available drive.

I have also tried  by removing the raid, change the disks disk type to SATA, AHCI but always the same results.

I believe I might need to download custom driver from Dell web site and add them into my images, however the chipset & controller drive are only executable files.

Another problem is that all the drivers available on the DELL Web Site are not suppored by Vista.

The Chipset is 6 PORT SATA ACHI CONTROLLER 1D02

The disks are all SEAGATE ST3300657SS SCSI DISK DRIVE

Did anyone got the same problem than me ?

I recently catured an image of a users HDD with Ghost 11.0.1. After examining the .GHO and .GHS files it doesnt seem like all of the data was captured, only 11.5GB contained in all the files. 

When i attempt to open the files with Ghost Explorer (11.0.1.153) I can open the GHO file which lists the GHS files but when clicking on a GHS file and open...the window simply stays open nothing loads. Closing the open window reveals the below error.

(path)\TMOORE.GHO

Corruption in image file, or media not present. Not all files are shown

I havea a total of 5 GHS files, all of which fail to open and display this same error message. Is there anyway that i can recover any of the data? I know the caputure failed at some point but some data is still there or at least 15GB worth. Is there anyway that I can open these GHS files even ifs the main GHO file is incomplete or corrupt.

Thanks

When I create a ghost image: all works.

but when I change the image to a vmdk disk (I need to virtualise a windows xp machine), S Ghost always fails:

it is always in the step: 'Clone'

when I click details: 

task report from the ghostcast server - ghost could not create the virtual...

I attached the error log

please help me out with this... 

I have a computer running Win 7 with Ghost 11.5.1 installed and with all the software and applications installed.   Now I want to clone it to 2nd and 3rd computer and then update the licenses on them so I can avoid the time-consuming software installtion.   I was able to do this on Win XP but with issue for Win 7. 

My Ghost version is 11.5.1.2266 installed on Win 7 Pro (4bit).  I used it to create a Boot Disc using its default PE (WIN PE 2).  the image I cloned could not boot on a new computer (same hardware).   

I googled a little bit and it looks like a WinPE V3 is needed for Win 7.  But the GHost Boot Wizard does not list WinPE V3 as a PreOS TYpe choice.

Is there a way to get around this?

Does the later version of Ghost have WinPE in Ghost Boot Wizard?

Any help is appreciated,

Ric

Hi, I am trialing Ghost Solution Suite for my company as we are concidering rolling it out on all of our machines, what we want to use it for is to take an image of a working machine, save that image then use that image to image other machines.

I have instaled the ghost console and remotely installed the client on the machine i want to take the image from but i just cannot figure out how to take the image from it?

Please help as i only have a few days of my triel left.

I have Ghost solution suite 2.5.1 trial installed on a server 2012 pc, im looking to install a physical boot partition on to a win xp laptop.

I have created the Consile Boot Partition .gho using the ghost boot wizard, how do i get this installed on the laptop?

I cant burn it to a disk to boot from as its a .gho and when i try and restore it using the ghost cast server i get the error "Ghost Trialware is only able to be used via the ghost console or to deploy ghost boot partitions."

Thats exactly what im trying to do, please help im going mad!

We were getting good speeds of more than 400 MB/min doing a GhostCast Multicast session to over 30 computers.

While that was restoring nicely, mistakenly a command was run on the Ghost Server; NGSERVER -STOP

Naturally that killed the good sessions. Whoops!

Ran NGSERVER -INSTALL and restarted the session. But now getting speed of only 23 MB/min!

Rebooted the server and restarted the sessions again. Still only 23 MB/min!

In Unicast I can get 374 MB/min but only on a couple of machines; trying to do 30 drops it down to 70 MB/min.

Help! How do I restore good speed from the GhostCast Server?

Hello I'm trying to setup a laptop runnig Windows 8 that has the abiltiy to ghost machines using the cast server program and I would like that laptop to also be able to boot the computers to PXE. I found the instructions on how to set up a ghost PXE server using 3COM on another thread, but for some reason the 3COM TFTP Control Panel Applet won't open. It's giving me an error message saying that it failed to establish a connection with the service manager and the next line says that the 3COM TFTP service might not be installed. I installed the 3COM software on a random Window 7 machine at my job and it worked fine.

