How much space do I need for a new image?
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So, we are capturing our first image from a Windows 7 HP machine with a 500GB hard drive. The actual size of the data on the drive is about 28GB. I told FOG to create a new image that was a “Single Partition, NTFS Only, Resizable” image and then created a Basic Task to upload that image to the server.
The image started uploading, but it is now on 63.20GB of 500GB. Why, when I picked the correct image type and there is so much blank space? Does it actually need enough space to copy the entire drive, and THEN resizes it down?
Caveat: for some reason in the “save partition to image file” box under “Detected file system” it says “raw” rather than NTFS. Why would this be? Is this the reason it’s not working correctly?
Edit: What would cause the resizing process at the beginning of imaging not to work correctly? I did notice it try to resize the partition at the beginning of loading from PXE, and then afterwards it said “raw.” Now, the machine will not boot from the drive. So it appears what happened is the machine booted from PXE, botched the resize operation, and trashed the drive in the process, causing FOG to think “well, I can’t tell what kind of file system this is, so I’m assuming I’m capturing the whole thing.”
Also, when I tried to delete the bad image it failed, and I had to manually delete it from tftpboot.
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I have had little luck getting Windows 7 to work with resizable option. I just use Multiple Partition - Single Disk. I mainly image 160GB drives and the image file only takes up as much space as the data that was on the disk, so anywhere from 38 to 40GB depending on the image.
I think in 0.32, there is a code path that gets “wonky” in regards to Windows 7 and whether or not you have the 200mb extra partition, regular system partition, or any other extra partitions. Instead of fighting it, I just use the Multiple Partition - Single Disk option, which works for me all the time.
What scares the hell out of me about the resizable option, is that if the process is interrupted or fails, the master image is hosed because of the resizing operation. I’d rather not work hours and hours getting my master read just to have it lost because of an issue during the upload process.
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Just had first hand experience with the scarry scenario mentioned - upload had to be interupted since I didn’t have room for a 230Gb image, and whoops, my master is gone! Is the ANY solution to this problem, other than starting all over?
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HP units have a hidden partition for their recovery… it seems that this causes problems with images. In my shop, I haven’t finished an HP image because on a fresh restore (maybe 40GB used on drive), I haven’t seen an image filesize smaller than 220GB.
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I had problems with Fujitsu and the hidden recovery partition. A usb bootable gparted stick and a bit of time later, I had the unwanted partitions removed and the rest of the disk resized to where it was just the 200mb win7 special partition and the main system drive. i was then able to image successfully.