Deploying image with Bootcamp partition

[EQB]

I've been fighting this one for hours now, to no avail.

Every time I try to create an image with a Bootcamp partition created with version 3.2 of Winclone, the imaging gets to the stage to deploy the Bootcamp partition, and blips past it. I've tried recreating the image, removing and re-uploading to Casper, putzing about with settings, and have poured over the (bit sparse) documentation and forum posts several times. I must be missing something obvious.

I'm deploying via netboot, and I'm running Casper 8.51. All the other packages are deploying fine.

Has anyone here successfully deployed a Wincloned Bootcamp image lately? Mind posting your package and config settings? I just know I'm missing something incredibly obvious.

Here's What I've tried:

[WINCLONE]
Compress source partition first
Don't compress source partition first

[CASPER ADMIN]
Standard (non-smart) Configuration created in Casper Admin

Added partition with settings: 250 GB NTFS partition (or less than 50%) with my bootcamp image

Tried both checking and unchecking "Reimage this partition" option for bootcamp

[CASPER NETBOOT]
Added a single HFS+ partition to drive with disk utility (drives are brand new, so a partition has to be added before Casper has a "target" partition)

Selected my configuration from the list

Checked box for "erase drive Macintosh HD"

everything deploys fine, except the Bootcamp partition which displays for a second, and then skips on to the reboot

[BOOTING TO COMPLETED IMAGE]

The bootcamp partition was created, but is empty

[MANUAL IMAGING]

If I boot to OS X, launch Winclone, and then "install" the image everything works perfectly, so I know the image is good.

[tlarkin]

Hey Gregory,

I just did this not too long ago, and here is how I accomplished it. Here are the basic steps/requirements.

1 - create a boot camp partition on a Mac and install windows. Only create the partition for how big you need it to be. At imaging time Casper Imaging can make the partition any size, but when you capture the image only make it as big as you need to.

2 - with WinClone Pro version 3.x capture your image. You need WinClone pro so you can add the auto deployment tools, which is essentially a set of command line binaries that file copy the Windows image over automatically. So, after you create your image you highlight it and select the auto deploy tools, which adds a few command line binaries to your WinClone image.

3 - upload this into Casper admin, and then create your configuration to image with WinClone. In your config you will have your normal OS X image work flow and create a custom partition to NTFS and tell it to image it with your WinClone image. Here is where you would set your desired partition size.

4 - Netboot and image as normal, or however it is you are imaging if it is offline or TDM imaging that should work too.

Caveats/requirements:
- WinClone file copies, it does not block copy so it takes a bit longer
- You must use the Pro version with the auto deploy tools added
- You must be using at least Casper Imaging 8.5.1
- If mass deploying make sure to sys prep your windows image
- You may have to erase the whole disk, including the recovery partition on the Mac before it will work. I have not confirmed this personally but I have heard Winclone will not image if the recovery partition is present.
- you must erase and image the whole computer. Thin imaging doesn't work.

I hope this helps answer your questions. Let me know how it works out for you, and maybe post your work flow once you get it working so the rest of the community can benefit from it.

Thanks,
Tom

[EQB]

Thanks for the reply tlarkin.

By "Auto deployment tools" I assume you're talking about the "Make Self Extracting" menu option in Winclone? That's good to know, as I was not doing that. However, even after making the image self-extracting, the deployment still skips installing the image. It sits on the bootcamp step a little bit longer (maybe five seconds), but it still isn't actually copying the image to the partition.

I did erase the whole disk, and our images have no recovery partition. The image is sysprep-ed.

I'm trying agin, but this time without shrinking the source partition beforehand, and making the source partition much smaller.

EDIT:

Ah, Casper just reminded me that it needed to create a Bill Of Materials (BOM) for the new self-extracting Winclone image. I spaced on the fact that it requires closing Casper Admin and re-opening it before a BOM will be created. Perhaps the BOM will fix my issues.

[EQB]

No joy. Still no deployment. I noticed that the Casper Imaging application on the netboot image is still displaying Casper Imaging 8.00 at the top. If I run imaging from the desktop application it displays Casper Imaging 8.51.

[EQB]

Apparently I totally forgot that updating the netboot/netinstall image was a separate step, and doesn't happen automagically when you update Casper Suite. *facepalm*

It'd be nice to have that step listed in the documentation under the update procedure, for those of us who miss the obvious.

Installing via target disk mode and the latest Casper Imaging solved all my problems of course.

[tlarkin]

Yes, sorry for taking a long time to respond to this. The auto deploy tools is what I was referring to. Also, yes you must be running Casper imaging 8.5.1 all around, even in your netboot image. Sorry it wasn't that clear.

Please feel free to feature request things you would like to see in our documentation.

Thanks,
Tom

[powellbc]

Tom, I have a related follow up so I am bumping this.

Can you deploy a Windows partition to an existing Mac, i.e. use Casper Imaging to add a partition and then apply the Windows image to it without affecting the OS X partition? I tried this by simply creating a configuration with a partition added, but if you do not elect to erase the drive the second partition won't be created.

The reason we want to do this is you cannot create a boot camp partition using the boot camp assistant without actually installing Windows. The only other alternative is to create a partition using disk utility, but then you cannot choose NTFS.

[tperfitt]

A couple of notes:

1. You can use bootcamp assistant if you insert a FAT32 drive with a folder on it called autorun.inf. Boot Camp assistant will think that you have an installer disk, then allow you to repartition the drive.

2. When restoring a Winclone image, it just needs to be FAT32 or NTFS. This is just a check to make sure that you are not overwriting a Mac formatted disk. Once the filesystem is restored, it will be NTFS.

tim

[powellbc]

Thanks for the info Tim.

For now we are simply using Disk utility to manually add another partition. Do you know of any potential issues doing it that way instead of in item 1 above?

Bryan