Greetings,

I am very new here.

I have created a TFTP server that is allowing me to connect new computers to my network and pxe boot into a menu. from there I have several floppy images for the client to select.

here is where i am stuck.

when I launch ghost 2003 I cannot properly map the network drive which contains my ghost images. I have tried reading several (hours worth) of posts online until I found this board and figured I would ask you guys.

Here is where I think i am going wrong...

autoexec.bat


@echo off

SET TZ=GHO+06:00

prompt $p$g

\net\netbind.com

if exist MOUSE.COM MOUSE.COM

echo Loading...

\NET\NET START
\NET\NET.EXE USE Z: \\Service-pc\ghostimages
\NET\NET.EXE US

CD \GHOST

GHOST.EXE -clone,mode=load,src=z:\,


Command.com

net.exe
LASTDRIVE = Z


The computer which has the ghost images on it has a share full read write execute with no security what so ever. It is a winxp pro machine called "Service-pc" and the drive is partitioned into 2 volumes. One volume is called "ghostimages" and I would like the ghost clients to start in this directory.

Right now when I try I get into ghost fine, however I get error

"clone DST UNKNOWN 447"

any help would be appreciated. My guess is that my syntax is wrong somewhere as I have never done this before.

when I run the ghost without trying to map the network drive I can get into the program fine but can only look in the A: for ghost files as there is no drive mapped, so I think I have everything right but the mapping...

thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

ya ive tried that disk on many occasions. works fine for old computers but anything modern I have around will not network boot from it. they will boot from floppy and ghost fine but not network PXE. the only machine i have been able to network boot and then ghost with it is intel atoms. any other newer (within the last year) intel boards i have that I  try or even asus boards dont seem to work with that disk when i netboot, they just freeze right before ghost loads.

jeffmspb

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A disclaimer first--I'm not an expert on networking and have little physical experience using Ghost over a network--most of what I know is from what I've read here and elsewhere--but, I have not actually used networking to any great extent.  So, I'm not sure I understand what exactly is meant by your above statement.

But, let me ask this--does the above mean you can access a remote computer hooked up to your system and boot that remote system to DOS from those *several floppy images*--so the client machine can be a system with no OS or otherwise formatted HDD--it can boot as if you loaded a floppy drive boot disk (or bootable CD/DVD) ?

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Their latest release is v6.5 released on May 23, 2010!  So, it appears to be still actively supported and updated.  If that generic disk created by folks who probably know an awful lot about booting from a networking boot disk doesn't work, seems difficult to expect a homemade network boot disk will work any better!?

When I played around with networking, it was two systems hooked up to a router.  Each system had to be booted from a boot disk or disc with appropriate network drivers for the NIC installed.  The router did the IP address assigning automatically, and once booted and Ghost loaded, I had to select if the system was the source or the destination device (Master or Slave I think is the terminology that was used--this if from vague old memory of 4-5 years ago!)

A couple things--

1.  I was using systems that already had Windows loaded which used the NIC for access to the Web, etc.--I discovered, after loosing most of my hair, that unless I physically powered down my systems (they were older systems--maybe newer ones don't have this issue any more--one can only hope!) and cold booted, the NIC would not properly reset it's use of resources that were assigned while in Windows--so the IRQ and I/O settings would not be reset to the values used by the DOS networking drivers that they attempted to assign during boot!--the NIC retained the Windows settings unless there was a cold boot--so the DOS driver could never successfully access the NIC in DOS--always got an error message about NIC not found no matter what boot disk I tried!  When I was experimenting I was always in Windows first and then rebooting once I placed a floppy boot disk in the drive--never powering down.  Is that a possible issue with your setup?

2.  Do you have the ability to boot the remote client with a floppy or boot optical disc?  Will it find and establish a network connection from a physical boot disk/disc (with the proper DOS NIC driver(s), as opposed to attempting a remote boot (if that's what your above statement implies)?  Basically, trying to make things as simple and basic as possible initially before going on to more complex setup.

If you use the network boot disk mentioned above by Brian to physically boot the system from the client directly, and you can establish a network connection, then probably you can work out the bugs of the other issues you are having.

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This might be an issue also:

1.  Ghost 2003 is a *consumer=retail* version of Ghost, and may not be up to the standards needed for a Corporate level use!

