Ghosting over Network

I work for a small business that refurbishes decent amount of computers. Today my boss says to me that we are a little behind on shipping due the increase of orders. So I set up some more computers to copy images to hard drives with.

Then I started thinking about some of the older network and server stuff we have sitting in the warehouse. Now, I have this idea that I could set up a system to ghost the drives over a small network.

So I need help on trying to figure out how to do this since I'm not a big on servers. We do have Sever 2003 that i could use if necessary. I also remember something called Remote Installation Services, but I'm not sure if that's what i need or not.

Basically I'm just trying to figure out how to do ghost more drives at a time. Right now i have 4 machines ghosting 1 drive at a time its kinda annoying running back and forth and having to hook up hard drives and stuff.

Any other Ideas are welcome.

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Comments

RobertKaucher

Check out the Windows Deploy tools. Here is an article you might find helpful:
The Lazy Admin : Windows Deployment Services

Phliplip112

thanks for the link that help clear up a few things for me.

Would this work with a image captured with Norton Ghost? What I did initially was install Windows on a machine along with drivers and the other software. Then i take an image of the drive and put it on DVDs. So now i just copy it to the HDD from the image of whatever model computer i need.

RobertKaucher

I did not realize you already used Ghost. You can configure Ghost to work over the network. Radified Guide to Norton Ghost (Symantec): Imaging Across Network with Ghost Solution Suite

I have done it, but never set it up. Maybe some other member could advise you?

the_Grinch

We Ghosted over the network at my old job. Did it through multicast and I did 25 machines at a time in about 20 minutes.

Phliplip112

I started on this project yesterday but, now I'm stuck. I started to try to put the images we have on DVDs in the computer.The image was divided into 4 images on the one DVD and the program didn't like that.

So then I thought I'd just try and make an image across the network. The only problem is I cant figure out how to get the ghost server to see the computer in the ghost console ( if that's even what I need to do).

...back to google!

Edit: I just read a couple things that said i need to install a piece of client software in order to pull an image across a network. Does that sound right?

desertmouse

Phliplip112 wrote: »

I started on this project yesterday but, now I'm stuck. I started to try to put the images we have on DVDs in the computer.The image was divided into 4 images on the one DVD and the program didn't like that.

So then I thought I'd just try and make an image across the network. The only problem is I cant figure out how to get the ghost server to see the computer in the ghost console ( if that's even what I need to do).

...back to google!

Edit: I just read a couple things that said i need to install a piece of client software in order to pull an image across a network. Does that sound right?

Yes. You'll need a ghost server and ghost clients. You can setup a PXE server to boot the clients from the network (harder) or use USB/floppy disks (easier) to load the ghost client on the machine you want to copy the data to/from. Load up the server, select an image, set the number of clients, load up the client, point it to the session name of the ghost server, and away you go. (Obviously with a few more steps in-between). Make sure to use multicast mode, and you might have to play with some of the options (disable(s)) in order for things to work right. Once it does work tho - ooo you'll be in good shape.

benbuiltpc

My setup isn't the most high tech, but I burn ISO boot CDs for each model of computer we own. The network drivers (DOS) will need to match the type of NIC on the PC. The Ghost server app allows you do create the ISOs.

Also I use an old Cisco 1700 as a DHCP server to speed things up. Everything is connected to a stand-alone switch as to not degrade network performance.

I believe you need a specific version of Ghost to allow multicasts, though.

Phliplip112

desertmouse wrote: »

Yes. You'll need a ghost server and ghost clients. You can setup a PXE server to boot the clients from the network (harder) or use USB/floppy disks (easier) to load the ghost client on the machine you want to copy the data to/from. Load up the server, select an image, set the number of clients, load up the client, point it to the session name of the ghost server, and away you go. (Obviously with a few more steps in-between). Make sure to use multicast mode, and you might have to play with some of the options (disable(s)) in order for things to work right. Once it does work tho - ooo you'll be in good shape.

Is the client = the boot disk? I'm assuming it is

Even with that loaded I still cant figure out how to get the computer to show up in Ghost console. Can you use the uni/multi session to take the image from the client to the server or is that for only server -> client?

Thats my predicament

desertmouse

Phliplip112 wrote: »

Is the client = the boot disk? I'm assuming it is

Even with that loaded I still cant figure out how to get the computer to show up in Ghost console. Can you use the uni/multi session to take the image from the client to the server or is that for only server -> client?

Thats my predicament

When you say Ghost console do you mean GhostCast server?

If not - then start up the GhostCast server.

From there you need to set a session, name it, and a "****". From the client put in the same session (unicast) and it will "****" the contents to the server. Then you'll be able to serve that image to all the workstations. Now the only thing is - once you switch chipsets and licenses and such you'll need a different ghost "****".

Phliplip112

Oh, well that changes everything. All the documentation I read implied that you use the Ghost console to manage the computers and create images. I may have needed to make a domain for that to work though.

I never read that i could use Ghost cast to go both ways.

thanks ill check that out

Phliplip112

I finally was able to get this running with a universal boot disk and a script to run ghost.exe off the server. However,I was unable to get the ghost client to automatically join the ghost cast session. I would get an error saying that it was looking for Ghosterr.txt.

these are the options im using ghost.exe -ja=1 -sure -rb . if i use just ghost.exe -rb it works fine.

if i can get this to work ill try it using it with PxE if that is possible