199 replies to this topic

[ccuappz]

Hi Shirin Zaban,

Thanks for the great tutorial and introducing such a marvelous tool.
As you mentioned previously about VM I did the following:
- I made a VM and tweaked my OS to my needs and installed other applications like Office etc.
- Successfully ran SPAT and sysprepping it.
- Shut down the VM.

Now I need some advice on how to create the image using Ghost/Acronis/.. or whatever image utility.
Will you please tell me how to create the image?
Should I make a bootable ISO and boot the VM with it and create image using ghost?
Or should I mount VM in guest and create ghost?

Which software to choose, symantec/acronis/...?

Will you give me some basic steps like you did for sysprepping please?
Thanks in advance

P.S. I used Acronis Home and boot VM with bootable acronis it created a TIB file but when I wanted to restore that image on another computer it began to restore and soon came up with a message saying "Recover failed" at the very first step and ruined the 1st physical partition. So basically it's a useless image that were created by me so far.

[Dohnut]

Hi ccuappz,

I know some people are going to groan about this, but since it's XP, I use Ghost on it. Have had a very very small failure rate. I have a bootable CD of ghost 2002 made from a floppy image stuck on the cd with MagicISO as the boot image.

As far as my VM machine is concerned, it has 2 drives attached so I can store the ghost image on the 2nd drive.

I fire it up, tell it to ghost to an image which is stored on the 2nd virtual drive, copy it off via shared folders...all done

[ccuappz]

Thanks Dohnut for swift reply,

You did the following:
- Boot the VM with ghost ISO.
- Created the image on the second virtual HD.
- Exit the bootable PE and shut down VM.
- Mount second virtual HD and copy the image to your Bootable Media

Did I get it right?

[Dohnut]

well, almost 2nd virtual hdd had no operating system on it, cant boot to it. it was there just to store the ghost image file. Once you are done with booting from the ghost cd, you reboot the vm like normal back to the windows desktop. then use the shared folders function to copy the ghost image file (or you can use a USB flash drive depending on what vm you use. I'm running oracle's virtualbox.

Here's my setup as far as drives go:

VirtualBox
- 1st HDD (10gb) - XP installed
- 2nd HDD (10gb) - formatted to fat32 (sometimes ghost hates ntfs)
- USB Flash Drive (16gb)
- Virtual Ghost.iso to boot from to make the image

Note - both hdd are active at the same time so ghost can copy from one to the other

[ccuappz]

Thanks again,

How should I create image using ghost32.exe? Sould I backup Disk or Partition?
I'm gonna deploy the image to some PCs with different configs.
Except C partitions all other partition should be left intact.

1. Local>Partition>To image?
2. Local>Disk>To image?

My 1st and 2nd Virtual-HD is 6GB.
What's the procedure please?
TIA

[Dohnut]

2 things to consider:

Disk > Image will copy the ENTIRE HDD, bootloader and all. Which means that when you put the image back on a HDD, you will lose EVERYTHING on that drive. Use this option if you want a single boot system to run XP only.

Partition > Image won't necessarily copy the bootloader, but when you put it back on a drive, you can say to which partition it will go to. You can then use a XP cd to reinstall the bootloader and off you go. If you run a dual boot system, such as Linux + Windows, go with Partition > Image.

Keep in mind that when you put it back on a hdd, Disk > Image may or may not stretch to fit the drive like you want it to. You may have to run GParted, PartedMagic or even PartitionMagic to stretch it to the full drive.

One more thing, make sure the 2nd drive is Fat32 formatted.

[ccuappz]

One more thing, make sure the 2nd drive is Fat32 formatted.

Ok I just created 2nd V-HD in FAT32. with default sector size.

If you run a dual boot system, such as Linux + Windows, go with Partition > Image.

All systems are gonna have one OS.

Partition > Image won't necessarily copy the bootloader, but when you put it back on a drive, you can say to which partition it will go to. You can then use a XP cd to reinstall the bootlader and off you go.

Is there another alternative to XP cd? I never used XP cd except for full installation and am unfamiliar with recovering boot-loader to C: with it.

Thanks again

[Dohnut]

Recovering with the XP CD is simple

Follow this link and all will be clear. It's really really easy to fix.