2.  A license is required for each system on which Ghost 2003 is installed to, or is used to create or restore/install an Ghost image on--proceed at your/your company's own risk!

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Yes, there appears to several issues:

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I presume *Command.com* should be *Config.sys* for the proper DOS boot files.  Below is a resource on creating a bootable optical disc to run Ghost 8.x on a network--it also works fine for Ghost 2003.  I don't recognize your *net.exe* program--I'm not saying it doesn't belong there, just not something I've seen before.  But, that program is loaded in *autoexec.bat* as well, with a *US* switch (?) at the end--and I don't know what that means either.

How to Create a Ghost 8.0 Network Boot CD

Here's the *config.sys* used by the above resource:

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Looks quite a bit different from yours!

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There should have been a number of other errors during the loading of other lines in the *config.sys* and *autoexec.bat*.  During initial boot of a system to DOS, you can press the F8 function key just as the system says it's loading DOS.  You can then select a step-by-step loading of the boot files lines--it stops after each line and you can read any error messages that are generated by the line just loaded.

I'm out of room for max thread size--so will continue in next post.

well it seems every 5 minutes i have a new autoexec.bat so i have to bring you up to speed but first let me explain the situation again..


i have a xp pro computer. it has a shared drive called "ghostimages".

i have a ghost floppy disk from 5 years ago. If I put it in a usb FDD and then hook a client machine up to the network it will boot off the USB FDD and then connect to

\\service-pc\ghostimages directory

once there it opens a folder called "bootdisk". inside bootdisk is ghost.exe

The client PC opens up ghost, I then select the image I want stored on the \\service-pc\ghostimages directory.

then I load the image.


this works fine with almost any PC I throw at it. I can write new images, or take images from service-pc and load them onto the client.

the floppy disk was made years ago by someone I dont know. it was made using the netboot.com setup, plus a programmer put a bunch of stuff in the disk that I have no idea what it is doing (half of it is commented out, seems like fancier menus etc)

so since I dont know jack I figured I would make my own PXE server and then make my own floppy image to be loaded to the machines through a menu.

so

I have the menu. i have several floppy images on there, 1 is a diagnostic utility, the other is a formatting utility etc. they all run fine. they are just .IMG or .IMZ files

when i make a link to run the .IMG file for the disk that I use to USBFDD boot machines as mentioned above, it just freezes after declaring the mouse installed.



sooooo

after spending a week or so trying to mod the files that I use for the USB FDD boot up, I decided to make my own image.


really all I need is a floppy image that can be selected from my PXE menu.

its got to map a drive (\\service-pc\ghostimages)
and then launch ghost (\\service-pc\ghostimages\bootdisk\ghost.exe)
then when ghost opens the drive must be mapped.

so ya, need to select a floppy image from menu, the floppy image has to map a drive and then launch ghost. ghost needs access to the mapped drive so that it can select the proper image or write the proper image.

thank you for actually reading this !

its just one of those days I tell ya lol

so for the time being i am still USB FDD booting each machine 1 at a time and imaging 1 at a time, it is very tedious and slow and boring to say the least.

jeffmspb

jeffmspb wrote on Sep 30^th, 2010 at 10:09am:

So it is only PXE that is an issue with new computers. Using a NetBootDisk in standard fashion is fine? If that's true there is an alternative to using PXE. You can use NetBootDisk in an automated setting. No boot disk needed, running at 3 am (if you like) as a scheduled task, no user intervention. At 3 am the remote computer restarts into NetBootDisk, runs the Ghost restore and restarts into the restored OS.

jeffmspb

Anything of help in this?

http://www.netbootdisk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=683

jeffmspb

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So, that shared drive is FAT?

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Do you mean *Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk*--I don't find a *netboot.com* website?

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If your floppy disk is from the Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk--they use a lot of compressed files and decompression to fit more data on a boot floppy than would *normally* be there (i.e. 1.44 MB)--so maybe Brian's link solves that issue.

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Hmmmm....it would be of great interest if you posted the list of files on that floppy disk, and copy and paste the contents of the *autoexec.bat* and *config.sys* files from NotePad to the forum here to see what works so well on *almost any PC*!