Please Help

Hello,

We have moved our Ghost  Cast Server on a new Windows Server 2008 VM.

The client cannot establish a connection with the server when we select the automatic discovery method. If we put the IP Address of the ghost server instead of Automatic everything is working properly.

I have disabled the windows firewall and the anti-virus as well and same problem.

This was running properly on the old servers ( Windows 2003 Physical ), the new server is on the same network / range than the old one.

I have founded that if the client is in the same network range than the server the automatic discovery will work.

Any suggestions ?

Thanks

Hello, I'm using an optiplex 380 running ghost 11.0.1. The image that I am trying to create is 22gb and I am getting an error saying "Cannot open GHOSTERR.TXT - inset diskette (434)." If you could help me solve this problem that would be amazing. If any additional information is needed just say so.

Hello Experts,

I am looking for some assistance with an issue i am having creating a Ghost Multicard template boot disk.  Several of the machines running in my current environment are Optiplex 3020s using the realtek NIC.  I have downloaded the drivers off of Dells website as well as realteks website and both result in an error when i create a boot disk using those drivers.  The error i get is

Ethernet Adaoter driver (V1.35) [2010/12/14] installation failed

Serious internal error !

Not sure what causing this issue.  So i tried older drivers that came with boot wizard and they worked.  However, when i add it to multicard template it cant load/find the drivers.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

I'm running GSS 2.5 from an XP Pro box and 24 Windows 7 clients.  I'm using the Ghost Console with clients configured to use PC-DOS and the Realtek PCIe GBE NDIS2 driver.  Apparently, several people in the community said that GSS 2.5 runs better on XP as opposed to on a Server 2008 R2 system that is also serving as an AD controller.  I ran into problems with trying to add computers to the AD domain during ghosting.  XP does work better.

When pushing the image from the console, both Unicast and Directed Broadcast work when I'm running trials.  However Multicast does not work.  It always times out and the error files says: Connection reset by server.

I'm aware that Multicasting has to be enabled on routers and switches.  However, I don't manage any of our routing and switching equipment.  We have a separate group for that.  When I've done trials with just two clients using Unicast or Directed Broadcast, I get notified by our network people that the packet traffic is causing the VLAN core router to spike and go to 100% utilization.

I've been working with them to try to get Multicasting to work but it looks like there is still some tweaking to do because they tell me it's not just matter of enabling IGMP.  It's seems like there's more involved than just doing an enable/disable thing.

Our network people use a series of Cisco routers and switches and I have no experience with that.  What I can tell you is that the server goes to a Catalyst 3750 series and the units in the lab go through a WS-6504-E chassis.  I'm guessing run by a Catalyst 6500 series switch.  I don't know what other networking hardware is involved beyond that.

Does anyone have any experience with configuring Cisco hardware and their CGMP protocol that I can pass on to our network people so we can get multicast to work?

Thanks.

Configuring Boot.wim Files For Ghost

1) When I try to add some windows device drivers to Ghost boot.wim files using Ghost Boot Wizard I get a message that says “failed to import driver, Driver Name, failed to find any drivers to add.” These same drivers can be added to WIM files that originate from Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1 using Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1 to add them.

Why do I receive the above message and how can I get Ghost Boot Wizard to add drivers to Ghost boot.wim files?

2) When I replace the Ghost boot.wim files in templates with ones that originate from Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1 and try to edit them or make boot media using Ghost Boot Wizard I receive a message that says “WIM file for this configuration of Windows PE is invalid.”

How do I get Ghost Boot Wizard to work with WIM files that originate from Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1?

3) When I successfully mounted a Ghost boot.wim file using Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1 then tried to unmount it without making any changes to it I received a message that said the information cannot be committed because it is invalid and when this happens all the files in the mount folder get deleted and no changes are made to the boot.wim file that was mounted.

How do I unmount boot.wim files that originate from Ghost using Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1?

Any information would be appreciated.

Below is a work around for making custom boot packages with drivers as needed on USB flash drives. If you need a boot package on a CD or DVD you might try creating a boot package on a RW type disk and replacing the boot.wim file as describe below and then use disk copy to burn it to  R type media if you do not plan on adding any more drivers.

