MDT 2010 and deployment from a USB key
Note that the content in this guide has been updated to include deployment over a network, and some other tips/tricks. After reading this, you might want to take a look at the updated guides here:
http://www.cluberti.com/blog/2011/06/23/mdt-for-the-smaller-guys-part-1/
http://www.cluberti.com/blog/2011/06/23/mdt-for-the-smaller-guys-part-2/
http://www.cluberti.com/blog/2011/06/28/mdt-for-the-smaller-guys-part-3/
Have you ever wanted to put every version of Vista, Server 2008, Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, and perhaps a version of XP or two on a single USB key? No? Then you’re probably normal. If you’re like me, however, the thought has crossed your mind. However, the daunting task of configuring said USB key to boot to some multiboot Linux distro or hacking a bit at bcdedit to boot a WinPE to handle it also made it something to avoid, at least for me, because, well, I tend to be lazy about these things.
However, after playing with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit for a bit, I realized I could probably make my USB key bend to my will and be said multi-bootable Windows OS installer, without a whole lot of work. I set about to put all of those versions of Windows one one key, along with some unattended applications (for this blog post, I’m just adding Office 2007 to keep it short).
You’re going to need a few things to start, most notably you’ll need a Windows machine that can install the latest Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) for Windows 7 (that’d be Server 2003 SP1 or newer, Vista SP1 / Server 2008 or newer, or Win7 / Server 2008 R2 – sorry, no XP support, it seems). You’ll also need the MDT 2010 bits and the version(s) of Windows and any applications you would like to install from MDT.
Adding Operating Systems
Once you’ve got a machine with the WAIK and MDT 2010 installed, the first thing to do is open the Deployment Workbench from the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit folder in your start menu. Since you’ve already got the prerequisites needed to do a basic MDT deployment (namely, the WAIK), just right-click on the “Deployment Shares” folder and select “New Deployment Share” from the drop-down:
This will open a wizard that will help you create the Deployment folder and share – note that you will have to create this folder, as the current version (beta2) does not do this. The wizard will look like the following:
Again, use the “Browse” button to create the folder as necessary, and make sure this is on a drive with ample space, as all of your OS files and applications will be stored here.
Once you’ve gotten yourself a deployment share, it will show up as a subfolder of the “Deployment Shares” tree, and the first thing you’ll want to do is add the version(s) of Windows you want to use MDT to install. To do this, right-click on the “Operating Systems” subfolder in your deployment share, and select “Import Operating System”:
This will bring up the “Import Operating System” wizard. For this example, I’m going to be using the full Windows installations as my source, and since I’ve copied the contents of the Windows DVDs / CDs to the hard disk on this machine already, I select “Full set of source files” and point the wizard to the folder that contains the Windows source that I’m using (in this example, I’ve extracted the Windows 7 RTM to a folder on the D: drive):
The wizard will go through copying the files from the source directory into the distribution share, and add each OS choice to the Operating Systems list in the Deployment Workbench – after adding Vista, Server 2008, Win7, and Server 2008 R2 via this method, my Operating Systems list looks like this:
Adding Applications (optional)
If you want to have your installation media install applications along with Windows, you’ll need to add them to the deployment share and the task sequence – in this example, I’m adding Office 2007. To add an application, you’ll need to right-click the “Applications” subfolder in your deployment share, and select “New Application” from the drop-down:
Once the wizard comes up, you’ll have to enter the Application Name – the Publisher, Version, and Language are optional (but recommended):
Again, I’ve copied the contents of the Office 2007 DVD to the hard disk, so I’m going to point the wizard to this source, but if you have the files you need for the application you’re adding to the deployment share in another location (say, on a DVD or a network share), point the wizard to that source directory, and click “Next”:
This will place the Office 2007 entry into the “Applications” list in the deployment share, and you will need to edit the properties of the application before the application will install properly. To do so, right-click the application from the Applications list and select “Properties”:
From here, you will need to click the “Details” tab and configure the installation command (the Working directory will already be configured) to run the application’s setup, including any switches required by the application. You can also enable or disable the application from the deployment share, cause the application to reboot the computer it’s being installed onto once it has completed installation, as well as a host of other options that may be of interest to you. You may also note that MDT recognizes that this is an Office application, and adds an “Office Products” tab where you can configure the unattended parameters of Office (if your version supports it – for example, Office 2007 Enterprise):
Once you’re comfortable with the application settings, click “OK” to complete adding the application.
