Using sysprep on Win2K to unplanned different hardware

[Michael Leone]

Here's my situation. I want to be able to make a sysprepped image of my
Win2K installations (both Win2K Pro and Win2K server); ghost them; put the
image on dissimilar hardware (i.e., my image has IDE drives; the new
hardware has a SCSI RAID controller); and make it work.

The catch? I don't know what the new hardware will be, ahead of time, so I
can not copy any drivers to an $OEM$ folder on my current installations. I
could be getting a new machine with a Dell PERC 3/DI controller; it could be
a Compaq with their RAID controllers; etc.

(my Disaster recovery firm will guarantee me a "Intel-based server, with
these specs - RAM, disk space, etc", but not specific brands or models. And
I need to be able to quickly bring up my machines during D/R, without
manually reinstall OSes, applications, etc - much too time consuming. So I
want to bring up a sysprepped image, and then restore most current data
files from tape)

How can I handle this situation? Basically, I *think* what I want is for the
image to stop and ask for drivers, the first time it boots. With new clean
installs, I hit "F6". How can I get that same functionality with sysprep? I
want it to ask for new drivers at initial startup, and then just go on, and
put my image (with it's already configured applications, settings, etc) to
use.

 

[Dennis Calhoun]

Here's my situation. I want to be able to make a sysprepped image of my
Win2K installations (both Win2K Pro and Win2K server); ghost them; put the
image on dissimilar hardware (i.e., my image has IDE drives; the new
hardware has a SCSI RAID controller); and make it work.

The catch? I don't know what the new hardware will be, ahead of time, so I
can not copy any drivers to an $OEM$ folder on my current installations. I
could be getting a new machine with a Dell PERC 3/DI controller; it could be
a Compaq with their RAID controllers; etc.

(my Disaster recovery firm will guarantee me a "Intel-based server, with
these specs - RAM, disk space, etc", but not specific brands or models. And
I need to be able to quickly bring up my machines during D/R, without
manually reinstall OSes, applications, etc - much too time consuming. So I
want to bring up a sysprepped image, and then restore most current data
files from tape)

How can I handle this situation? Basically, I *think* what I want is for the
image to stop and ask for drivers, the first time it boots. With new clean
installs, I hit "F6". How can I get that same functionality with sysprep? I
want it to ask for new drivers at initial startup, and then just go on, and
put my image (with it's already configured applications, settings, etc) to
use.

If you can be assured that all involved systems with have the same
HAL, such as they will all be ACPI uniprocessor PC type systems, get
sysprep 1.1 from the MS website and extract it. In the cab you will
find a DOCS folder and in it are two files that contain ALL of the IDE
and SCSI entries that Win 2000 includes. The files are idepnpids.txt
and scsipnpids.txt.

You can add the entire list of IDE and SCSI mass storage device
entries to the [SysprepMassStorage] section of your Sysprep.inf file.
When you boot up a machine that has all of these, so long as the
machine contains a device that is in the list, it *will* be properly
assigned the necessary driver and will boot up ok.

Also, in your distro you need to add the cmdlines.txt file to your
$OEM$ folder and in that file have the *first* command be
C:\Sysprep\Sysprep -clean
assuming you have Sysprep located in C:\Sysprep [adjust to fit your
location]

This will clean out all unnecessary drivers for which ever interface
type is in the machine. One glitch is that if the machine has only IDE
devices, all of the SCSI entries will be left installed, same goes for
if it has SCSI only, all the IDE will be there. You can open Device
Manager and uninstall which ever is left that is not needed or you can
use only the IDE listing in a clone for only IDE based units and only
the SCSI listings for only SCSI based units.

Even if you do not uninstall the unnecessary device drivers, it will
not affect the operation of the unit. It might add a little time to
the boot process, but nothing else will be affected.

 

[Michael Leone]

If you can be assured that all involved systems with have the same
HAL, such as they will all be ACPI uniprocessor PC type systems, get
sysprep 1.1 from the MS website and extract it. In the cab you will
find a DOCS folder and in it are two files that contain ALL of the IDE
and SCSI entries that Win 2000 includes. The files are idepnpids.txt
and scsipnpids.txt.

You can add the entire list of IDE and SCSI mass storage device
entries to the [SysprepMassStorage] section of your Sysprep.inf file.
When you boot up a machine that has all of these, so long as the
machine contains a device that is in the list, it *will* be properly
assigned the necessary driver and will boot up ok.

The hard disks in the replacement machines will be connected to RAID
controllers that are (almost certainly) not in that list. That list includes
no Dell PERC RAID controllers, that I saw, and these machines will
(probably, altho not defintely) be Dell machines, using Dell RAID
controllers (altho I can not guarantee ahead of time with model RAID
controller). So adding those drivers entries you speak of to the sysprep.inf
wouldn't help me, in that sitution, would it?