How To Create A Ghost Boot Package With Drivers Added

1) Install the Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1

Note: The Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1 either needs to be burned to a DVD from its iso file or if can be installed from a hard drive folder provided the folder that contains the setup files is named “Windows Automated Installation Kit” otherwise the installer will fail by continuing to prompt for the setup disk even if the setup files are in a folder on a DVD with a different name.

2) Create folders for the boot.wim file to be modified xx, a folder for the mounted files mm and a folder for the drivers dr. The drivers folder should have sub folders for each driver to be added a, e.

The folders should be created on drive other than the one the operating system is installed on or you may experience blue screen crashes due to a conflict with ntfs.sys.

3) Move all the driver files and folders exactly as provided by the manufacture to their perspective sub folders.

If any of the files and folders that make up the drivers are omitted including both the 32 bit and 64 bit files the install may fail.

4) Locate the WinPE.wim file at C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\winpe.wim and copy it to xx and rename it boot.wim.

5) Create a boot package using a default installation of Ghost Boot Wizard on a USB flash drive using the FAT and CD/DVD options.

The following commands will be executed using Windows PE Tools Command Prompt

In this example xx = boot.wim folder mm = mount folder dr = drivers a = Asmedia e = Etron

6) Execute the follow command to mount the boot.wim file.  imagex /mountrw g:\xx\boot.wim 1 g:\mm

7) Execute the following command to install the Etron drivers. peimg /inf=g:\dr\e\EtronXHCI.INF /image=g:\mm

8) Execute the following command to install one of two Asmedia drivers. peimg /inf=g:\dr\a\asmtxhci.INF /image=g:\mm

9) Execute the following command to install two of two Asmedia drivers. peimg /inf=g:\dr\a\asmthub3.inf /image=g:\mm

10) Locate the start.cmd file in the mounted folder at mm:\Windows\System32\start.cmd, right click, edit change wpeinit to ghost32.

11) Locate the Ghost32.exe in the ghost folder on the boot package from step 5 and copy it to mm:\Windows\System32\ghost32.exe.

12) Look and see if there is a Winpeshl.ini file at mm:\Windows\System32\Winpeshl.ini and if so right click, edit and delete everything in it and replace it with

[LaunchApp]

AppPath = %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\ghost32.exe

If the Winpeshl.ini file does not exist create it with notepad and save it to mm:\Windows\System32\Winpeshl.ini.

13) Unmount the files in the mm folder by executing the following command imagex /unmount /commit g:\mm.

14) Replace the boot.wim file in the sources folder on the boot package from step 5 with the one in xx that was modified.

That’s it the boot package is created and the boot.wim file can be saved and used with other boot packages and new drivers added as needed using the Windows Automated Installation Kit Vista SP1 by repeating steps 6 through 9 by  modifying the add drivers commands with the new driver name and location.

Hi there,

I am currently testing Ghost Solution Center with our new ThinkCentre E73 workstation.

During the clone process I always get the following error message at about 70% of finishing the task:

ABORT: 25058, Unable to locate enough contiguous free space to load run. Increase the destination partition size or run Ghost with -NTEXACT switch.

As I am testing several software solutions I found out that lenovo is not using the default mbr size of 512byte, but 2048byte. So probably the problem is that acessing and manipulating the partition doesn't work.

Anyhow I tried the clone process again by running GHOST.EXE -NTEXACT on the console and starting the cloning process manually - and it worked fine.

Now I am not sure where to put the -NTEXACT switch in the start.bat file to automatically start with it when booting from the pxe image. I both tried this:

set path=%path%;x:\ghost

x:
cd \ghost
rem --- This will create primary OS drive configuration ---
ghost32.exe -NTEXACT /setosdrives /blind >> x:\ghost\startlog.txt
start ngctw32.exe -console

and this:

set path=%path%;x:\ghost

x:
cd \ghost
rem --- This will create primary OS drive configuration ---
ghost32.exe /setosdrives /blind >> x:\ghost\startlog.txt
start ngctw32.exe -console -NTEXACT

but neither did work. Any hints how to solve this problem?

I am trying to run some applications on WinPE.

I have writter these applications, compiled on Visual Studio 2010.

I see the ghost32.exe whihc is a similar application is running on WinPE, but why not my applicaaiotns.

Thanks,

basavesh