Fix XP and Vista Boot Record

...just ignore the vista part of that tutorial

[ccuappz]

Oh One more thing

Keep in mind that when you put it back on a hdd, Disk > Image may or may not stretch to fit the drive like you want it to. You may have to run GParted, PartedMagic or even PartitionMagic to stretch it to the full drive.

I think all C partition are greater than 6GB. So I 'll use "Partition>To Image" method. Do you think I'll need GParted if I use "Partition>To image" ?

Sorry to ask so many questions 'coz I'm about to leave here and that place doesn't have internet connection. I have to make those PCs up and running today.

[Dohnut]

If i minded the questions I wouldn't be answering them

If you use partition > image, you wont need it.

If you use disk > image, It's been awhile since I have done a ghost image, but I think you will need gparted.



Oh, and good luck

[ccuappz]

Thanks zillions
I wish ghost create compressed format with no pagefile in it too.

[Dohnut]

lmao, you didn't ask for pretty easy way to do that is set the system to use no pagefile, delete pagefile.sys, make your image. Once you put your image back on the other systems, turn the pagefile back on.

To turn off pagefiles: right click My Computer, choose Properties, Choose Advanced tab, under Performance - click Settings. Click the Advanced tab on the new window that pops up. Under virutal memory (at the bottom), click Change. Tick the little circle for No Paging File. Then click Set. You will likely have to reboot for it to take effect, just dont forget to turn it back on in the other systems when you are done

[ccuappz]

Yep I noticed that too. I set it to No Page file and the file still exists. But I think after finishing SPAT and shutdown, the system erases it automatically. So ghost doesn't see any pagefile. (no need to reboot?)

[Dohnut]

not if it doesn't prompt you to. I always like to reboot after that kind of change though, just to be sure everything is still running right Personal choice

[ccuappz]

Does Ghost have a tool to explore and delete some files in its archives?

[Dohnut]

Yep, Sure does, it's called Ghost Explorer

[ccuappz]

Ok I rebooted and copied all Drivers/SPAT to VM.
The C Partition is 4.9GB now.
I found another ISO image that has Ghost in it and will post very soon again.
Really appreciated your help.

[Dohnut]

Your very welcome

Let us all know how it works for you.

[ccuappz]

Hi again,
What I did were:
- SPAT
- Turn VM off
- Boot VM with ISO image
- Create ghost image from 1st V-HD on 2nd (FAT32) V-HD
- Turn VM off
- PROBLEM: can't map the 2nd V-HD to HOST!!
so I
- boot VM with ISO again
- Now I'm copying GHO file to a USB storage device

But I think the GHO image file is not good again

[ccuappz]

I created 2 partitions on V-HD (just for test purpose) and ghosting from
GHO (on flash usb) to C Partition....

[ccuappz]

Well at last it worked on VM.

However it's kinda mysterious to me.
After ghost it didn't find OS. I tried XP cd but the recovery didn't appear.
I tried some other tools but didn't venture to try them.
Again booted with XP cd, this time I pressed Enter and selected to install on C:.
When I reached the step where it says "Leave the partition intact" I quit the setup.
I wanted to try another tool, but to my surprise it found OS.
I chose EasyDriver instead of SkyDriver, and everything's working great here.

Wish me luck for my friend's systems out there.

Thank you Dohnut and Shirin Zaban

[Dohnut]

Don't thank me my friend, thank Shirin

Happy to hear you have it working, this topic I am sure will come in handy to a lot of people (myself included).

I am an IT tech by trade, so you can imagine how much an XP like this would be worth in time savings alone.

[ccuappz]

Well it went ok with one physical machine so far.

[Dohnut]

Ya know, you had mentioned trying it with Acronis and it epic failed...so I decided to give it a whirl a little bit ago. I am running Acronis Home 2010. I made the xphome.tib files, copied them off of the drive, used them on my laptop, went without a hitch.

I'd be interested in what options you are using in Acronis and what version you use, maybe we can iron out the wrinkles

Side Note: I swear one day I am going to get a boot-land t-shirt and bumper sticker

[ccuappz]

Acronis 2010 Home.
I'm gonna try it again myself if I have time. As I previously mentioned I couldn't and still can't map the 2nd V-HD.
The 1st V-HD however, mapped easily. Maybe VMware has problem with FAT32??
Maybe something like this happened to Acronis too.
When I wanted to validate image it didn't pass the test. The image was created on NTFS partition btw.