Winclone 4 image failing using Casper Imaging

[chlaird]

Hey all, anyone have any experience with Winclone4 images not installing right during imaging? I've tried a .winclone and a .pkg version, but they both boot to a black "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key" screen.

If we use the Winclone4 app to manually restore the image to the partition, it works perfectly. It strictly fails when we try to automate it using Casper Imaging.

[chlaird]

If anyone sees this and wants to weigh in-- I can manually force it to work by following this guide to update the MBR - http://nerdr.com/tag/fix-bootcamp-partition-not-booting-mac-and-macbook-pro/

I'm not sure what all that means, but I assume it means that either Imaging isn't updating the MBR, or the Winclone image doesn't contain the script that instructs Imaging to do so. Hmmmm.

[tperfitt]

I'm the author of Winclone. The newer versions of Winclone detect the version of Windows 8 and newer Mac hardware, and it is possible that Winclone is incorrectly assuming it is EFI versus MBR. If you are doing the package install, can you send me the /tmp/winclone_package.log when installing the package? Also, what hardware and version of windows are you restoring?

tim

[tperfitt]

To further clarify a bit, the postflight script in the package has this line:

MODELS="iMac12,2 iMac12,1 iMac11,3 iMac11,2 iMac10,1 iMac11,1 iMac9,1 iMac9,1 iMac9,1 iMac8,1 iMac7,1 iMac5,1 iMac6,1 iMac5,2 iMac5,1 iMac4,2 iMac4,1 iMac4,1 Macmini6,1 MacMini6,2 Macmini5,1 Macmini4,1 Macmini4,2 Macmini5,2 Macmini3,1 Macmini1,1 Macmini2,1 MacBook7,1 MacBook6,1 MacBook5,2 MacBook5,2 MacBook5,1 MacBook4,1 MacBook3,1 MacBook2,1 MacBook1,1 MacBookPro8,1 MacBookPro8,2 MacBookPro8,3 MacBookPro7,1 MacBookPro6,2 MacBookPro6,1 MacBookPro5,5 MacBookPro5,4 MacBookPro5,3 MacBookPro5,2 MacBookPro5,1 MacBookPro4,1 MacBookPro4,1 MacBookPro3,1 MacBookPro3,1 MacBookPro2,2 MacBookPro2,1 MacBookPro1,1 MacBookPro1,2 MacPro5,1 MacPro4,1 MacPro3,1 MacPro2,1 MacPro1,1 Xserve3,1 Xserve2,1 Xserve1,1 MacBookAir4,2 MacBookAir4,1 MacBookAir3,1 MacBookAir3,2 MacBookAir2,1 MacBookAir1,1"

If your Mac model is not listed there, and you are installing Windows 8, it is assumed that it is EFI capable and the MBR is not created. Can you look in System Profiler and find out your Model Identifier?

[jhuhmann]

@chlaird - I'm certainly not as authoritative on the subject as the guy who wrote the software, but I found that I could not get my windows7 winclone image (deployable .pkg version) to restore correctly if the partition was pre-formatted to ntfs. If I pre-formatted the partition to fat32 instead, it worked.

[chlaird]

Hi Tim, thanks for helping with this!

Our Winclone image is a Windows 7 x64 bootcamp image, pulled off of a Macmini6,2

We've tried it as a .pkg and as a .winclone through Casper Imaging, but it still results in the "no device" error.

Here's a dump of the log: http://pastebin.com/uuVMrydS

[tperfitt]

Sorry, I asked for the wrong log. Can you get me the install.log from /var/log/install.log?

tim

[chlaird]

Hi Tim,

If you read this, sorry for the delay but I'm in the middle of testing before I send along a log. I just got 1 machine to work, and will test with a few more before I do anything else.

What I've confirmed is:

1. Following these directions exactly (http://twocanoes.com/winclone/support/using-jamf-casper-suite-and-winclone-pro-to-image-a-lab-of-dual-boot-macs) and using the NTFS format and a .winclone image results in the "no disk" error.
2. Following the above directions and using the FAT-32 format and .winclone image results in the "no disk" error.
3. Installing the image as a .pkg on either an NTFS or FAT-32 format partition, named either Bootcamp, BOOTCAMP, Windows, or WINDOWS, results in the error.
4. Installing the image as a .pkg "before" the computer reboots in Casper Imaging (format drive, install OS X, install the PKG, reboot, do the first-run script), without ANY defined partition for it, results in the error.

