Windows 7 image deployment slows way down at 25%
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I’ve been having this problem for about a week and can’t figure it out. When I deploy a Windows 7 image to our HP 6000 Pro Business Desktop it starts out fine, deploying the image at 3-4GB/min but at 25% it slows down incredibly, an 85GB image takes all day to deploy. When I check our FOG console for the transmit bandwidth it flatlines at 0 MB/s for a minute or two and then starts jumping between 0MB/s and 15MB/s yet the hard drive light on the PC is solid green. The slowdown happens at 25% every time without fail. If I deploy our XP image to it there are no issues and the upload of the Windows 7 image works fine. I’ve also deployed a Windows 7 image to an HP 3115m and ProBook 4530s without any problems so it seems to be related to the 6000. I’ve tried several different kernels and I’ve updated the 6000s BIOS, I’m at a loss, any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
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Are you doing multicast or unicast for the deployment?
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Unfortunately I don’t know, how can I tell? I’m deploying the image the same way I’ve always done it.
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When multicasting, you’d need to add hosts that you wanted imaged added to a group. Then you’d go over to task management, list all groups, and click on the multicast symbol next to your group name. At least, that’s what I do on version .32
If you are going to host management, clicking on an individual host, clicking on Basic Task, and then clicking Deploy, you’re unicasting. Even if you set up several tasks at once in this fashion, it still unicasts to the individual hosts.
It seems really odd that the XP image deploys fine, but Win7 has problems. Is there a significant difference in size between the two images?
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I think I’ve made some progress but now I have a different problem. My original image was set to Single Disk/multiple partition, I did some research and found that setting it to single partition/resizeable would help. I uploaded a new image with this setting and then deployed the image which went extremely fast, done in about 10 minutes. The problem I’m having now is the system won’t boot and I get the error “BOOTMGR is missing”. I used GPARTED and both the boot partition and the main partition are there, I’m not sure what to do at this point.
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One thing I’d try is putting a Windows 7 disk in the imaged computer and see if it can fix whatever is wrong with the boot partition. If it does, you might try capturing that image, redeploying, and see if bootmgr is missing again.
I looked around the forums for more missing bootmgr stuff, I’m not sure if the workaround and the end of this thread is useful:
[url]http://fogproject.org/forum/threads/bootmgr-is-missing.233/[/url]
You indicated this was only happening on one type of machine…
Can you create a new, plain Win7 image for troubleshooting? Wipe a disk, load Win7, sysprep, upload, deploy, see if it works? If that fails, then I have to be thinking a setting on the bios needs changing or something.
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I reinstalled Windows using the restore CDs to get the system back to the original configuration, sysprepped, uploaded and deployed and now I just get a blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner of the screen. The only setting I would think would cause a problem would be the hard drive, I checked it and it’s set to AHCI, the only other choice is IDE. I used GPARTED to take a look at the drive after deployment, both partitions are there but GPARTED indicates that there’s a problem with the 100MB boot partition, any ideas?
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Well, flipping the BIOS to IDE is quick and worth at least a try. I can’t imagine it’ll fix it, but I’d try it anyway. Maybe a BIOS update if one is available could help.
I checked this: [URL=‘http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=WorkingDevices’]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=WorkingDevices [/URL]and it looked like somebody was only able to get the HP 6005 Pro Business Desktop to work with a Multiple Partition Image - Single Disk. I don’t know how that does or doesn’t translate to your 6000, but it might be related. There are also mentions of some notebooks having problems with AHCI mode, so maybe creating the image in IDE mode might produce a working image. It’d at least be possible to switch to AHCI post deployment with a registry change or two.
Also mentioned were some forced kernel options on some HP models. I’ve not tried any of that, perhaps someone who has can advise?
I’m trying to think of anything else that’d help nail this down, but drawing a blank. Anybody else with some good ideas?
From here, my suggestions are apt to start entering the realm of insanity: Like try putting the drive in one of the working machines and see you get something more than the blinking cursor. If it got to the Win7 splash and then bailed, that’d be interesting.
