Deployment

  • Thread starter Thread starter Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)
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Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)

One way would be to create XPe that boots from CD from SDI file or by
EL-Torito.
Then you can create install wizard or some install batch that will prepare
your HDD and deploy files.

AFAIK there are no tutorials, you will have to create your solution.
If you have Windows OPK you can use it, but it is not XPe related.

Regards,
Slobodan
 
How is it possible to deploy an image from a cd-rom to a harddrive. Is there
any guides or tutorials?
Click to expand...

I use ghost to do this: put an image file on CD, and make the CD boot to
DOS and start GHOST with the necessary command line parameters.

I added a simple boot menu in config.sys that times out to an auto-install,
so it can be deployed to hardware that doesn't have a keyboard.
I also labeled the CD with a large red exclamation mark ;)


The drawback is that Ghost doesn't work too good for targets with EWF,
unless you clone before FBA: a full disk image usually won't fit on a CD,
and if you create a partition image ghost forgets some info EWF needs
(probably some extra info MS stores in the MBR or boot cylinder or so).

There's no error message, but EWF doesn't work in the clones: it can't be
enabled, and it's disabled if it was previously enabled. The EWF partition
is there and OK, but EWFMGR says there are no protected volumes.
 
Hi Lucvd,

MS does not store information in your MBR, or any hidden part of disk at
all.

If you use EWF by default it will create extra hidden partition that will
hold config and working parameters for EWF.

If you are using RAM EWF you can use my solution to configure EWF by using
registry only.
This image can be copied by using only xcopy of unpacking all files to
partition with same size.

Regards,
Slobodan
 
All:

It's a challenge to use Ghost to deploy the RAM-based EWF partition but it
is possible since I do it. Depending on the version of ghost you need to be
using the switches SZEE, FDSP, or IR I believe. There are a few things to
be aware of. The RAM-based EWF partition grow from the default of 32 Kb or
so to 8 MB, and the EWF comes up enabled when it's disabled in my master
ghost image. You can use ewfmgr -commitanddisable switch to disable the
EWF.

I created a process for my Manufacturing and Repair guys. I have a CD
containing a bat file, my ghost image, and the ghost exe. They simply run
the bat file from the CD which kicks off ghost to deploy my image to HD's.
It works well.

HTH... Doug
 
How is it possible to deploy an image from a cd-rom to a harddrive. Is there
any guides or tutorials?
 
Hi Lucvd,

MS does not store information in your MBR, or any hidden part of disk at
all.
Click to expand...

Well, it stores _something_ on disk that ghost doesn't copy, and that
something is not in the EWF partition nor as a standard datafile in the
XPe partition.

I suspect it's in the same place where they keep the volume information on
dynamic disks. IMO this can only be in the unused data sectors after the
MBR on the first physical track, because even 'fdisk /mbr' from DOS won't
revert a disk from dynamic to basic - it will boot DOS again, but when
Win2k/XP sees it it still recognizes it as dynamic (and even knows how the
volumes were laid out before you replaced the MBR with an empty one).

Cloning a disk with EWF enabled, making a full byte-level image copy of
the EWF partition, results in a disk with a fully intact EWF partition,
but where XPe no longer knows there were any protected volumes. EWF can't
be reinitialized either (rundll iforgotwhat): it just keeps acting as if
there never were any protected volumes. When I tried that, it deleted the
EWF partition instead of starting to use it (which even makes sense:
without protected volumes you don't need an EWF partition).

Telling ghost to copy the full boot track instead of just the boot sector
doesn't work either: that again points in the direction of the MBR for the
configuration data.
If you use EWF by default it will create extra hidden partition that will
hold config and working parameters for EWF.
Click to expand...

Data, but not the config information, or you'd be able to ghost EWF disks
by creating a byte-level copy of the EWF partition.

If you are using RAM EWF you can use my solution to configure EWF by using
registry only.
Click to expand...

You've mentioned that several times already, but I never did it because I
mistrust RAM EWF for long uptimes.

Whith RAM EWF you assign memory to EWF, but I assume you're not going to
plug in a gigabyte of RAM just because EWF might ever need it.

What happens when it runs out of memory (be it after a day, a week, or
months of uptime)? If it crashes or spontaneously reboots, RAM EWF is out
of the question for me.
 
Whith RAM EWF you assign memory to EWF, but I assume you're not going to
plug in a gigabyte of RAM just because EWF might ever need it.
Click to expand...

If XPe is properly configured EWF won't eat more than 1 MB of RAM.

If you use OS partition size of 64 MB. The worst case scenario would be to
make 100% defragmentation (that every sector is changed) in this scenario
you would loose 64 MB + few MB of RAM no more.

This will never happen in regular XPe usage.
What happens when it runs out of memory (be it after a day, a week, or
months of uptime)? If it crashes or spontaneously reboots, RAM EWF is out
of the question for me.
Click to expand...

If this happens results are not predictable .

Regards,
Slobodan
 
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