Well George, I do not use special software to measure performance of the HDD – for me numbers are coming from ‘hdparm -tT /dev/sd?’ tests on 775 socket.
Although I prefer WD drives in this case I got for good price Seagate 2TB SATA drive (Seagates was not so reliable in comparison with WD in my practical life).
Just for notice: I run Linux server with 4 WD Blue HDDs 2TB each in RAID 5 configuration and performance on read side is around 380MB/sec.
Polar Bear
Hello,
I’ve taken simple approach of using USB NIC (Realtek 8152) with ipxe added to flash drive as EFI boot module.
The best result achieved with ‘ecm’ compilation option for boot module
make bin-x86_64-efi/ecm.usb
dd if=bin-x86_64-efi/ecm.usb of=/dev/{usb_drive}
Once configuration was added into DHCP/DNS server the boot process not much different as if NIC was integrated into laptop and sit on PCI bus.
A few FOG imaging test gave same speed result as if NIC was integrated into the laptop ( for test was used HP Elitebook Folio 1040 G2, at this moment a laptop without wired NIC is not available).
Thanks to everyone who responded to my post.
Hello,
nowadays some laptops do not have ethernet port for wired connection. The only available option is USB NIC.
How such situation can be resolved?
What would be a procedure?
My understanding is that USB drive with linux kernel and driver for USB NIC interface would require to initiate DHCP request to communicate with FOG server.
Thank you for any leads to helpful information.
Thank you George,
I only can say ‘Busy Busy Busy’ as Twiki – I need to absorb the information.
When I mentioned ‘the installation continues as from local media (DVD)’ – I meant that as files was made available from network resource the process will continue in same way as if it was run from local media (I meant that process will not be different, except that files be accessed from network and not from local computer media).
Thank you again George
Polar Bear
Thank you George,
your explanation cleared some my questions but not all of them (I was not ready to ask them as my knowledge/understanding of MDT is still limited).
For clarification:
Ok, somehow I missed that MDT shares a folder with distribution files and generated WinPE (iso file) has some script which accesses (mounts) shared folder with distribution files make them available on installed computer and continue installation process.
Please confirm that my understanding is correct.
Then I try understand why in articles I read they mentioned WDS.
On side note: a few years ago I learnt about iPXE and tried diskless installation of Windows 7 which was successful (diskless Windows 10 installation did not work at that time – at least I could not find any reference).
Thank you again,
Polar Bear
@george1421
George, thank you for quick reply. I still try to find ‘head and tails’ if my process of creating gold image correct.
Just for clarification:
Through the reading I mentioned earlier they use WDS (Windows Server is required) instead FOG.
In our case we need to prepare reference computer with all updates installed and ready to be sysprep applied.
I do take an image at this stage before sysprep run (just in case if I have to return to this point).
Then I run sysprep with a shutdown and set a task to capture sysprep image (which can be installed on any platform – but really as you mentioned we need two images BIOS and EFI).
Prior this moment I used ‘Windows System Image Manager’ to create autounattend.xml file for both BIOS and EFI partition layout (again here we have x86 and amd64). In Windows System Image manager I specify that at early stage WinPE wipes hard drive and recreates partitions (for BIOS and UEFI) and then specify what partition to install the image into.
Now as we capture syspreped image with FOG and then deploy it into real computer I have obscure understanding what really happening at early stage WinPE (1).
As I see from information on the screen, FOG deployment restores two partitions for BIOS and I believe we already passed stage where installation recreates partitions (otherwise installation would wipe the disk with deployed image).
Now I try to understand how you use MDT to deploy image on reference computer. At the moment I only see it possible if MDT installed into reference computer itself. And all those updates will unnecessary inflate sysprep image.
In this case when we capture the image we will have MDT installed in each computer? Can you clarify this part of the process?
I do understand that WSUS offline repository can be stored on shared network disk/folder and it will not get captured into reference image.
I try to understand how to refine the whole process of preparing, capture and deployment of images.
