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Creating a single Ghost disk for different computer models?

L

loss4words

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 31, 2007
Messages
107
Hi everyone. I'm sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong forum.

This is probably a very newbie question. At work we use Ghostcast Server to push images to PCs over the network. We have a boot disk for every computer model (all Dell PCs) that contains the drivers necessary to boot from it and connect to the network successfully if I understand it correctly. Is there any way to make just a single boot disk so that our technicians won't have to carry around several disks for individual PC models? Sorry if this isn't making much sense. Thanks for your help!
 
It makes perfect sense. If you run Windows Server 2003 or 2008 at work and are willing to migrate from Ghost, you could set up RIS or WDS as your image deployment system and do away with driver disks for good. We are a Dell shop too, and just do a PXE boot from the network and away they go.

I know that's probably not the answer you're looking for, but it's an alternative to what you're doing now.
 
What we do at work is make an image for each model, then one with SP2, and SP3, and what ver. of IE, and Office. We then sysprep the image so it has the right COA key, and use a thumb drive with a PXE boot to Ghost, then we put int the session name and ghost it. We do this locally with multicast, but I'm sure you can do this across the network. PXE and a ghost server is really the best way to go. We have it quite organized into folders and like so (dell)"760-SP3-IE7-O2K7".
 
All you need to make Ghost work is the right NDIS driver for your NIC. We gave up floppies in favor of flash drives two years ago because our ghost boot disk outgrew the 1.44 MB limit of floppies.

I use HP's command line USB formatter to create a bootable drive. Here's the command line (from a batch file that prompts for the target drive and partition name):

t:USB\hpusbf.exe %target%: -fs:FAT32 -v:%name% -q -b:T:\USB\Win98SE -s:T:\USB\drive\ -y >nul

USB\Win98SE is a folder that contains a copy of a modified Windows 98 SE boot floppy.

USB\drive contains all of the files that will be on the drive.

Here's a simplified examle of my CONFIG.SYS that creates a menu:

Code: 
[menu]
menuitem=LAST, Launch Ghost using last session.
menuitem=GHOST, Launch Ghost.
menuitem=GHOSTRB, Start Ghost and reboot when complete.
submenu=S1, Submenu 1
submenu=S2, Submenu 2
menudefault=LAST,13
menucolor=7,0

[s1]
menuitem=IMAGE1, Select IMAGE1
menuitem=IMAGE2, Select IMAGE2

[s2]
menuitem=IMAGE3, Select IMAGE3
menuitem=IMAGE4, Select IMAGE4

Here's the autoexec.bat that uses that. Its "last used session" option uses a third-party program called varget (I think) which I found last summer.

Code: 
echo off
prompt $p$g
set path=c:\;c:\ghost;c:\dosutils

call \net\doit.bat
\net\netbind.com

IF "%config%"=="DOS" GOTO DOS

cd \ghost
IF "%CONFIG%"=="GHOST" GOTO GHOST
IF "%CONFIG%"=="GHOSTRB" GOTO GHOSTRB
IF "%onboard%"=="yes" GOTO GHOSTRB


:: Run ghost and connect to session with same name as config variable then reboot.
set session=%CONFIG%
if not "%config%"=="LAST" goto session
call c:\dosutils\var get "session" from c:\ghost\session.txt

:session
echo session=%session% > c:\ghost\session.txt
ghost -clone,src=@MC%session%,dst=2:1 -batch -fni -rb

GOTO NORESTART

:GHOST
ghost -fni -batch
GOTO NORESTART

:GHOSTRB
ghost -fni -batch -rb
GOTO NORESTART
:NORESTART

What all this does:

If you choose one of the first three menu options, it does just what it says. The submenu items will connect you to the session of the same name as the menu item (in the example, ITEM1, ITEM2, etc). This lets you easily add additional sessions to the menu without modifying autoexec.bat.

I would suggest you simply have ghost create the multi-driver disk to handle all your NICs and basing your build off that. If you can't, sorting out how the Ghost disk handles drivers is...fun. I'm having trouble just thinking of how to explain it. I will say this for now: COMP.DAT is a lookup file for your NDIS drivers.
 
I would create floppy iso's onto a CD with a boot menu. That way the tech only has to carry one CD, but it'll have all the 'floppies' so they would boot to the CD, and from the menu choose the correct machine.