Adding Drivers (optional)
If you want to inject drivers into your installation, you will need to use the “Out-of-Box Drivers” subfolder in your distribution share. Note that there is a requirement here – you will need to have the driver package extracted that you want to use, and it must not be a driver package that requires an .exe to install. For this portion of the deployment, you will have to direct the MDT wizard to the folder that contains the .inf, .sys, and any .cat files the driver requires, hence why .exe driver installers will not work. You may be able to add these types of drivers as application packages, however, but that’s a bit outside my scope here.
For this example, I’m adding the drivers for a 3ware 9550SX controller that I’ve already extracted:
To add the driver to the deployment share, simply right-click on the “Out-of-Box Drivers” folder and select “Import Drivers” from the drop-down:
Point the wizard to the folder that contains the drivers you want to import, and click “Next” (in my example, I’m going to import both x64 and x86 drivers, so I’m running the wizard twice) – note that if you do import the x86 and x64 versions of the same driver, make certain that the “Import drivers even if they are duplicates of an existing driver” box is checked before clicking “Next”:
If you have imported both x64 and x86 versions of the same driver, make sure to right-click on each driver in the listing of Out-of-Box drivers and select the proper architecture – the wizard will add a number at the end of the driver’s name for each iteration of the same driver you import (in this case, (1) was added to the x86 driver I imported), and the wizard will tell you at the end what display name it gave to the driver added. In this case, I’ll make sure that the “AMCC System 3wManage.inf” is configured to be used only for x64 platforms:
Make certain to do this for each x64 and x86 driver you add, if you do add multiple architecture versions of the same driver.
Creating the Task Sequence
To get MDT to actually *do* something with the operating system(s) you’ve imported, you’ll have to create what is called a “Task Sequence”. In MDT parlance, this is the “logic” that drives MDT – it’ll tell MDT what drives to format, what version of Windows to install, and any applications, hot fixes/updates, and drivers you configure in MDT. To create your first task sequence, right-click on the “Task Sequences” subfolder in your deployment share, and select “New Task Sequence” from the dropdown:
Once the wizard comes up, you’ll need to give the Task Sequence a unique ID number in the “Task sequence ID” box, as well as a name (this is the name that will show up in the list of operating systems to deploy, so consider using the name of the version of Windows the task sequence will install). Enter any comments in the comment box, and click “Next”:
Choose the “Standard Client Task Sequence” from the drop-down list (or “Standard Server Task Sequence”, if this is a server OS), and click “Next”:
Select the version of Windows you want the Task Sequence to install from the list, and click “Next”:
At this point in the wizard, you can enter a product key (or not), set the registered Name and Organization, set the IE homepage, and configure the Administrator Password (or not). Once you’ve done all this and finished the wizard, the task sequence will now show up in the Task Sequence list, but it’s not complete just yet if you want to edit the unattended file and change some of the advanced options (like the default time zone, in my example). If you want to leave everything as-is, skip to the next section. However, if you do want to edit the file, you’ll need to right-click the Task Sequence and select “Properties” from the drop-down:
Once the properties of the Task Sequence opens up, click on the “OS Info” tab, and click the “Edit Unattend.xml” button to open the unattended file in the Windows System Image Manager (WSIM) for editing:
Again, for this example, I want to edit the Time Zone. To do this, once WSIM has the unattend.xml file open, expand the 4 specialize component and select “Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_neutral” from the list (note that this says amd64 at the beginning because this is an x64 image – if you’re editing an x86 image, it will say x86 at the beginning). From here, you can edit the default (Pacific Standard Time) with the full name of the Time Zone you want (I’ve entered “Eastern Standard Time”):
Once you’re done editing the unattend file, close the WSIM window and save the file when prompted.
