Issues creating Thunderbolt Casper Image drive using AutoCasperNBI

[kjohnston]

I have an external drive that we have been using to do all our imaging.
Recently i started getting errors, so i figured i would just rebuild it.... well it is no where as easy as the JumpStart guy made it seem..

I used AutoDMG to take El Capitan image (10.11.6)
i then launch AutoCasperNBI, browse to the .DMG, select casper imaging.app (9.9.7)
add my JSS URL.
I let it build.

When it is done I have a folder that has a bunch of .dmgs and other files.

My external drive is partitioned into 2, one for the boot stuff, the send for all the Casper files

My understanding is i open up the netboot.dmg and copy all those files to my partition that is supposed to boot from.

When i do all of that and hit the options key on boot, select the external drive the machien crashes and just does endless reboots...

I am surely doing something (alot) wrong.

[bentoms]

@kjohnston If booting off of External media & not NetBoot.. then check "create restorable DMG".. & restore that to the external media.

EDIT: with "that" being the "restorable.dmg" that's created.

[kjohnston]

@bentoms I have also created that restorable DMG, opened it up and copied the contents to my external drive, and it still crashes the machine upon boot up.

When i boot up the machine it looks liek kernal panics on the left side, right before the Mac reboots and does it all over again.
These Macs do not have anything on the HDD, they have been completely wiped..

I will keep plugging away i guess... but i am right in copying the Application, System, Library and Users folders into the partition of the HDD.

Maybe the drive is not created properly... I only erased the contents of the partitions, but left what was already created..

Kevin

[bentoms]

@kjohnston Are your using ASR to restore to the external disk?

[bentoms]

Whoops. Hit "post it@ too soon.

This is what I mean by ASR

[kjohnston]

@bentoms I am not quite sure what you mean by using ASR to restore to the external disk.

After reading that link, i don't think that is what i am doing.

All i did was erase the contents of the external disk, but left the partitions in tact. I then copied the same information into the corresponding partitions like it was there before, just using a newly created image.

So i have a 40gig parttion that is labelled Casper Imaging (this contains the files from AutoCasperNBI.dmg)
Then i have a 100gig partition that contains all the files i replicate from Casper Admin.

I then option boot the Mac, choose the drive and Casper Imaging would launch and be on my way...

I didn't "prepare" the external disk before, this was already done for us..

EDIT: I just tried all this again on a Mac that is running El Capitan.. and when i try and copy the contents of the restorable.dmg i get an error " You do not have permission to access "ARDAgent.app"

Appears to be something in the "System" folder i am copying that gives this error..

[bentoms]

@kjohnston You need to ASR, not copy & drag the contents.

[kjohnston]

@bentoms Well that makes complete sense now. I have followed those instructions and things appear to be working. Thank you so much for your help. I will be sure to add this to my documentation!