Ghosting an Optiplex 755

Problem I ran into is that you have to load a usb driver so that you can use an exteral floppy drive, once that driver loaded then I lost control of the keyboard and mouse.

I ended up moving the hard drive to another system as a secondary hard drive and ghosted it to a DVD there. Ghost 2003 would let you create a bootable CD/DVD as you were creating the image. Now if the kidos hose up the system, just pop the DVD in and reimage!!!!

I'm using Symantec Ghost, enterprise V. 1.1 (that came after 9.0).

For Optiplex 755 it's a little tricky since I use the Map to network drive option, first I have to get the NDIS driver for the Intel 82566DM gigabit card, add it to the ghost program, then make the booting image, I use PC-DOS (since MS-dos type files are hard to get). I use a bogus PC name (making sure it doesn't exists in the network), a default user with access to write to the share drive and then the share name and drive letter.

I use regular DHCP so I don't haggle with duplicate IPs, then the final step is to make the image, you can choose Floppy drive set, or better  yet an ISO CD booting imgem I chose this option, it creates the ISO file.

Then i burn that image to a CD, that CD is now bootable.

Turn on the PC, choose F12 to choose CD/DVD booting option, then starts loading the network files and asks for password for that domain user you set while making the image.

Now with this intel card is a little tricky, it gives you a prompt for starting the net service, is an extra step but it works.

After it finishes you have now have mapped the network drive and can run ghost.exe from there and make/receive a ghost image.

Well I dont use the map network drive option that you do, it's so much easier to use multicasting ...Basically have all your images on the ghost server you're using, use multicasting to select the image, and type how many machines you want it to goto

then bang the cd's in the machines, switch them on, when ghost loads, type in the session name such as "image" and it'll find it from the server, and auto pull down the image onto upto 12 machines at any one time, which takes about 4 minutes to complete ... take the cd out, put drive operation back to the default and send the machines out ... we sysprep our XP images so it runs the mini setup wizard (pc name, domain etc) when you switch on

I can unbox a 755, have it imaged, mini setup, joined to our AD domain, and ready for deployment in about 9 mins flat ...

I'll be happy to send you a CD, or you can go through it here:

http://help.ischool.washington.edu/faqs/15_29_en.html

Just be patient, and use CD-RW or you'll go through hundreds testing it lol

Well the CD takes about 20 secs to edit when we get new machines, just a case of re-burning it ... it has steamlined the ghosting team's work ten-fold ... not having to swap CDs and Floppies for each machine etc

Not sure about the drivers, we were quite happy with the Broadcom 57xx too, the Intel just boasts more features really

I'm interested in knowing how you edit your already made images to change the user, computer name and share path as needed and insert a few commands here and there.

We only have GX620's 745s and 755s, So I just have three CD sets, having those multi images is not a bad Idead though.

I'm also wondering why Dell changed from Broadcomm to Intel, Broadcomm seem more stable (and easy to boot from)..

I created a multi ghost CD for our Optiplex's as at one point we had GX260, GX270, GX280, GX520, GX745, and our latest 755 ... you just have to remember for the 745 and 755 you have to set the drive operation to Legacy (available on BIOS A04 and later)

I created the CD using a tutorial online .... basically, you boot to the CD, a custom menu appears that looks like:

-------------------------------------------------------------

Choose the Model PC:

   1) GX260

   2) GX270

   3) GX280

   4) GX520

   5) GX745

   7) LatitudeD630

-------------------------------------------------------------

Once you selected the machine you wanted using the number, it went off to the relevant folder on the CD, loaded the NDIS driver, and ghost loaded within about 5 seconds ... we've been using it for over a year now, since the 755's came out

If you'd like a copy of the CD, or a link to the tutorial, drop me a PM and i'll send it across

Thanks

Link to Sysprep Tool:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577

Hi,

In response to Roflcakes22 creating multiple ghost cd's.  I have been doing the same for use with Dell's however this latest (to us) Optiplex 755 is proving very tricky.  Can you let me know what driver you used for the Intel 82566 and protocol.ini file?

I have spent the last few days pulling hair trying to get the right configuration.  You could save me....

I reply to Rolfcakes22, I would like a copy of the cdrom, either iso file emailed/ftp or posted.  I have been struggling to find an ethernet driver that works properly with the 82566DM network card.  It has caused several days of searching and so far I have had only failed attempts.  If you would be so kind as to let me know where I could get the driver and protocol.ini file from that would be brilliant.  I have a working Ghost cd I use with several drivers on it, but this machine just seems to be odd in that none of the specific drivers I have tried work.  I have a working USB CD Rom drive that can load Ghost but no driver.

You help is really needed.

Regards,