Putting it all together
The last steps involve updating the deployment share with the changes made, and building the media we’re going to use to copy to the USB key. First, you will need to update the deployment share, by right-clicking on the deployment share root folder, and selecting “Update Deployment Share” from the drop-down:
This will cause the deployment share to update, and you will see progress indicated in a wizard window that will look like the image below, and when it’s done, click the “Finish” button:
Next, you’ll need to actually create the media. To do this, expand the “Advanced Configuration” folder in the deployment share, and right-click the “Media” folder and select “New Media” from the drop-down:
Once the wizard opens, you’ll need to point the Media path to a folder that will contain the exported media – note that you will have to create this folder as well, as the current version (beta2) does not do this. Also note that it appears (from some comments and my own testing) that the media share path cannot contain spaces (again, this is beta2, so we’ll wait to see if this problem continues in the RCs), or the creation wizard will fail. I’m currently investigating this to see why this is, although it does seem fairly repeatable. Use underscores or dashes if you want to name it something that would otherwise contain a space. The New Media Wizard will look like the following:
Again, use the “Browse” button to create the folder as necessary, and make sure this is also on a drive with ample space, as all of your OS files and applications will be stored here, as well as an .ISO file that can be burned to a DVD (if it’s small enough). Once you’ve selected a folder, click “Next” to create the share.
Once the creation of the media share is complete, you’ll see it in the list of Media available to be created. Right-click on the new media and select “Properties”:
Click the “Rules” tab, and add one field at the end, called “_SMSTSORGNAME” and set it equal to what you want the Unattended progress bar to call your deployment (you’ll see later what I mean by this) – I’ve named mine “cluberti’s imaging stick” for this example:
Next, click the “Edit Bootstrap.ini button, and add the same field with the same name. Once you’re done, save the file, and then click OK:
Lastly, right-click the new media entry and select “Update Media Content” from the drop-down. This will actually create the content folder and the .ISO in the media share, and it WILL take a long time the first time you do this, so be patient:
Once the wizard completes successfully and you click “Finish”, your media is now ready to be copied to your USB key – just put your USB key into the machine, and use Windows Explorer to copy the contents of the “Content” folder in the media share to your USB key:
Seeing it in action
I’m going to show you what this looks like from my deployment media in a Hyper-V VM, so you can see what the end-product will look like. Note that basically ALL of this can be automated via entries into the “Rules” tab and Bootstrap.ini of the media share (or even the Deployment Share folder – the same settings can be seen in the properties of this folder) and entries into the Task Sequence (which I’m leaving for another post.
Without further ado, see the task sequence in action:
@sqwidd
I guess I’m not sure what the question is – I’m taking a guess that you’ve installed the x64 version? If so, the answer is no – the x64 version can create the x86 boot environment you need without issues.
Hi,
Excellent guide, but i’m having issues with the bootable USB stick!
I’ve managed to get MDT to generate new image files based on Windows XP2. I’ve copied the entirety of the “Content” folder onto a USB stick and attempted to boot it up on a test PC by selecting “USB Device” on the boot menu, and also prioritizing the boot order to USB device first. But nothing loads, I just get a flashing cursor all the time. Not even an error.
I’ve tried using Bootsect.exe (x86) using both the /nt52 & /nt60 switches, and also tried formatting the USB Stick to NTFS format too, so through a combination of /NT52/60 and FAT32/NTFS I still can’t get it to boot.
Any further pointers greatly appreciated!
If it fails to boot, it would perhaps indicate a failure of the BIOS to handle the bootloader code from a removable device. Assuming you’ve followed the instructions (and it seems you have), the key should boot. Does it work in any other PC, and does the ISO image (created with the new media wizard) work in a VM? It’s probably worth testing the media ISO in a VM just to be sure that works, because that’s the contents of the USB key, basically. If that works, and you’ve copied the contents of the “Contents” folder to a bootable USB key, the likelihood is there’s a BIOS issue there that may be resolved with a newer BIOS or a support call to the hardware or motherboard vendor.
A few questions…
I’m a chronic sysprepped Windows XP Pro image maker/user trying to expand my horizons. Trying to make a universal XP image. Sometimes I have machines where the image just doesn’t work and I need a plan B. Plan A is Acronis TIW and a sysprepped image using DriverPacks.net drivers.
How to use external USB HDD instead of USB FD?
What brand USB FD are you using?
How would DriverPacks.net be added? Can they all just be expanded and added to “Out-of-Box Drivers” subfolder in the distribution share?
