Ghosting problems

[Vaktathi]

OK, so I've got a machine (not the one in sig) that will work just fine in Windows with respect to internet, network connectivity, etc... but when trying to network Ghost it before loading an OS (booting off the Ghost CD) it cannot detect the onboard network card (cannot find drivers). There are about 20 identical machines that do not have this error, any idea what could be causing it?
Lemme know if you need any more info to help, the machines are AMD 2500+ with 1gb DDR400 Ram I believe, with MSI motherboards, VIA chipsets, and AGP 8x slots.

-thanks!

 

[gaidin123]

If the machines truly are identical try loading the BIOS defaults on the problem machine and plugging the problem machine into a network jack and patch cable known to work on another machine. Does ghost give you any information when it fails to detect the NIC? ie can it not even see the nic or does it just not autonegotiate properly?

Were these machines purchased at different times or was this board every RMA'd? Perhaps this one has a slightly newer revision of the ethernet chip that the Ghost CD doesn't recognize?

Are you using the corporate version of Ghost 8? If so have you tried downloading the newest drivers from the manufacturer and either creating a DOS boot disk set or using something like pebuilder with the Ghost8 plugin?

Gaidin

 

[nweaver]

I would try a Bart's Network boot disk, and see if it can make it work. Make sure you get the drivers integrated into it.

Can't help much with Ghost...only used their network version one time (and hated it). I'm an Altiris junkie

 

[Vaktathi]

I believe the machines are all identical, and have had no parts RMA'd. I have tried resetting the BIOS, but not updating it yet (need to find out from the department the exact specs of the machines, they never tell ITS anything and keep their own records, they just dump hardware on us student techs and tell us to fix it with little information or problem descriptions)

As for the exact version of Ghost, I'm not sure, I'll look that up. The error is gives is that it cannot initialize the NIC because drivers are missing (I'll get the exact error written up when I get back in there)

thanks again for the responses

 

[networkman]

As a temporary work-around, assuming you're booting from DOS to do your ghosting, just stick another network card in it and ghost using that. When you're finished, pull the nic out.

It would help immensely to know some of the specifics involved here, like what model of motherboard so that we can nail down exactly which nic is being used. Also, what brand switches are involved. There were some compatibility issues previously with Broadcom nics and Cisco switches - turned out to be a Broadcom driver issue - a newer driver fixes it.

And yes, I use the Corporate 8.0 version at my work for all of our ghosting.