Casper Imaging partitioning fails silently

[#1]

Has anyone had the partioning fail without throwing any error message? Or had a winclone installation fail w/out error?

I'm having an issue using Casper Imaging to partition and image a Bootcamp configuration. I'm netbooting to an OSX image and then installing a configuration that *should* create a 500GB Bootcamp partition and install a winclone image to that. Casper Imaging runs through the whole installation process without any problem, but when it finishes, I find only OSX installed on an unpartitioned HDD. The OSX install is perfect, it renames the computer, and reboots to the newly imaged drive. When I look through the imaging log, there's no sign of error- it seems to think that it succeeded in partitioning the drive and installing the winclone image.

The winclone image is of Windows 7, which I know isn't officially supported. I don't see how this would 'unpartition' a disk, or why it's failing without throwing an exception. This is Win7, OS X 10.6.3, OSX Server 10.6.3, Casper 7.2.1.

Mysterious. Ideas?

Here is my complete imaging log from the latest attempt:
Initializing Imaging Process...
Mounting afp://192.168.250.2/CasperShare...
Partitioning Disk...
Locating new partitions...
Preparing disk for block copy...
Performing Block Copy of Compiled Configuration BootcampTest.dmg...
Cleaning up after block copy...
Setting computer name to "002500ee70eb"...
Creating /private/etc/jamf.conf...
Creating /usr/sbin/jamf...
Creating Startup Script...
Creating Login/Logout Hooks...
Creating /usr/sbin/jamfvnc...
Creating jamfHelper...
Ensuring Apple's Setup Assistant does not appear...
Creating First Run Script...
Adding line to Update ByHost Files...
Installing win7test.winclone...
Unmounting Distribution Point...
Blessing System...
Ensuring system files are hidden...

Thanks!
Joseph

Joseph Tekippe
Systems Administrator
Fine Arts Digital Lab
School of Visual Arts

335 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011

212-592-2721

[rmanly]

Our Netboot image was setup to launch Disk Utility and then Casper Imaging
after it is closed so the Technician handling the process can create the
partitions. I believe this was setup during our jumpstart but that was
before my time.

Ryan M. Manly
Glenbrook High Schools
ACMT, ACSP, Net+, CCA

[#3]

Joseph,

I have just deployed a full lab of Win7 dual-booted iMacs with no trouble so
I don't think Win7 OS has anything to do with it.. Since your logs show the
process running without any errors, one thing that comes to mind is, are you
making the Windows restore partition large enough.

If memory serves correctly, I believe a winclone image needs twice it's
actual size to deploy to a drive. Basically if your winclone image is 20GB,
you'd need about 40GB set aside on that partition for it to deploy
correctly.

Long story short, I'd try increasing the size of that partition and see if
that does the trick..

-- Jason Weber
Casper Certified Administrator
Technology Support Cluster Specialist
Independent School District 196
jason.weber at district196.org

[#4]

Thanks, Jason. Because of the way that it was made, our winclone image is some 465 GB (though it only contains about 8 GB of data). Sounds like we'll have to create a new Win7 image in order to give it the needed headroom. In any case, it's reassuring to hear of your success deploying Win7.
Thanks!
-Joseph

[mfennelly]

When I was setting up our dual boot space, I had to make the ASR image
uncompressed before I could get it to work.

It would create the partition, but never copy the files until I made that
change.

Maura

Maura Fennelly
Technology Department
Archbishop Mitty High School
mfennelly at mitty.com
408.324.4243