Mass Storage Controllers; do they still need to be added to a sysprep.inf or something similar?
HAL detection should not be an issue?
Can Windows Updates be added during the install or should they be slipstreamed into the XP source?
Any advice appreciated.
thanks
Morning,
Here’s how I have mine set up (I just set it up yesterday after a few issues) which I hope answers some of your questions.
In MDT2010:
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- I have all of my drivers added to “Out of Box Drivers” in my DP in MDT2010
- I have created an MEDIA DP using the instructions above
GENERAL TAB:
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- Selection Profile of the MEDIA Properties is set to “All Drivers and Packages which should solve your issues with Mass storage, HAL and almost any other driver set you require
- I only need to create the x86 version so I’ve unchecked the x64 box
RULES TAB:
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- In the CustomSettings.ini I have everything skipped excepted for ComputerName (SkipComputerName=NO) and I’ve set the “TASKSEQUENCEID” (TaskSequenceID=DEPLOY) to point to the TS IS I want to use.
- I Don’t want any questions asked after I boot to my USB key except for the computer name.
- In the Bootstrap.ini I set SkipBDDWelcome=YES, set my language, my locale, keyboard, SkipTimeZone, set Time zone, skipuserData, SkipProductKey, set _SMSTSORGNAME
All the other tabs I have left default, but you can add extra directories in the “Windows PE x86 Settings” tab if you need to for custom scripts and other things.
I update the MEDIA DP (“Update Media Content”) which takes a little while since I have so many drivers.
While this is updating I format my USB key using diskpart.
DISKPART:
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- Plug the USB key in and ensure Windows can see it from Windows Explorer. Note the Drive letter (In my case the F: drive)
- open CPrompt window and go to the USB Key drive letter (“f:”)
Run the following commands:
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Diskpart
List Disk Note which Disk # your USB key is on. Mine was Disk 1
Select Disk 1
Clean
Create Partition Primary
Select Partition 1
Active
format fs=fat32 I used NTFS for my Key which seems to work
assign
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My 16GB drive took much longer to format this way than using the traditional “format” from Windows Explorer.
- Once format and the MEDIA update is complete you can continue
FILE COPYING:
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- Open up the “CONTENT” folder of your MEDIA point and copy the contents to your USB key using Windows Explorer. For some reason this also took a much longer time to do than when I tried it before using the DiskPart commands.
- Copy the folder where your Image is stored (mine was on my primary PXE/WDS deployment point …\Operating Systems\IMAGE_NAME_FOLDER) to the Operating Systems folder in your MEDIA DP (Content\Operating Systems\)
Now the USB key should be ready for booting. Plug it into the computer you’d like to image and ensure the boot order in the BIOS is set to boot off the USB Key (in my case “Imation” 16GB)
It should load to your DP, prompt you for a computer name and begin deployment. (Again, I have skipped all the options in the CustomSettings.ini so you can play with these settings depending on what you want to achieve).
Let me know how this works for you if you need any clarification.
Joel
Oh another thing which may help others as well.
These are the errors/problems I encountered before getting to the point I am now, which may help others in identifying where they went wrong.
PROBLEM #1
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WITHOUT FORMATTING THE USB KEY/HDD I copied the contents of the “CONTENT” folder to my USB key (USB drive should work the same) and tried to boot.
“Invalid Disk Error”
So at least the computer was trying to boot from the KEY, it just wasn’t in a format recognized.
PROBLEM #2
***********************
Next I formatted the USB key/HDD to FAT32 using Windows Explorer formatting (quick format), copied the same files over and booted from my USB key
It game up with a different error (which I didn’t snag) but something along the lines of “BCD error” cannot find boot sector or something
So now the computer was able see the USB boot but the boot sector files partition of the drive wasn’t active.
***********************
Finally I formatted my USB key/HDD using diskpart (NTFS), copied the files over to the key and booted. Now it works like a hot damn! aka.. it works!
Joel
I had to format the USB stick using DISKPART – but from a Windows 7 PC. Disk had to be formatted as FAT32 and Primary partition had to be created.
