Casper Imaging not able to partition drive

[jbestine]

Has anyone else been having issues with Casper Imaging not being able to partition disk during the imaging process? I've had 3 MB-Airs early 2014 models which I've had to erase with DiskUtility before I could image. In some cases, we've had to turn on debugging in DiskUtility before it would even erase the drive. I thought maybe there was another hidden partition, but I'm not seeing anything new.

Ideas?

[jesseshipley]

Are these machines encrypted with FileVault 2 or are they Yosemite installs with a CoreStorage volume?

[jbestine]

They're right out of the box, so not FileVault2. It didn't show up with core storage turned on, but the ones I've seen so far have had Mavericks. I'm waiting for the Yosemite machines. I'm in the process of implementing the process similar to the one we have for FV2.

[jesseshipley]

If you launch Terminal when netbooted to you Casper Imaging and run ```
mount
```
What do you see?

[jbestine]

That's part of our process to make sure it's using a diskless boot. It's booted into netboot##@IPofNetboot.

[htse]

I'm with @jessehipley. If it's 10.10 out of the box, it'll be CoreStorage. You'll have to deconstruct the CoreStorage volume to conventionally partition. I think there's a script floating around somewhere, that will automate this task.

[jbestine]

Yeah, I'm looking at the script. I'm also hoping a fix will be implemented soon for D-008217. I didn't see it in the latest version 9.6.3.

[jesseshipley]

Do you check every time you netboot that it is diskless? I have a server that randomly like to not do diskless and it trips me up from time to time.

[bentoms]

It sounds like some of what I experienced with CoreStorage: https://macmule.com/2015/01/02/casper-imaging-corestorage-volumes/

[Adminham]

I've been having issues imaging 2013 Mac Pros that came with factory OS X 10.10 back down to OS X 10.9.5.. • Compiled images after doing a block level restore, repeat with a file based restore & fail. • Problematic partitioning with Casper Imaging.

Here's what I came up with, a script run in a 'first pass' configuration, automated via PreStage imaging when the Macs first netboot:

#!/bin/sh

physicalVOL=`diskutil cs list | grep -A 15 "found)" | grep "Disk: " | awk '{print $3}'`
CS=`diskutil cs list | grep -A 4 "+-> Logical Volume"`

if [ "$CS" != "" ]; then
CSvol=`diskutil cs list | grep -A 4 "+-> Logical Volume" | grep " Disk: " | awk '{print $2}'`
    echo "Core Storage volume found!"
        echo "physical partition: $physicalVOL"
        echo "CoreStorage partition: $CSvol"
    echo "reverting CS volume to HFS.."
    diskutil cs revert $CSvol
else
    echo "No Core Storage volumes found"
fi
exit 0

After the script runs, the configuration reboots the Macs & Autorun data automates the second netboot to deploy the compiled dmg. Bit ugly, but hope it helps someone!

[bentoms]

@Adminham, so that's running before Casper Imaging does?

[Adminham]

@bentoms][/url, no I have it run by Casper Imaging.. My solution was to do two netboot sessions per machine, one to disable CoreStorage, another after reboot to perform the imaging.
I had issues getting the volume mounted after reverting the CoreStorage, so reboot was a quick way to solve it.

You haven't had issues like that when running your AppleScript? May be the way I have my netboot image setup...

[Edit] @bentoms, further testing has revealed I don't need to reboot specifically for CoreStorage! Duh - wish I'd seen your script a week before I bashed mine out! Would be nice to be able to set those sorts of partition options as part of a configuration & have Casper Imaging auto update disk information before targeting a partition.

[bentoms]

@Adminham, FWIW.. Casper Imaging 9.65 handles CoreStorage partitioning natively (reverts & partions in app).