Ghost support for Windows systems loaded with OEM media

Products

Ghost Solution Suite

Issue/Introduction

You have an OEM Windows installation, you would like to know if Ghost Solution Suite can image this system successfully.

An OEM Windows installation is any Windows Operating System that is provided by the OEM vender, or any Windows Operating System that was installed using OEM media.

When working with OEM systems you may encounter problems while performing any of these tasks:

Running Microsoft Sysprep
Creating images
Restoring images that were captured from an OEM installation
Restoring images over the top of an existing OEM installation
Installing and using Automation partitions
Installing and using Automation folders

The following may be seen in the ghosterr.txt when attempting to image an OEM installation.

Error Number: 8027 Message: A GeneralException occurred

[327938] No free space big enough to create volume Generated at ..\VolumeContainerGpt.cpp:235

Users may also encounter the following errors:

Error 1969 encountered an NTFS volume that has not been flushed
Encountered an NTFS volume with a logfile that has not been flushed (536)
NTFS Problem Detected (1969) Ghost has detected problems with an NTFS volume. We recommend that you quit Ghost and correct the problem by rebooting NT and running chkdsk. Alternately, you may also continue normally.

Upon performing a restore the following error may be seen:

Internal error 36000

The following error may be seen when using a Distribute Software task to install Automation Folders:

Error 1073741845 installing package <path>

After an image is deployed and the Configuring Computer is taking place, if the image deployed and the computer couldn't boot up, or couldn't be accessed after booting the following error has been seen in the GSS Console Job Status:

Access is denied

As well this one can occur:

Usage Error 10010
Can not open image file. The system can not find the path specified.

Cause

The issues experienced when imaging OEM installations are often but not exclusively caused by additional partitions, such as "Recovery" and "Tools" which are non-standard partitions loaded by the OEM manufacturer. In some cases these additional partitions do not perform normally and the drive cannot be imaged while they are present. In some cases it is not possible to get OEM Windows installations to image properly.

The issue can be caused as well because in some scenarios the OEM Recovery partition was mounting to the same drive letter as the drive with the image file, causing GSS to not be able to locate the folder. You can resolve it by changing the drive letter in your image mounts too.

Resolution

Broadcom does not recommend attempting to image OEM Windows installations. If you are attempting to create backup images of OEM systems it may be possible to work around the issues that arise, but this is not always possible.

OEM partitions, such as "Recovery" and "Tools" can be removed using DiskPart.

Please note Broadcom does not support the use of Diskpart. Using DiskPart incorrectly may result in loss of data, if you are not sure about what you are doing, do not use DiskPart. Here are the steps:

Hit Windows Key + R to open the run dialogue box, enter "diskpart" and click "OK" to open a black command prompt window.
Type "list disk" to display all the disks of your computer. Type "select disk n" to identify which disk you need to work with. Here n stands for the disk letter.
Type "list partition" to display all the volumes on the hard drive. Type "select partition n" to identify which partition you want to remove. Here n stands for the volume letter.
Type "delete partition override" to remove the OEM partition. Finally, type "exit" to close the windows when you receive the message says, DiskPart successfully deleted the selected partition".

Running Microsoft Sysprep
- Microsoft Sysprep is not supported on OEM installations of Windows. As sysprep is the only supported method to create an image that is intended to deploy to a different system, an OEM system can never be used as a source for a hardware independent image.
Creating images
- Ghost may fail when attempting to create an image of an OEM Windows installation.
- Command line switches -NTIL -NTIC may suppress the error messages you receive when you attempt to create an image.
- It may help to use the command line switch -IB when attempting to capture OEM installations.
- Images may appear to create successfully but fail the integrity check.
Restoring images that were captured from an OEM installation
- Ghost may fail when attempting to deploy an image that was captured from an OEM Windows installation.
- Command line switch -NTEXACT may allow this deployment to succeed.
- If that does not succeed try recapturing the source image using the command line switch -IB
- A Partition-only restore may also be possible in this case, restoring only the OS partition, leaving the others intact.
- If Windows fails to boot a repair of the Windows OS using the startup media may be successful.
- Your OEM image may restore and boot but may end up stuck in Sysprep setup after restore and not be able to successfully ever get to the user desk top because of a reboot loop.
- Ghost images may create and restore with success but you may not be supported by Microsoft and may have legal issues with their licensing model. http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/D/4/3D42BDC2-6725-4B29-B75A-A5B04179958B/Reimaging.pdf
- You may run into issues where the install was locked to the BIOS even if you are not using the Microsoft Sysprep utility. http://www.symantec.com/connect/forums/ghosting-and-oem-keys
- Image can take a couple of hours to be deployed on machines with OEM Windows.
Restoring images over the top of an existing OEM installation
- Ghost may fail to deploy an image if OEM partitions are present on the target drive, even though those partitions will be overwritten by the image deployment. It may be necessary to format the target drive and remove any existing partitions before the deployment can succeed.
Installing and using Automation or Automation folders
- Ghost Automation technologies such as Automation Folders and Automation Partitions may not install correctly on an OEM system and are not compatible with a system that is already Dual Boot , as is the case when there is an existing Recovery partition.
- Removal of the Recovery and Tools partitions may resolve this problem.
- If the installation does appear to work properly, the Automation Folder or Partition may not work properly.

NOTE: If you continue to have problems imaging and restoring OEM media then consider using genuine Microsoft install media and Microsoft volume licenses as a workaround.