Cloning confusion

[Wolfgang]

Dear all,



I newly attend XPe Mass Deployment. While searching a bug where Cloning need
two reboots to settle correct I found out that:

We act like described in "Cloning Overview":



http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d.../en-us/xpehelp/html/xelrffbresealcommands.asp



(Build image -> FBA on Master -> Install Programs -> Copy to target
device -> boot there.)

But that we DON'T have the System Cloning Tool in our image and that we
never call fbreseal command.



Now my question:



- Is this way described anywhere

- E.g. I want to know why Xpe detects that it is on a new hardware
and does something like a "second FBA" (It then switches automatically EWF
off, reconfigurates and on next Boot EWF is on again - But if I then again
switch the device using the same image EWF is never switched off). So why
does he know that I switch from Master to Clone X and not from Clone X to
Clone Y ?





Regards, Wolfgang

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hello Wolfgang,

Different hardware mean different serial number on disk or on motherboard hardware.
In case that new disk ID is detected during the first boot XPe will boot by using generic drivers from CriticalDeviceDatabase
registry section.
And due to some specifics with all filter drivers in general and generic driver used for "emergency" boot EWF will not attach itself
for partitions that belong to new disk. During that first boot it will apper to you that EWF is not working (which is basicaly true)
after boot complete all devices will be found by PnP and on next boot you will have regular boot like on master computer and EWF
will start working again.

I hope that this explain problem that you expirience.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Wolfgang]

Many thanks Slobodan for clarification.
Am I right that the fbreseal command does "reset" the fba status and hence
the fba runce twice on a clone ?
Hence, fbreseal would do the same as using a disk with different serial
number ?
So if I'm not interested in a different computer name etc. this way seems to
be more "straigt forward",
or do I miss something ?

Additionally why I came to this is that I must boot & commit twice on a
clone if it has another
IDE ATA/ATAPI controller. I tried the way described in
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d.../en-us/xpehelp/html/xelrffbresealcommands.asp
but also first the different controller is detected and the IDE channel with
the compact flash cards
report an unkown current transfer mode. If I commit and reboot the
controller seems to be correct,
but not the IDE channels which are then switched to the correct transfer
mode (PIO).
If I don't want an additional 90sec. of boot time I must commit the image
twice.
Then everything works well.
Is this normal or is there a way around that behaviour ?

Many thanks for your time,

Wolfgang

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Hi Wolfgang,

FBA should not be reseted but depending on your configuration it can complete some higher phases that should setup things on
yourclone device.
You can delete fba.log file from your master image. And after the cloned device is done with boot you will see new fba.log created
with content of things done by FBA.

fbreseal is needed only if your computers will participate on network to give them unique SID numbers, otherwise you do not have to
use it.

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Wolfgang]

Dear Slobodan,

Could you explain what you mean with
"Different hardware mean different serial number on disk or on motherboard
hardware."
I first thought the "serial number on disk" would be the volume ID (which is
in the format xxxx-xxxx and can be changed).
But this isn't the right one. (Same hardware other volume ID - EWF still
enabled - hence no "emergeny" boot,
Other hardware same volume ID - EWF disabled, dispite volume ID identical,
EWF disabled)
And what you mean with "different serial number on motherboard" ?

Many thanks, Wolfgang

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Depending on disk type there are models that have hardware serial number in their firmware that is used by PnP and they are detected
as new disks. All USB disks are one nice example of this.
On motherboard you can have network adapter or some other things that can have some form of different hardcoded numbers in them that
are different between each motherboard.

Anyhow if you want to see if there is PnP activity there is a simple way.

Delete setupapi.log before you let your clone to boot.
In new setupapi.log file you should see all hardware differences seen by PnP between master device and new device.

Regards,
Slobodan