Another question, since my USB Booty is now working
If a particular model PC (Dell GX755) fails to boot to the “Solutions Accelerators” part of MDT is this down to a mismatching driver? It simply loops on the green loading bar screen
The same key on a older GX620 boots to the SA section where I can customise the build (which fails at the end, but that’s another question in itself)
Bearing in mind that this key has all drivers for the 755 imported into the Out of Box drivers, and i’ve added entries to the Build Mass Storage section of sysprep (which didn’t help btw).
Oh; must add that this guide is great, although MDT does come with extensive documentation, it could be more user friendly so it can be read easier.
Thank you for the kinds words!
Gar,
It sounds like a problem I encountered a little while ago when PXE booting to my WDS server where the boot disk would load but continue in an infinite loop.
Here are a couple things that may help you:
My Problem:
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I had issues where an existing OS install on the disk in question was causing me grief even though I had removed (manually) the MININT and _SMSTaskSequence folders from the partition.
My Solution:
*****************
Boot with a MS-DOS boot disk and wipe the disk first. In my case only FDisk worked instead of the traditional “Format”. This may have been overkill but it did the trick.
Sometimes I find that if a previous OSD has failed, it would give mysterious results on every OSD afterwards, thus the formatting.
*note: Fortunately for me this was on a test box with no requirements to save existing data.
Let me know how that works for you,
Joel
Does anyone knows how to setup mdt2010 to copy files from another pc? or backing up current ones from a xp machine that will be wipe out. I saw some articles but it’s not explained in detail. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, on the diskpart sample above I don’t get the first line.
Hi Kurt. Are you talking about the User State Migration Tool (USMT)? Check out this video, might answer some questions you have.
http://edge.technet.com/Media/Migrate-WinXP-to-Win7-Using-USMT-User-State-Migration-Tool-Upgrade-XP-or-Vista/
Regarding the first line in the diskpart command, when you plug the USB key/drive into the machine Windows must be able to see it and write to it. So as a quick rule of thumb, if Windows assigns a drive letter to that USB key/drive then you’re ready to continue formatting it.
Joel
it is very good guide i have a doubt regarding deployment i.e is image is applicable to cross platform
Hi Vara,
To answer your question, typically yes. I have yet to come across a platform that my images do not deploy to. It’s all in the drivers.
Are you having troubles getting an image to deploy to a specific hardware set?
Joel
In DISKPART, you can FORMAT FS=FAT32 QUICK – the default is a full format.
Just curious if updating the media share in MDT 2010 will change the BCD file (it recreates the boot entries for x86 and x64 WinPE) and remove the custom settings we’ve added for DaRT.
hello every1 ~ and thanks for all ppl are teaching around here~ but i still have some problem when i booting my USB(HDD) the error msg give me “Missing Operating System” @@” any1 have any idea due to this issue ? >_<"?
Pogo is right, you can also choose the QUICK option when formatting.
Jason V.: Yes when you update the MEDIA point it will update the BCD file, but it will NOT remove the changes to the CustomSettings.ini that we’ve made.
NewbieNub: Did you run through the steps above? Was there any point where things might have gone wrong? Is the custom image file (.wim) copied onto the USB key?
lol i solve my problem already just because i didnt run this commands ==> bootsect /nt60 drive letter: /mbr ~ now able to boot but still got 1 problem is the dos command cant support my windows 98se ,2k , or linux ~ is that anyway to modify the windows boot mgr let i able to choose not only just 2 types of boot but able to choose more then that ?
I must say this article in particular has been exceptionally useful for me working towards Windows 7 deployment. Historically, we’ve used nothing but SYmantec Ghost for all of our imaging. We have no practical experience or knowledge of MDS/MDT/WAIK/ImageX.
After walking through this guide as a template for setting up our deplyment of Windows 7 and understanding certainly more than many of the MS documents provided, I would prefer to use either a USB boot disk to pull a selected image or maybe use PXE. I would prefer not to try to mainitain dozens of USB keys for deployment. Is there a way to simply boot a client, poll for the “image” server, have displayed options of iamges to install, make the selection, and have it install ?
Again, I am very much a newbie to this particular technology but want to learn and employ these services moving forward. Any help, suggestions, recommendations, etc. would be very much apprecaited.
Thanks in advance.