Also, in your distro you need to add the cmdlines.txt file to your
$OEM$ folder and in that file have the *first* command be
C:\Sysprep\Sysprep -clean
assuming you have Sysprep located in C:\Sysprep [adjust to fit your
location]

My sysprep.inf file has all the IDE drivers listed (altho I also had to add
a registry file with those same drivers, according to an MS KB article I
found). This works for all machines I've tried, that are on machines with no
SCSI controllers. Everytime I add the SCSI list to the sysprep.inf file
(making no other changes), and re-do sysprep, it blue screens with "07B". If
I remove the SCSI entries from the list, and leave just the IDE, it boots
fine. Every time, on multiple models of hardware.

Never boots with both IDE and SCSI controllers listed. I even downloaded a
sysprep.inf from the Net, from the author of the Windows 2000 Deployment
Guide book ... still blue-screens. Every time, and on multiple models (IDE
only, IDE and SCSI drives attached).

 

[Dennis Calhoun]

[snip]
The hard disks in the replacement machines will be connected to RAID
controllers that are (almost certainly) not in that list. That list includes
no Dell PERC RAID controllers, that I saw, and these machines will
(probably, altho not defintely) be Dell machines, using Dell RAID
controllers (altho I can not guarantee ahead of time with model RAID
controller). So adding those drivers entries you speak of to the sysprep.inf
wouldn't help me, in that sitution, would it?

Not unless one of the generic drivers that is included with Win2000
would be enough to get the system booted in a minimally usable state.
If so, which I doubt, one could then use the Dell disk to install the
correct driver/s. Not a likely scenario, but not impossible, maybe.

Also, in your distro you need to add the cmdlines.txt file to your
$OEM$ folder and in that file have the *first* command be
C:\Sysprep\Sysprep -clean
assuming you have Sysprep located in C:\Sysprep [adjust to fit your
location]

My sysprep.inf file has all the IDE drivers listed (altho I also had to add
a registry file with those same drivers, according to an MS KB article I
found). This works for all machines I've tried, that are on machines with no
SCSI controllers. Everytime I add the SCSI list to the sysprep.inf file
(making no other changes), and re-do sysprep, it blue screens with "07B". If
I remove the SCSI entries from the list, and leave just the IDE, it boots
fine. Every time, on multiple models of hardware.

Never boots with both IDE and SCSI controllers listed. I even downloaded a
sysprep.inf from the Net, from the author of the Windows 2000 Deployment
Guide book ... still blue-screens. Every time, and on multiple models (IDE
only, IDE and SCSI drives attached).

Hmmm.... that's strange. I've made a syspreped image on a Dell GX100
that I've since cloned to GX150, GX1 and one of the Dimensions too,
with a total of 5 or six different IDE controllers. Not once have I
seen the blue screen with 07B as you have. Maybe just my luck, which
could change unexpectedly.

Back to what you are trying to accomplish.....
You say that you want this "one size fits all" image to use for fast
fix D/R. How about this....
As each new batch of machines come in and you *know* what is in the
box, make a "Ghosted only" clone of each different system type, just
for the short run. Collect the necessary information and drivers/files
from each set and once you have all you need for all of the whole lot,
fire up your original Model System, add the files in the location you
desire, make the necessary Sysprep.inf entries and registry changes
(if needed) then make a new Master image. After some testing and fine
tuning, deed done.

What I've been doing at our school is to make a Ghosted Only image of
the original software package and configuration, an image of the whole
disk, without using sysprep. I use this clean original to restore to
the model computer prior to making any updated master images that are
syspreped, to avoid potential problems, like accumulated duplicate
entries in some registry values.

IN another post of mine I spoke of my inability to get anything that I
enter in the $OEM$ tree to actually be DONE on a target computer. One
thing that I've thought of *might* also interest you, but there is a
glitch in your case that I will mention in a bit.

I am using Ghost 2003 for our cloning, don't have the luxury of the
Corporate edition. I've thought that it might be possible to add
something to a drive immediately after it has been restored from an
image that is held on a mapped network drive in our peer-to-peer
setup. In our case, I think this would be ok, because the things I
want to import would be needed only after the mini-setup has ran its
course (PnP drivers for peripheral devices). I *have* already found
that once Ghost has completed writing the image to the target computer
I can elect to click "continue" rather than "reset computer". It will
then close the GUI of the Ghost executable and return to a command
prompt. At that point the computer is still connected to the source
computer, via the drive-mapping boot disk connection that was first
established when I began the process. I THINK I should be able to use
that command line interface to copy or xcopy additional directories or
files from the source to the target drive, but I have not yet had time
to test this idea.