Or since Ghost is only concerned about drivers, figure out the most common drivers is RealTek and forego disks based on machines, and instead base off NIC drivers
 
Thank you everyone for your replies. All the links have been really helpful.

J-Will said:
I would create floppy iso's onto a CD with a boot menu. That way the tech only has to carry one CD, but it'll have all the 'floppies' so they would boot to the CD, and from the menu choose the correct machine.

Or since Ghost is only concerned about drivers, figure out the most common drivers is RealTek and forego disks based on machines, and instead base off NIC drivers
Click to expand...

I haven't seen this done before but this sounds like a wonderful idea. So basically once the technician boots from a disk he will be prompted a choice of the PC models he can choose from before Ghost application starts?

I was trying to google this stuff but I just can't seem to find any instructions on how to go about making such iso floppies and incorporating them with the drivers for a particular model. Could you please give me a link to something that could get me started?

Thanks.
 
You don't even need anything that elaborate with the link I posted, plus you won't need to use an optical drive. Flash drives are faster as well. Simply follow the instructions and make a custom disk using network drivers that'll work with your systems and you should be able to boot all of your systems with the one disk that's small enough to stick in your pocket and take everywhere.
 
loss4words said:
Thank you everyone for your replies. All the links have been really helpful.



I haven't seen this done before but this sounds like a wonderful idea. So basically once the technician boots from a disk he will be prompted a choice of the PC models he can choose from before Ghost application starts?

I was trying to google this stuff but I just can't seem to find any instructions on how to go about making such iso floppies and incorporating them with the drivers for a particular model. Could you please give me a link to something that could get me started?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

You can actually have one boot drive with all your drivers on it (well, almost...I've encountered one NDIS driver that doesn't play well with Ghost: NVidia's).

Here's how it works:

\net\pcidet.dos (run by config.sys) searches the PCI bus for hardware IDs that match those listed in the comp.dat file. It does this line-by-line until it makes a match; this is important as if you have two NICs that are in the list, only the first one in the list will work.

pcidet then copies the doit.bat file from \net\<dir> (where dir is a directory name specified in comp.dat) to \net\. This batch file contains a DEVICE command line which adds the NDIS driver in the same directory.

So to add a new NDIS driver to an existing disk, you need to copy the driver into its own folder in \net\, add a doit.bat file for the driver, and edit comp.dat. I've done it five times to date, and now it takes me longer to find and download the driver than it does to add it.

Here's my comp.dat:

Code: 
0005
\net\card0\$
\net\card1\$
\net\card2\$
\net\card3\$
\net\card4\$
0019 : Number of devices
10B7 9000 0001 : 3C900-TPO Fast Ethernet                            $
10B7 9001 0001 : 3C900-Combo Fast Etherlink                         $
10B7 9004 0001 : 3C900B-TPO Etherlink XL TPO                        $
10B7 9005 0001 : 3C900B-Combo Etherlink XL Combo                    $
10B7 9006 0001 : 3C900B-TPC Etherlink XL TPC                        $
10B7 900A 0001 : 3C900B-FL Etherlink XL FL                          $
10B7 9050 0001 : 3COM 3C905 Fast Etherlink 10/100                   $
10B7 9051 0001 : 3COM 3C905-T4 Fast Etherlink XL 10/100             $
10B7 9055 0001 : 3COM 3C905B Fast Etherlink XL 10/100               $
10B7 9058 0001 : 3COM 3C905B-Combo Deluxe Etherlink XL 10/100       $
10B7 905A 0001 : 3COM 3C905B-FX Fast Etherlink XL FX 10/100         $
10B7 9200 0001 : 3COM 3C905C-TX Fast Etherlink for PC Management NIC$
8086 1229 0002 : Intel(R) 82557 Based Adapter                       $
8086 2449 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100E Adapter                          $
8086 1031 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
8086 1032 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
8086 1033 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
8086 1034 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
8086 1035 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
8086 1036 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
8086 1038 0002 : Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection             $
14E4 1693 0003 : HP 6715b / 6735b NIC                               $
14E4 169C 0003 : HP NX6325 NIC                                      $
1039 0900 0004 : SiS 900 Series NIC                                 $
10EC 8168 0005 : RealTek RTL8168B/8111B Family PCI-E GBE NIC        $

The first line tells how many lines of directory locations follows. This is hexadecimal.
The seventh line is the same for the number of devices to be listed.

