Loading w2k on 11 wkstations?

[DMS]

I have eleven identical Pentium II - 350 computers with wiped hard drives to
load with w2k, Office, etc... How could I best go about about this in mass
production style?

Loading one master, attaching each HD as slave and and then
creating/transferring disc images for the others? If so, how do I get the
drives formated first? Do I need any special hardware or software? I guess
it can be done via a network also? What does that involve? Would it bog
down the network?

Any suggestions/details for the best method would be greatly appreciated.

[R!V@L]

Use a 3rd party software like GHOST and burn a image onto
a CD and make one for 3 or 4 machines to do at once.
Setting up each drive as slave is also a super quick way
because of the transfer rate speeds. But you also have to
touch the drives more with your hands. beware of the
static monster.

make sure you run GHOSTWALK or something like that to
change the SID's to generic.

>.
>

[AppLauncher]

easiest for 11. Install 2000 and make it the way you want it to be, sysprep
it, ghost it. Make a bootable CD with ghost on it and boot to CD run ghost
with the image on the CD. You may have to keep s/w to under 4-5 apps to get
it to fit on 700MB, but for 11 users, this may be the quickest. RIS takes a
while especially to troubleshoot.

"DMS" <dbotaNO$PAM@NO$PAMatt.net> wrote in message
news:zU7a9.3953$p%3.28...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

[Billy]

Prepare source station (all software, patches etc), sysprep, and clone HDDs
locally.
Or create source image, write it on CDROM, and clone it at each wksta
individually.
To use network option, you need network clone diskette and network share
with image.
If you add 11 stations to existed network, maybe network option as well as
RIS option is most appropriate. Otherwise stick with any local clone.

[DMS]

People keep mentioning sysprep .... I'm guessing it is part of w2k ... ? Can
anyone direct me to more info on sysprep?

Also I think there are different versions of Ghost and not all of them let
you perform the above. Which ver do I need ... Ghost Corporate 7.5 or Ghost
2002?

(As mentioned, I think what would work best for me is to be able to create a
CD iwith a disc image of the original machine that would boot each blank
machine and install the disc image. Providing that the CD can hold an image
that contains w2k, Office & Acrobat 5. I guess we could do it by USB
connection but that would probaby be very slow?)

> easiest for 11. Install 2000 and make it the way you want it to be,
sysprep
> it, ghost it. Make a bootable CD with ghost on it and boot to CD run
ghost
> with the image on the CD. You may have to keep s/w to under 4-5 apps to
get
> it to fit on 700MB, but for 11 users, this may be the quickest. RIS takes
a
> while especially to troubleshoot.

---------------------------

[DMS]

Thanks for replying Billy,

These machines will not be used on the same network, so it seems that
creating a CD image to clone the machines might be the way to go for me.

What do you mean by clone HDD's locally ... is that the network option you
refer to or is that done by plugging the HDD's in temporarily as a slave
drive?

Why does sysprep have to be used? What does it do basically? Is it
required if the CD disc image method is used?

[DMS]

Ok, I figured out what sysprep does.

One other question I have is: how is the FTFS formatting of the cloned
drives handled? (The eleven machines currently have wiped drives. )

(I am planning on using Ghost and sysprep either by CD or USB means.)

--
Daniel Stiefel
Phonetics Lab
Linguistics Dept.
University of Washington
pho...@u.washington.edu
206-616-1979

"DMS" <dbotaNO$PAM@NO$PAMatt.net> wrote in message

news:W7va9.35885$Ke2.2...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

[Billy]

Couple of words about sysprep: it may change the SID and do remove Digital
Product ID, Product ID, machinename, and users from the registry, so you
figured it yourself already.
When you clone, say using Ghost (recommended :), it creates the partitions
and formats them on-the-fly, no matter what file system is in use - FAT(32),
NTFS, ext2fs etc. Moreover, Ghost converts some file systems if you want.
All you need is to create DOS diskette with CD support using Ghost wizard or
yourself. Do not worry about Ghost version, I cloned NTFS5 using Ghost5 or
6.
Local clone means, as you figured too, two HDDs in the system (source and
destination), or CDROM use.
Do not try to use external CDROM; USB won't work, and I couldn't recommend
Backpack solution as it's slo-o-o-o-w.
Ghost has an option to clone images across the wire; It's special diskette
like a MS network client one, and it would be better if you create it using
Ghost wizard.
RIS option we'll discuss next time :)

[DMS]

Thanks again Billy for your help.

For us doing this over an extended network makes no sense. (Not all the
machines will live on the same network and we can't afford the bandwidth)

I think either a compressed image CD or a null network or USB cable would
be the best means for us. To your knowledge, what are the
advantages/disadvantages between these 3 methods?

Two other questions:
"Across the wire" means a USB or null network cable?
And what's a "Backpack solution"?

dan

[Billy]

CD bootable image is my favorite choice (for CD-armed machines) as hard-copy
or backup. Having this disk, you easily recover the system during first
couple of months when a lame user is screwing it up every week or day :) ;
Or when you build up the additional order.
Backpack means this ugly box with CDROM drive inside which connects to LPT
port.
If you can connect two boxes using USB or laplink (LPT-LPT) cable, it would
be fine.
Now let me ask you something: null network cable - does it have the same
meaning as null-modem cable? If so, the answer is Yes and No. You can
connect two boxes using crossover cable, and you can just plug the new one
into existed hub or switch with regular patch; You are Ghost-ready in both
cases. Machine where you keeps Ghost image must be up and running, indeed.

The Ghost Boot Wizard helps you create boot disks that provide network
support for multicasting and TCP/IP peer-to-peer connections. Before
starting this process, you need to know the types of network cards that are
installed on your client computers. Unless you use the multicard template,
you must create a boot disk for each network card. You decide whether there
will be DHCP or static address.

The Ghost Boot Wizard creates a boot disk that does one of the following:
- Lets you write Ghost images to a CD-R/RW
- Runs Ghost.exe on computers with LPT and USB support
- Contains Ghost.exe only
Note: Symantec Ghost does not support writing to a CD drive that is
connected with a USB cable.
The default mode is ECP/EPP High Speed. If you are having problems with your
LPT connection, set the mode to Bidirectional 8bit or Bidirectional 4bit.
The next time you create a boot disk, the mode is reset to the default
ECP/EPP High Speed. If you have multiple parallel ports and want to connect
via any port other than the default LPT1, use the LPT port option to specify
the port into which your cable is plugged. If you cannot get a connection
with the default LPT port, you can connect to a specific port.

When your client computers need to access a network drive, use the Ghost
Boot Wizard to create boot disks that map a drive letter to a shared
resource on a network server.

[arvi...@gmail.com]

If you have massive computers, it's time-consuming to clone data one by one.
You could try to clone by local area network on windows or linux.

Have a look at the APP called PC Network Clone.
http://www.pcdisktools.com/pcnetworkclone.htm

We need some preparation before network clone.