[ale] Ghosting software

[Patrick Jones]

I have ghosted across different motherboards - PIIs and PIIIs
before without many problems - including my previously mentioned
video card change.   One problem I did encounter was with my 3c905
NICs.  There are 3 or 4 revisions of those cards.
I noticed the problem when we started getting 3C905c NICs.
Getting the latest driver from 3Com solved that problem across
the board.  The main problem is in the peripherals.  Just
ghosting a generic machine should not pose any problems.

Actually, I want to say that the image for the PIIs and PIIIs is
the same one I used for our old Pentiums.  I can't bet my life
on it but I am almost certain it is.

Patrick Jones
Grunt Monkey

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Jeff Hubbs [SMTP:Jhubbs at niit.com]
> Sent:	Thursday, August 10, 2000 10:01 AM
> To:	Eric.Ayers at mindspring.com
> Cc:	Carl Forsell; Nassar Carnegie; ale at ale.org
> Subject:	RE: [ale] Ghosting software
> 
> Eric -
> 
> I don't disagree with the letter of what you're saying, but what I was
> trying to say in so many words is that the process relies on a big
> assumption that isn't necessarily true - namely, that the target machines
> are all identical.  The question then becomes, to what extent do the tiny
> differences between machines matter to the OS/drivers?  What I recall
> reading some time ago reagrding Ghost on NT is that this guy took some
> superficially identical machines, did identical NT installs on them, and
> observed minor differences in some file or files that were created and he
> was able to trace the differences to chipset variations.  He then surmised
> that had one variation of machine been Ghosted to another, there would be
> a
> very clear mismatch between what was in the box and what the OS thought
> was
> in the box and that in some cases, that could lead to serious flakiness.
> The nature of this pathology would be such that yes, there could be times
> where you could Ghost 100 machines from 1 and never ever have a problem -
> but there also could be times where you do the exact same thing and all
> 100
> machines bathe their users in deadly blue rays on a regular basis.  
> 
> What makes this problem rather inscrutable is that it would be hard to
> tell
> that Ghosting was the root cause.  Some people get BSODs rather regularly
> and live with it, but I have to ask myself, how many techies routinely
> Ghost
> Win98 machines that regularly BSOD (like my officemate's) and they'll
> never
> make the connection.
> 
> - Jeff
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Eric Z. Ayers [mailto:eric.ayers at mindspring.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 8:03 PM
> > To: Jeff Hubbs
> > Cc: Carl Forsell; Nassar Carnegie; ale at ale.org
> > Subject: RE: [ale] Ghosting software
> > 
> > 
> > It has its place...  If you need to 'manufacture' dozens of boxes for
> > a single order, you want something like that.
> > 
> > 
> > -Eric.
> > Jeff Hubbs writes:
> >  > I'll also take the opportunity to throw in my standard 
> > Ghost admonition:
> >  > 
> >  > IMHO, you're playing with fire whenever you take a Ghost 
> > image from one
> >  > machine and implant it into another, regardless of OS and 
> > regardless of how
> >  > "identical" you think the target machine is to the source 
> > machine.  I would
> >  > surmise that the risk is less with Win95/98 than it would 
> > be with NT or
> >  > Linux, but if the target machines start acting weird every 
> > once in a while -
> >  > i.e., locking up, oopsing, or giving you the ever-helpful 
> > "Aiee,..." (I love
> >  > that one!) it could be because a minor difference in rev 
> > level within
> >  > chipset, etc. existed that might have otherwise made the 
> > running kernel,
> >  > driver, module, etc. do something a little differently.  
> > One could mitigate
> >  > this a bit by recompiling kernel and modules post-Ghost, 
> > I'd imagine.
> >  > 
> >  > When I was researching the use of Ghost for NT across a 
> > set of supposedly
> >  > identical desktops, one thing I noticed was that a couple 
> > of them had
> >  > different CD-ROM drives from the rest.  I thought that 
> > this would be a
> >  > difference that probably wouldn't amount too much, but it 
> > made me wonder
> >  > what less-obvious differences might exist that could 
> > really cause a problem
> >  > that would be nearly impossible to actually attribute to 
> > one specific thing?
> >  > 
> >  > Having said that, do any of you think I'm being paranoid 
> > about this?  I'm
> >  > open to flames.
> >  > 
> >  > - Jeff
> >  > 
> >  > > -----Original Message-----
> >  > > From: Carl Forsell [mailto:cforsell at roman.net]
> >  > > Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 1:25 PM
> >  > > To: Nassar Carnegie; ale at ale.org
> >  > > Subject: Re: [ale] Ghosting software
> >  > > 
> >  > > 
> >  > > I recently used Norton Ghost 5.1D (personal edition) to ghost 
> >  > > a couple of
> >  > > SuSE machines.  Price was about $60.00 or so.
> >  > > If you look back at the ALE archives about a week ago, we had 
> >  > > a dsicussion
> >  > > concerning alternatives...
> >  > > -----Original Message-----
> >  > > From: Nassar Carnegie <nassar at linuxgeneralstore.com>
> >  > > To: ale at ale.org <ale at ale.org>
> >  > > Date: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 1:10 PM
> >  > > Subject: [ale] Ghosting software
> >  > > 
> >  > > 
> >  > > >Does anyone know of any ghosting software for Linux/FreeBSD?
> >  > > >
> >  > > >--
> >  > > >-----
> >  > > >Nassar Carnegie
> >  > > >nassar at linuxgeneralstore.com
> >  > > >Linux General Store
> >  > > >--
> >  > > >To unsubscribe: mail majordomo at ale.org with "unsubscribe 
> >  > > ale" in message
> >  > > body.
> >  > > >
> >  > > 
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