The $ indicates end of line. Don't forget it.

Each device line breaks down like this:
<vendor id> <device id> <directory line> : <comment> $

That should be self-explanatory. What you can do is use Windows to get your hardware ID, find the NDIS driver, and insert it.

One last thing to note: sometimes you might need to edit the driver's protocol.ini file. I find that emulating a working .ini file works every time.

edit: We tried that netbootdisk back when I first started doing things this way, and it didn't have the drivers for our laptops. Rather than try to tear apart someone else's disk, I built my own from the ground up and learned how it all works. It makes for a much more streamlined system, as our ONLY task is connecting to Ghost multicast sessions.
 
This link should help you get started. You basically put the images of the floppies you use onto the CD, and boot to a menu where you can choose which floppy to load up.

What happens is the computer boots to the CD, then based on the menu selection (i.e. 1) ComputerType 1 2) ComputerType 2...) the CD then creates a RAM drive that the computer thinks is a floppy and boots from that drive. Which in turn is the floppy for the proper computer.

The downfall to this method is that every time a new computer/ driver is issued, all new CDs need created, and the menu gets bigger. If you start weeding out older system that are not used to make the menu smaller, then you run into a potential issue when that system is seen again. So it might be beneficial to have a master version with ALL systems and drivers, and then one copy of the CD that you hand out to techs more frequently which includes the more used systems
 
Last edited:
J-Will said:
This link should help you get started. You basically put the images of the floppies you use onto the CD, and boot to a menu where you can choose which floppy to load up.

What happens is the computer boots to the CD, then based on the menu selection (i.e. 1) ComputerType 1 2) ComputerType 2...) the CD then creates a RAM drive that the computer thinks is a floppy and boots from that drive. Which in turn is the floppy for the proper computer.

The downfall to this method is that every time a new computer/ driver is issued, all new CDs need created, and the menu gets bigger. If you start weeding out older system that are not used to make the menu smaller, then you run into a potential issue when that system is seen again. So it might be beneficial to have a master version with ALL systems and drivers, and then one copy of the CD that you hand out to techs more frequently which includes the more used systems
Click to expand...

Another issue with this is you have to know which disk to use. It's fine if it's easy to know which NIC driver you need, but if they can have it autodetect the NIC things become a lot easier.

If that netbookdisk linked above works on all their systems, I'd recommend using it and building a config.sys menu to select between Ghostcast sessions so that unnecessary steps can be taken out of the process. If not, the nuts and bolts approach I got stuck with seems to work best.
 
The netbootdisk default build has quite a few different network drivers and adding specific ones is pretty easy. I like that it's small and versatile, plus very easy to change/update if needed. To each their own though, everyone finds different ways of doing things that work best for them.
 
The best deal is to use HPs flash utility to format the drive, then use a copy of 98 boot files to make it bootable.

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
Click to expand...

I followed this advice, and have tested with 3 different laptop models and so far so good :)

I also used this website as a guide to help me, with the only difference that I used a USB drive instead of creating floppies: http://help.ischool.washington.edu/...how-to-create-a-ghost-80-network-boot-cd.html

My next question is, would it be possible to do the same thing on a CD or DVD instead of a flash drive?
 
Thanks, J-Will. What is the best program to make a bootable iso file? I've tried ImgBurn and MagicISO so far but couldn't boot from a disk.

Also, I noticed that for some newer PC models I couldn't boot into Windows 98 Startup Menu unless I switched the hard drive to ATA mode. Is there any way for me to fix this?

Thanks for all the help.
 
My thought was to make a CD boot menu and have each menu an iso to the floppy images. So when a user presses 1 then it loads up the ghost floppy for xxx machine

If you have too many machines to do it that way, you can create sub menus off the first
ie Main Menu
1)ASUS
2)HP
3)Dell

Then off of that, say 1 is pressed, it takes you to a sub menu
1) Model xxx-123
2) Model xxx-abc

when a selection is made from here, it'll boot to the ghost image.


So you basically have a CD with a bunch of folders, and in each folder are the images. Then in the root of the CD dir you house the boot and menu *.ini files
 
Oh, ok. I'll give this a shot as well.

I was just wondering since I already made my USB drive work how I wanted, if I could just copy all the files to a CD and make it bootable.
 
Yes you can, most CD Burning programs have a way to create a boot disk.

But, USB is going to be faster
 
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