Hi again , thought I'd start a new thread on ghost boot. I know it has much to do with my other thread
http://www.msfn.org/board/setting-up-PXE-o...165#entry794165
- but I wanted to keep the two different issues separate. If the managment feel differently, then please say .

Before I bore the pants off you all - please don't forget that I don't mind the leg work. I don't mind getting my feet wet, so feel free to come with suggestions All help is greatfully received!!

OK I am trying to help my school with PXE boot the subject of the above thread. The other thing I would like to do is help them recreate the boot cd's incase they need them in the future. The guys at IT haven't created the cd's that they boot up from when ghosting their computers (that person left their employ ). I wanted to pass on your knowledge to them by giving them the chance to create new boot cd's if required at a later date. OK I am trying to eliminate the need for them to put hours of their time on something I hope with your help to solve.

The IT guys aren't given the resources or time to do these things. OK enuff said!

I copied an image from one of their boot cd's onto the hard drive to have a look at the contents. Their are to files ghost.exe and ghstwalk.exe. I haven't really had the time to look at why the ghstwalk.exe.

To basics: when creating a ghost boot cd/disk symantec have made things a little more difficult when creating these things. Laptops don't usually have diskette stations. so one needs the boot cdrom instead. When running the ghost boot wizard I choose "network boot disk" as my option and follow the instructions. BTW their are three client computers in question at the moment - so a multiboot cdrom is preferable. For this exercise I am using my loan computer as the client a Compaq nx6310. The boot wizard gives me the option of "broadcom bcm 4401 ndis2 driver" This is the page for my driver: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...p;swEnvOID=1093

Installed on my loan computer is the Broadcom 440x 10/100 integrated controller version 4.3 If I download that version and unpack it there is no NDIS2 drivers but that option appeares when using ghost boot wizard? I can only assume that they have taken it from Broadcom direct? I use MS-DOS to be included in the boot disk and DHCP for IP's on creating the boot disk you are met with the warning that there isn't room on the disk and a second disk is required. On the second disk the GHOST.EXE is installed so that is easily copied to the hard drive and hop over the second disk.


I have googled my pants off again trying to find info on how to integrate the two disks to create a boot cdrom. Many of them use a version that seems to have been written by Scott Barker at the following link: http://www.steveit.com/homepage/Articles/G...e_a_ghost_8.htm He gives the details with the screens that show the whole process with boot wizard etc.

I have followed his incstructions and haven't as yet been able to make it work

My files included:

Click to view attachment


Here is my config file after modification:

Click to view attachment

Here in my autoexe file after modification:

Click to view attachment

When I boot the cd I chose to check the boot row by row and found these errors - " Could not find any device The driver failed to load" and "General failure writing drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?


This is the protocol from the NET folder in case you can see something wrong here:

Click to view attachment

This is all a bit baffling for me

Can anyone shed some light on what I need to do?

bookie32

You have posted in the wrong section!
This is for Discussion & Support on Microsoft Office 97/2000/2002-XP/2003/2007 products NOT Norton Ghost!

Hi Teh_Tech, You are very right in what you say...sorry got carried away. I hope one of the supervisors can move my post

Thanks for pointing that out for me.

bookie32

PS I am actually using windows 2003 for my server which is the base of creating my ghost images.

You can us the Ghost Boot Wizard to create a boot floppy that will handle more than one NIC, you may have to find the NDIS or acket driver for your device if it is not included but it makes them quite well. If you can get a newer version of the Ghost solution suite it will create ISO's for you to burn.

As a matter of fact the disk you have was created with the boot wizard.

Hi IcemanND, thanks for the info

I haven't really looked to far into a newer version of ghost - but thought that there were not to many versions that work with windows 2003?I will have to do some research.

I have read a little and see how one adds several nics to the same boot disk - which as you have pointed out can be made into an image with a later version of ghost.

I will have a look at that and update you later.


bookie32

Any Enterprise version of Ghost 8 or greater should work with any version of windows.

Some slight expections when it comes to Vista and version 8.x, as I recall Vista was not officially supported until v10 (solutions Suite 1.x)

Hi IcemanND, please don't shoot me down...but I am a bit confused now I want to create a network boot image that I can burn to a cdrom. I wasn't aware that ghost 8 could perform that function? I want to replace the two disks that ghost boot wizard creates with an image that I can burn onto a cdrom. This cdrom I can then boot to the server if I need it in the future.

I am sorry if I wasn't clear on that. Please tell me if I am losing my marbles....LOL Its just the two disks that seem to be the problem when creating the boot cdrom. I am probably missing the obvious ....so feel free to tell me.


boookie32

with ghost 8 you have to create the boot floppies and then you create your bootable cd. Use the first disk as the boot image for the cd and copy the contents of the second disk to the cd and burn.

Much easier with newer versions of ghost.

Hi again, yes I understand what you are saying regarding the creation of the boot cd its just that something isn't going right with the process and I am getting the errors that I pointed out before.

What I will look at is using a newer version of ghost on XP or Vista to see the differences in the boot wizards. I will get to that now and update later on how I get on.

Thanks again for your help!

bookie32

Hi again, I have looked at the possibility of using a later version of ghost but don't know which one will work with windows 2003?

I don't really want to start over and install a later version of windows server just to get the ghost version I want. My test server at home wont run the latest versions!!

Are there any more suggestions.

bookie32

According to Norton's web site the current Ghost Solutions Suite (v2.5) is compatible with 2003, and I can't imagine that any other version before it would not be, especially if it was released after Windows 2003.

http://www.symantec.com/business/products/...&pvid=865_1

Which version of Ghost are you trying to use?

Hi IcemanND, sorry for my being thick!! Not on top form at the mo....bloody bad cold

I will have a look at 2.5 and get back to you.

Thanks for your patience

bookie32

Hi again, well have installed ghost solution suite 2.5 and can create bootable images instead of the disks which is a step in the right direction - but I am still getting the similar boot errors.

I have noticed that one can modify the boot template via boot wizard - not sure how I would get the right info there either.

So at the moment I am as lost as I was in the beginning. I either need to modify my template when creating the boot image or unpack the bootcat and osboot files to modify them.

Anyone got any ideas?

bookie32

Ok, so you are creating a PC-DOS based boot disk, using the Network boot package or the drive mapping boot package?

And which driver are you including? Have you tried the universal driver? I have found it works with most cards, except a handful of Intel gigabit cards I have at work.

Hi IcemanND, thanks for stopping by again

I don't know what I was missing but I now have a boot cd that works with both the universal packet driver or the broadcom one. The broadcom one that works is B44$. I need to modify both of them to include my mouse drivers for the compac nx6310 notebook.

Not sure about those changes but will do some research. Sorry for being a pain.

bookie32