Ed Norman
@Ed Norman
The best way to do this would be to use a mixture of MDT and Windows Deployment Services (WDS). You place the LiteTouch PE images that MDT generates as it’s boot images onto the WDS server as boot images, and the clients can then PXE boot and allow you to run these via PXE over the network from the WDS server (this can also be the server you have MDT installed on). MDT will run entirely over the network, allowing you to use the MDT wizard to run any configured task sequences in MDT from the LiteTouch PE booted from WDS.
You can do this with a mixture of USB keys and MDT/WDS as well, but assuming clients can use PXE I see no reason to keep USB media for anything but offline installs. It allows you to never have to have a USB key or any other physical devices with you to run an image on a machine – if the client can PXE boot and you can press the F12 key, you’ve got a deployment solution.
Thank you for the direction. I am now working to setup a PXE server but still have some surrounding confusion. Would you explain more about how the PXE enabled workstation “calls” the imaging server, how a Win PE or LiteTouch PE environment is loaded from the imaging server, how the imaging server creates a LiteTouch or Win PE “boot” (I’m guessing at this) ? Either on your site or another, can you point to a place that can give more information ? Starting simple and building on that would make it a lot easier for me. Further assistance would be very helpful and appreciated.
@Ed Norman
.
What are you looking for specifically? Are you looking for technical details? If you’re new to this, you probably don’t realize how complex PXE and network booting is
It suffices to say, if you have a DHCP server, a WDS server, and boot images configured in WDS for a client to access, the only part you actually need to “know” is that the PXE client goes through DORA to get an IP from the DHCP server, and uses options 66 and 67 to determine the boot (WDS) server and boot image (the .com file used to bootstrap the environment). You’ll then see and select a boot image from the list, which will take over from the PXE bootstrap and load Windows PE over the network.
There’s a step-by-step guide for Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on WDS on Technet you might want to read:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771670(WS.10).aspx
There’s also a technical reference on WDS you may be interested in:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754627(WS.10).aspx
There’s a simple beginner writeup on MSFN on WDS/PXE/DHCP here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/113927-a-step-by-step-guide-to-setting-up-wds-for-pxe/
I am walking blindly with this technology with a slim bit of light slowly growing. Did I mention slow !?! Not to mention that most tech’s vocabulary including mine don’t generally include the word “slow” being an indicater of lack of patience, not one my better attributes. Honestly, I’m not certain about the questions to ask; thus my stumbling through you forum. By the way, thank you much for your patience in adavnce.
If I’m using a Win2k8 with WDS installed, is there a need to have WDT and WAIK ? If not, how do I create boot images and then images to be installed ? Is there a better order of installation for one product or all 3 ?
As the saying goes, I know enough about this to be dangerous but thankful for a test environment.
@Ed Norman
I would suggest this:
1. Install WDS on your Server 2008 machine (which you’ve already done).
2. Install the WAIK and MDT on that Server 2008 machine as well.
3. Use MDT to create a task sequence, and Update the Deployment Share (no need to build media, just follow up to Updating the Deployment Share in the “Putting it all together” section).
4. Open WDS, and browse to the boot images folder under your server.
5. Right-click the Boot Images folder, and select the option to add a boot image – browse to your LiteTouchx86.wim or LiteTouchx64.wim file in your deployment share (for example, mine are located in \DeploymentShare\Boot), and add the .wim.
6. Once you’ve got one (or both, if creating both x86 and x64 boot wims) of the LiteTouch .wim files added as a boot image, you can then PXE boot a client, select the LiteTouch image from the list (if there is only one boot image defined, you won’t get a choice – it’ll use the only one available), and it’ll boot into MDT just as it would from a USB key.
@Dan
I have the same error:
Error detected running command: ‘C:\Windows\system32\bcdedit.exe -store “\\VBOXSVR\DaRT\Hybrid_Media\Content\Boot\bcd” /timeout 30′ Exit code is: 1
Error text is: The boot configuration data store could not be opened. Incorrect function.
BcdEdit returned an error.
All fixed
What course should I take if I already ahve the hard-disk partitioned (partition 0 and partition 1) where partition 1 has data that I want to keep? More precise, I want to work “only” on partition 0. At the moment, using this tutorial, I found myself with hard-disk wiped and no data (which I recovered, fortunately).