You could do that too, if it will work, but the glitch I see is in the
registry entries. If you are comfortable with making such edits en
mass, you could release the attributes on the hives and then import
your edited version/s, along with all the necessary files, then reset
the attributes. Seems like a lot of bother to me and I tend to think
it would be easier to just make a new master image once you have
collected everything necessary from the new systems.

--
The universe is so huge and we are so small.
There is only one thing that we can truly control.
Whether we are good or evil.

Dennis C.

 

[Dennis Calhoun]

Here's my situation. I want to be able to make a sysprepped image of my
Win2K installations (both Win2K Pro and Win2K server); ghost them; put the
image on dissimilar hardware (i.e., my image has IDE drives; the new
hardware has a SCSI RAID controller); and make it work.

The catch? I don't know what the new hardware will be, ahead of time, so I
can not copy any drivers to an $OEM$ folder on my current installations. I
could be getting a new machine with a Dell PERC 3/DI controller; it could be
a Compaq with their RAID controllers; etc.

[snip]

This might hit the nail on the head for your situation.
<http://x220.win2ktest.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4911>

 

[Michael Leone]

Back to what you are trying to accomplish.....
You say that you want this "one size fits all" image to use for fast
fix D/R. How about this....
As each new batch of machines come in and you *know* what is in the
box, make a "Ghosted only" clone of each different system type, just
for the short run. Collect the necessary information and drivers/files

You misunderstand - there is no "batch" of machines. I want to make images
of my existing servers, and ghost the sysprepped image. Then, when doing
D/R, I restore the ghosted image of my server, and have it come up (on
dissimilar hardware - exactly *which* hardware I will get during the
Disaster Recovery test, I will NOT know in advance, so it's kinda tough to
prepopulate drivers).

Obviously, I'm not going to fool with production servers, so I am trying
this procedure on test machines. And I can't get my sysprepped image (made
from an IDE) to come up on a SCSI-based machine. Which leaves me with no
confidence that a sysprepped image of my current server, with it's
SCSI-based controller, would be able to come up on disimilar hardware.

Going from IDE to IDE is no problem - I've imported registry entries that
list all the IDE controllers on thw Win2K CD, and added entries to the
sysprep file for all those same entries. And my images come up, on Dell
GX110, 150, 260, 270s (all my workstations). It's the servers, with their
SCSI controllers (none of which are included on the Win2K CD) that I need to
worry about.

 

[Michael Leone]

Here's my situation. I want to be able to make a sysprepped image of my
Win2K installations (both Win2K Pro and Win2K server); ghost them; put the
image on dissimilar hardware (i.e., my image has IDE drives; the new
hardware has a SCSI RAID controller); and make it work.

The catch? I don't know what the new hardware will be, ahead of time, so I
can not copy any drivers to an $OEM$ folder on my current installations. I
could be getting a new machine with a Dell PERC 3/DI controller; it could be
a Compaq with their RAID controllers; etc.

[snip]

This might hit the nail on the head for your situation.
<http://x220.win2ktest.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=4911>

Now, THAT looks like an intensely interesting page! Thanks so much for
that. I will see if I can add that to my sysprep file, and if it will come
up on a old PowerEdge 1300 I have (with built-in SCSI controller). I have
what I think is a Dell PERC RAID controller here; I will see if it will come
up on it, too.

Thanks so much!

 

[Dennis Calhoun]

Now, THAT looks like an intensely interesting page! Thanks so much for
that. I will see if I can add that to my sysprep file, and if it will come
up on a old PowerEdge 1300 I have (with built-in SCSI controller). I have
what I think is a Dell PERC RAID controller here; I will see if it will come
up on it, too.

Thanks so much!

You're welcome and I hope it works well for you.

Now, if some experienced person would lend a bit of insight to help my
learning situation....

I THINK I have been working on a misunderstanding of something,
brought on by a lack of clarity in what I found on the MS website.

I THINK the $OEM$ distribution tree is a thing that is intended to
work as part of an "unattended installation", but NOT as part of a
disk duplication that involves the use of sysprep. If so, it is no
wonder that I can't for the life of me get anything happening with it
that way.

Yes? No?

 

[Chris]

That would be my understanding, yes.

Our setup uses RIS to deploy unattended images using the $OEM$ folder
structure & it works a treat & I've used it for unattended CD-based images
too. As for duplicating disks, well I'm no expert, but I thought sysprep was
just used to create a new SID so you could name the machines correctly.