Automated BartPE Ghost CD Installer

Automated BartPE Ghost CD Installer

Recently Grayden MacLennan wrote to the Sysadmins Mailing List about using BartPE along with Ghost 8.x as a workaround for the Netgear GA621 DOS drivers not working in some buildings. BartPE will create a bootable windows CD, and from there we can run the slightly more reliable windows GA621 drivers and the windows Ghost32 client. The following is a list of instructions to recreate his work.

  • Install the latest version of PE builder and have a Windows XP CD handy.
  • Then copy the following files from C:Programs FilesSymantecGhost into the C:pebuilder313pluginghost8files directory:

    ghost32.exe, ghostexp.exe, ghostsrv.exe, ghostcdr.dll

  • Enable the Ghost Plugin (Change to 'Yes' on the plug-in list)
  • (Optional) Enable Boot Fix ("Press any key to boot from CD") Plug-in
  • Create a folder C:pebuilder313driversNetGA621 and copy the Netgear GA621 Windows XP Driver files (DP83820.sys and NET83820.INI) into there.

If you stop here, you'll be able to burn a BartPE disc with Ghost and the drivers for the Netgear GA621. I recommened you make at least one CD like this so you can can experiment with everything else BartPE has to offer, and also for use pulling a ghost image from a source machine. To create a fully automatic bootable client CD suitable for pushing an image out , perform this last step:

  • Replace the C:pebuilder313pluginpenetcfgpenetcfg.ini file with these contents:

[General]
AutoStartNet=Yes
PromptForProfile=No
ShowGUI=No

[NetAdapter1]
EnableDHCP=Yes
UseStaticGateway=No
UseStaticDNS=No
UseStaticWINS=No
IPAddress=
SubnetMask=
DefaultGateway=
DNSServer=

[PostNetAutoRun]
; StarupFlag = CommandLine

; StartupFlag is a bit field that can take the following values:
; 0 = run hidden and wait (00 00 00 00)
; 1 = run normal and wait (00 00 00 01)
; 2 = run hidden and don't wait (00 00 00 10)
; 3 = run normal and don't wait (00 00 00 11)

1 = %SystemDrive%programsghost8ghost32 -ja=GHOSTSESSIONNAME -sure -rb

The above configuration will automatically install the GA621 Network Adapter, configure it with DHCP, and then start Ghost after the network is setup. Replace "GHOSTSESSIONNAME" with the typical name of your multicast sessions. The switch "-sure" automatically answers the "Proceed with disk load?" prompt. The "-rb" switch reboots the machine automatically when it is done ghosting.

You can customize this however you wish; See http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/pfdocs/1998082612540625 for an alphabetical list of all the command line switches for ghost.