Thank you again,
Polar Bear
Thank you George,
I did some reading on MDT, WDS and WSUS…
Deploy Windows 10 with MDT 2013 and WDS
https://theitbros.com/deploy-windows-10-on-windows-server-2012-r2/
Capture Windows 10 Image using MDT 2013
https://theitbros.com/capture-windows-10-reference-image/
Integrate WSUS Offline Updater with MDT 2013 to Deploy Windows 10
https://theitbros.com/integrate-wsus-updater-with-mdt-2013-to-deploy-windows-10/
I understand that MDT can ‘embed’ upgrades into wim file for installation.
At some paragraph in articles mentioned above they mentioned ISO files and it is not clear if updates can get slipstreamed into ISO file which latter will be used for installation.
Do you have any information using WSUS to download updates which then copied to MDT to slipstream them into ISO image? This section was not completely ‘transparent’ if such procedure possible.
In the past I was slipstreaming SP3 into Windows XP, then using additional software to slipstream updates (but unfortunately not all of them, some left behind) and on top of it using slipstreaming (really embedding) drivers for most hardware.
Well, yes it still was time consuming process to build installation DVD but all this time was recovered during installation (at time I was employed with University and on positive side I embedded installation key so that graduate students could install Windows without IT group help on their lab computers).
Otherwise to install a computer with all required software would require a whole day – not best way to use work time.
George, I would appreciate if you could share in very short form what best works for you with mentioning your ‘hardware base’ (how many computers, how different computers).
For example, yesterday I tested Windows 8.1 gold image on Dell G31 mainboard with GMA3100 video card which is not supported. I have downloaded driver from Intel for G31 video, but it refused to copy files. I have downloaded video driver for Dell Vostro 530 and attempted to install it – again installation failed. And as last resort I did video driver update through Device Manager by pointing to Dell’s driver directory. After about a minute Device Manager somehow picked up the video driver (although driver is for Windows 7).
How do you handle drivers installation for old equipment which is not supported in Windows release?
In my case I use IObit Driver Booster on reference computer to install it into the image, and if the reference computer is not virtual machine then through it I update drivers (Driver Booster does pretty good job).
The deployment of such gold image on same hardware as rule does not require any update for drivers and in most cases the only update required is Defender or Essential security update (I got an impression that these updates sometimes released a few times a day).
Thank you for all your input,
Polar Bear
george1421,
How well works MDT?
I never tried it before and I do not mind to give it ‘a shot’ if it works well.
Thank you,
Polar Bear
Hi george1421,
what did you use to slipstream updates into wim file? How much time did it take?
I found that it is much easier to update reference computer with Windows 7 than with Windows 8 (I spent a few days to find a way to update Windows 8 – without WSUS it just did not work).
Yesterday I did a run test with Windows 8.1 – I have reimaged with gold image a real computer. Then I found that it detected a few updates – but attempt to install them failed (through windows updates check).
Thank you,
Polar Bear
Hello,
currently I work on fog deployment of Windows XP/7/8.1/10 and came across a problem with updates for Windows 8.1.
Details:
I prepare reference computer for sysprep on Windows 8.1. The system installed Ok, but windows update process does not work properly – the system looks for updates and never finishes the process of identifying required updates.
I’ve attempted a few potential solutions ‘found on internet’ for this problem and none of them produce desired result.
At this moment I could not find anything better than to use WSUS for offline updates – instruction.
Is there more ‘elegant’ solution to this problem?
I would like to keep an image of system in the state before running sysprep, so that I could easily install updates and then run sysprep to get ‘golden’ image with autounattend.xml.
(autounattend.xml file added to sysprep as an option works properly and been tested and in VM as in real computer)
Thank you for your help,
Polar Bear
@george1421
George,
hmm, something interesting have happened – I have reinstalled Debian and Fog once more.
And this time when I was creating new image in web interface I found that now instead of dashes ‘-’ replacing spaces ’ ’ it has removed them!!! Does anybody working on code right now? I thought that if release 1.5.7 came out then it will not be changing (except patches to fix faulty pieces of code).
I have created one image and then almost immediately attempted to create another one and went to grocery store. On my return back found that that second image was created fine and now in imaging logs it listed with dates.
For me it is a mystery, on my part I have repeated same steps without any deviation and if earlier it produced described error now it works fine.
I will run more tests to see how reliable current setup.
Polar Bear