Yes, this will wipe a disk by default based on the task sequence. What I would suggest is going into the task sequence and replacing the current partitioning step with either running a partition program or your own diskpart / format script. Either works – I personally have a task sequence for “Existing Machine” for each OS I have on my key, and that task sequence does not run the default partition / format step, but instead runs Partition Wizard:
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/141228-mdt-2010/
Did anyone come across the below issue?
If the machine is already partitioned, there is no issue with the deployment.
But if i try to deploy on a fresh machine it fails and if i diskpart and clean the HDD, it fails again.
If i do not diskpart after the error and then reboot mahine, the deployment works since the partitions are already created.
The only option left is to restart the machine after the partitioning . and then continue with the installation.
What i assume is, when there are no partitions, the USB HDD is getting C: and after the partition its getting E: drive ( i just have C: drive in the image) … so may be that its still lookin for files on C: drive but since USB HDD has E: drive … its failing.
Is it possible to assign a drive letter for USB HDD before all this happens.
That’s very odd, and sounds more like a BIOS issue than an MDT one. You might be correct though, that the drive letters may be an issue, but I’ve installed hundreds of machines this way and never had one with this issue, so I’m wondering if it is machine-specific.
this is crazy.
I have tried at least 50 times today, trying all the possible ways, but no luck.
When the disk is clean with no partitions, the installation is failing with “Failed to run the action : Copy scripts”
I dont think its a BIOS issue since I got this error on multiple models (eg: Dell E4310, HP 6710b etc.)
Below thread talks about the exact issue.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/mdt/thread/d9f21dd3-557f-4510-ac5f-9d4d583c774e
One person resolved it by using a USB flash drive instead of a USB HDD.
It might help since the architecture of a USB flash drive is different, but the sad part is i do not have a 16 GB drive. Also i cannot use a DVD since the the image is 10 GB.
If you can think of any solutions, please suggest
@Cluberti
Thank you sir for a wonderful guide. Though I’m not a tech-guy nor am I related to the IT field directly, but I need the deployment tool for setting up my friends and family computers, particularly for Applications And Drivers deployment.
Pardon my low level knowledge here, but I want to ask a question.
I created this deployment share and installed windows 7 on my Laptop. The laptop HDD had 3 partitions prior to installation. During the installation, the deployment share Created only one partition and formatted it by default. I want to have a custom Format and Partition Wizard where user can manually configure this step. Would you kindly guide me on this step?
Thanks in advance.
@Cluberti
Oh and yes!! I read your post in msfn forums regarding this topic… http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/141228-mdt-2010/
But I didn’t get it, if you could please help me with it. It’s exactly what I want, a GUI.
Again, Pardon my ignorance. I belong to the lowest class of beginners.
I got it to work once.
Now it boots up to the WINPE and I select x86.
I see the solution accelerator screen and then it reboot.
I’ve update deplyment share and then update the media media content.
Any suggestions?
Press F8 to get to the command prompt, which will keep it from rebooting if it fails. Then, go look at the smsts.log file on X:\ and see what happens. Usually this fails because you lack a network driver for connecting back to the share (thus no IP address, thus the process can’t continue), but I’ve heard of other things causing this. They’re just not as common as network driver issues.
@Gar
This took about 3-5 minutes to load for me from the stick (I think it is due to a slow stick) I plan on ordering a higher quality 32GB stick and see how that goes, so I can have two-three different images on it. But yea, it did take a bit for the hta script to pop-up, but it did eventually and ran without a hitch.
Hello, all I ‘ve successfully create a usb with the deployment share and have use it to image many machines, we just recieved a new model laptop that im unable to image using the current offline usb deployment share I’m getting the error “Before this wizard can contiue, it will need to know the path of a deployment share” I booted one machine up it does have 3 partitions, so the drive letter the usb is being assign may be an issue.
also i was able to image the new model over the network using the orginal deployment share so the nic card was not an issue
Where should i start troubleshooting
also is it possible hp used mdt /sccm to push their standard image ?
Are you sure your WinPE image from the new share has the correct drivers for the network card? It would be a good start to press F8 to open a cmd prompt and check to make sure you have an IP address, etc at that point.