Add Ghost Utilities to KBE Boot Environment
Has anyone ever tried loading ghost inside the Kace KBE? I would like to be able to either have it show up as a menu option on the recovery environment or be able to map a network drive and run ghost from the KBE command line. We use ghost to ensure that all of our systems are backed up prior to migration. Is this possible at all?
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Just bear in mind that Ghost licensing requires you to have one license for each machine that you run it on. - EdT 11 years ago
Answers (6)
Use the KBE Manipulator to upload the ISO for the Ghost utility.
use the KBE manipulator to upload that ISO.
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Wow, that was pretty sweet! I followed this guide:
http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH194877
created a WinPE environment and now have ghost loading automatically via PXE Boot. Thanks! I was trying to use the KBE yesterday, however it kept coming back as an error. Not realizing that WinPE uses a 64 bit architecture. - choristersys 11 years ago-
there is both 32 and 64, make sure you have the right ghost files for the bit level. - SMal.tmcc 11 years ago
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Thanks for the information it really helped me. I follow the link and here is what I did. I followed steps one by one until I got to step 8. When I modified startnet.bat as the tutorial says I loaded to K2000 and boot a machine it gave an error, I had to call ghost32.exe manually, so I tought script is not calling ghost32. So I added to startnet the following
wpeinit
net use r: \\x.x.x.x\userdata
x:\ghost32.exe
I added the net use command because I also wanted to automatically map to a NAS to do backups. I completed the tutorial and added to k2000 and it worked as I wanted. What I love is the fact it maps to a NAS and I can easily deploy this to the RSA and I can guide end user or remote with VNC to back up a computer and it does not matter if the computer does not boot into windows. Thank you all for the info, I wanted to contribute a little. - josefino 11 years ago
OK, that's an idea. Would this have to be a bootable iso, and how would I launch it once the KBE is up? Can I create a custom menu item somewhere or does it need to be launched from the recovery dos command line?
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add your menu call to the startnet.cmd before you exit - SMal.tmcc 11 years ago
I took a different approach. Use the KACE Boot Environmnet, but create a WinPE bootable hard drive image that contains the Ghost utilities. I followed this article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722114(v=ws.10).aspx
Once I had a working 32bit WinPE on a HD I added the Ghost32.exe and tools from a bootable USB stick, and then I image it up using the K-Image format. When I brought the image back down it wouldn't boot. Which led to my bright idea.
Create a pre-image deployment task that contains ghost32.exe and a batch file that maps a drive and launched ghost32:
net use i: \\server\share\path-to-GHO /user:DOMAIN\USER PASSWORD ghost32.exe -clone,mode=load,src=I:\images\WinPEx86.GHO,dst=1 -SURE -BATCH -AUTO -RB
I then added that task onto my broken WinPE, and now that I'm thinking about it you could add this as a pre installation task on any system image - skip building a custome WinPE. Ghost will deploy and reboot, before the KACE has a chance to finish deploying the image.
If you can export the ghost utility as an .iso, you can build a custom KBE with it.
OK, so I created a bottable WinPE ISO that has ghost32.exe injected into the iso. It's set up to load automatically after winpe is initialized. How would I get that ISO uploaded into KACE? the media manager only seems to upload the generic winpe.wim file and create its own environment
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You need to use the KBE manipulator. This will allow you to upload ISO you have created. Like DBAN, GHOST, etc... - Beetschen 10 years ago