Finally, if I install it as a .pkg "after" reboot, as part of the first-run script, and without creating a prior partition for it, it has worked. That just happened a few minutes ago, so I haven't yet had time to try it more than once to confirm. That may be how I was supposed to do it all along, but I've spent my of my time trying to get the .winclone working from those instructions

[stonefish]

for your .pkg A suggest to check the the winclone section. how do you create the package from winclone?
There are 3 options 1. create bootcamp partition as percentage...
2. create bootcamp partition ...
3. restore to specific partition. eg 1,2,3, 4 etc
Have you use casper to pre-create the bootcamp partition then you execute winclone with same option 1 and 2 above?
I might be wrong on this suggestion due to there is no information on your environment of setting.
This might cause you the error. if you already create a bootcamp partition by casper then the package of winclone image trying to recreate a boot camp partiton again(option 1 and 2).

[jhuhmann]

Here is how mine is configured, maybe it will help to compare.

I have Casper Imaging partition the drive (two partitions - mac / fat32). I restore the the packaged version of the winclone image to the 4th partition. It failed for me if I did it while netbooted, so I have it installing the package post boot in the first run script. You can see what partition number your windows partition is with:

diskutil list

Mine didn't work if I exactly followed the directions that you reference.

[mchit]

Hey guys,

Did you have any solution for this issue? I am having the same issue as what Chris encountered and tried most of the stuff mentioned here except the part "Installing the image as a .pkg "before" the computer reboots in Casper Imaging" .

I sent JAMF Support a couple of emails and waiting for their response. Following is the email I sent to them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Support,

A few weeks back, we reported to you guys that Boot Camp imaging stopped working in our environment. We were told by JAMF Support that upgrading JSS to 9.65 from 9.62would solve the problem but the problem continues to exist after upgrading.

• We are using WinClone 4 for creating Boot Camp partition following this guide - Using Casper and Winclone Pro to image a lab of dual-boot Macs

• Our Windows Version is Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

• We have three Netboot images based on 10.9.5, 10.10.1 and 10.10.2.

For Netboot with 10.10.1 and 10.10.2, Casper Imagining failed at partitioning the HDD. Our Netboot image's partition are not CoreStorage ( I converted it back to normal partition using "diskutil corestorage revert VolumeName " ) and you can see video here that it failed at partitioning with two or more partitions.

(Refer to Video below)
10.10.2 Netboot Failed to do Partition Disk for BootCamp

For normal imaging with one partition, Netboot with 10.10.1 and 10.10.2 do not give us any problem.
(Refer to Video below)
10.10.2 Netboot Normal Imaging with One Partition

So, we switched our Netboot image to old 10.9.5, partitioning of HDD for Boot Camp went well. (Refer to Video below)

10.9.5 Netboot's Boot Camp Partitioning

However, when it comes to imaging using Winclone image, it skips.
(Refer to Video below)

10.9.5 BootCamp Win7 Skip

and inside BootCamp partition, it has nothing.

• Our imaging workflow do not use Auto Casper NBI as mentioned here AutoCasperNBI

• We tested on Mac Book Pro (13-inch Early 2011) , Mac Book Air (13-inch.Mid 2013) and iMac (27-inch, Late 2012).

[szt]

Experiencing the same issue here as Myo and Chris reported.
Tried various Casper Imaging 9.x versions to no avail.
It previously worked like a charm in Casper 8.64 using a .winclone file. Even my configuration then which worked in 2013 when we were running Casper 8.64 won't work now. Honestly the only thing that changes was upgrading to version 9.x

JAMF keep us posted when this is fixed!
Thanks.

[BCPeteo]

Is it possible to just create a winclone PKG and just push this out after the Mac image has been installed?

[szt]

We noticed that since upgrading to JSS 9.72, the boot.img.gz file is stripped off the Winclone images that were uploaded via Casper Admin 9.72. Thus noticing the issues reported above. As a workaround, we just manually scp the Winclone image file into the CasperShare repository (by passing the use of Casper Admin). We were able to image Windows once more using Casper Imaging.