Or, vice versa, take an imaged drive from one of the other working computers and try to boot the 6000 with it and see if that gets stuck at the blinking cursor.
I’ll keep thinking on this and if I think of anything that seems half reasonable, I’ll let you know.
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We have some 6000 pro SFF’s that have worked just fine with unicasting win7. I know we’ve used Multiple Partition - Single Disk but I’m not sure what drive mode we are using for them. I’ll check one next week. On a side note how did you get the 3115m to image?We’re having network card issues and every kernel I’ve tried ends in various errors. Thanks and good luck.
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Sorry but why is your image 85 GB?? Mine is around 11 with driverpacks included?? Do you have all software already installed? Why not just use snapins?? 85GB is going to take a long time over any network!
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[quote=“micah2005, post: 1828, member: 633”]We have some 6000 pro SFF’s that have worked just fine with unicasting win7. I know we’ve used Multiple Partition - Single Disk but I’m not sure what drive mode we are using for them. I’ll check one next week. On a side note how did you get the 3115m to image?We’re having network card issues and every kernel I’ve tried ends in various errors. Thanks and good luck.[/quote]
If you could check that I would appreciate it. I had several issues with our 3115m systems also, mostly a screen full of snow, and I’m pretty sure kernel 2.6.29.1 resolved my issue and allowed me to image it. -
[quote=“andyroo54, post: 1833, member: 267”]Sorry but why is your image 85 GB?? Mine is around 11 with driverpacks included?? Do you have all software already installed? Why not just use snapins?? 85GB is going to take a long time over any network![/quote]
Yes, it’s a complete system with all software installed. With the image type set to Multiple Partition/Single Disk the image starts deploying at over 4GB/min estimating that it will be finished in 20 minutes, a time I can certainly live with, but for some reason at the same completion percentage every time the transmit bandwidth flat lines and the image deployment eventually goes down to about 200MB/min. I’ve set the image type to single partition which results in a considerably smaller image size but it won’t boot and when I check the partitions with GPARTED they’re both there but it shows issues with the boot partition. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. -
I think I may have found why Single Partition won’t boot. I rebuilt the system using the rebuild CDs that came with it, loaded GPARTED and looked at the partitions. The system partition is 2GB with 682MB used but when Fog creates this partition it’s only 100MB so the data won’t fit and therefore won’t boot.
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I’ve never seen the system partition bigger than 100mb other than sometimes an upgrade from vista or a beta might have been 200mb. It looks like you are using the OEM copy of Win7, do you have any way of using a stand alone copy? Are you sure you only have 2 partitions and not 3?
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[quote=“jdd49, post: 1871, member: 623”]I’ve never seen the system partition bigger than 100mb other than sometimes an upgrade from vista or a beta might have been 200mb. It looks like you are using the OEM copy of Win7, do you have any way of using a stand alone copy? Are you sure you only have 2 partitions and not 3?[/quote]
As jdd49 said the problem is likely FOG only knows about windows 7 100mb separate partition, and so if it is 600mb that is a problem. As he suggested just use a standard windows 7 iso to build your image, it will be much cleaner and will work no problems. You don’t need the OEM recovery partitions anyway they are just wasted space when you have fog
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Sorry for the late response. Finally checked our 6000 pro’s. They worked set to ide mode in the bios and kernel 2.6.39. Hope this helps but it sounds like it may be the windows 7 system partition.
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[quote=“micah2005, post: 1971, member: 633”]Sorry for the late response. Finally checked our 6000 pro’s. They worked set to ide mode in the bios and kernel 2.6.39. Hope this helps but it sounds like it may be the windows 7 system partition.[/quote]
Thanks for checking, do you know which version of BIOS your 6000s are running? Also, you mentioned that you have it working set to multiple partition/single disk, do you know what you have selected for the Host OS for the systems? I’ve tried both Windows 7 and XP and neither have helped. -
I’ll have to get back to you on the BIOS version in the morning. As for the host OS they are currently windows 7 professional clean install.
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BIOS version is 1.09
