I am preparing a project of reimaging 600 laptops used by our mobile sales force. Typically, we save off their data to a server, reghost them from another, and pull their data back from the original server.

I'm just wondering if I could get some input on how everyone else who reads these posts handles migrations. I really looking for something that I can use to reimage their systems as fast as possible since our image is so large (5GB). Here's the layout:

C: = OS (Win2000) & Apps
D: = Data (My Docs, Favorites, Notes DB's, etc)
E: = Image partition (stores an image of C: so they can reghost themselves, if needed. using a boot CD )

Last time, I made a bootable DVD that wiped out the E: partition, copied an updated image to E:, then it reGhosted the C: drive with the new image. This entire process took about 35 minutes.

This time, we need to save off all data and completely wipe out the system.

Again, the question is: "....looking for something that I can use to reimage their systems as fast as possible" How can this be done?

Questions or comments are welcome.

TIA!

Are the laptops that need to be wiped NTFS? If not, you could use LANMAN to log onto the network. Create a DOS batch file to copy files to the network share, reghost, then copy back.

No, I use FAT32 even though I believe NTFS is better suited for Win2000 and provides greater security. Management does not want NTFS yet on a sales rep's laptop.

I usually use a NetBEUI boot disk and backup the files to a server after running DOSLFNBK to save the long file names. I would then ghost the machines from another separate network (to eliminate excessive traffic and I/O bottlenecks) then reconnect to the same backup server that I used before to restore their data.

I need to speed up the process of imaging using whatever means necessary. 500 laptops x 40 minutes to ghost is a long time. (image is a massive 4GB+)and with only 4 days to do it, anything to speed up the process will help.

Look into multicast imaging. You set a ghost "server" and stream to all the clients. It is one stream that they all read, hence bandwidth cost is much less. You can get away with about 20 at a time like that on a production network and more if it is its own dedicated network.

-Ry

We typically image 30-50 laptops at a time, depending on how much data is being backed up. I just need to figure out what hardware will get these machines ghosted quicker. What kinds of speeds are you seeing when you ghost? And how many machines are you ghosting from the same server at a time?

I'm not sure what version of Ghost you're using, but for mass rollouts, you should be using the Enterprise console. Basically what that allows you to do is install a boot partion (Basically putting the contents of the floppy disk on to the HD). Ghost creates this partition for you and you multicast it on to the HD. Once this is done, the nic of the machine will show up in the console and you can more easily perform cloning operations. We currently have any clients simply pull an ip from the dhcp server. You can rename computers based on whatever scheme you choose, and if you're running NT you can have it automatically add to a domain and change the sid. There are also more advanced features that allow you to create autoinstall packages among other things.

There's more, but I think you'll find that the Enterprise version if you're not already using it is more suited to large rollouts.

PS Convince Management to go NTFS! I personally don't find many users have the need to reghost themselves, or if they do I send them the CD's (You can clone an image to multiple cd's). So you may be able to not have the ghost image on the E drive...)

I use Drive Image 5.1 myself to do the 40 computers I have in my classroom. I just image (from the server) one of the computers than use that computer as my server. I set it up to multicast and connect the other computers using my PQDI boot disk log into the session and once the other computers are seen in the session I hit go.
take about 30 min to an hour and it's done.
S