Multi Boot disc question

[ArtChess]

I have bee assigned the project to create a multi boot disc for our pc's at work. We currently use symantec ghost v7.5.

I am a tech that only know's what he is taught. And all i know is we are given a CD that boots up the PC's that has the necessary drivers for the given PC's. I have never had to create a 'MultiBoot' disc to ghost PC's.

However I just wanted to know, exactly.. what defines a 'MultiBoot' disc?

And also, if anyone can give some recomendation as to what other software that i could try that maybe better.

We here at work normally have a difficulty time ghosting PC's that use Xircomm Network PCMCIA cards. Any suggestions on that would be great also.

[Thong_Ispector]

There is a misuse of terms here.
Multiboot means multiple operating systems.

If you are ghosting you are doing a preinstall / reinstall

pcmcia ... I assume you are working on laptops...

You did not mention which OS you are running...

If this is XP it could be a problem...A real problem...

What make and model of laptop...

or do you have a variety of laptops...

What file system are they using or do they want?

I have had success ghosting XP from a Dell laptop to the same make and model Dell laptop...

I had good success with a generic ghost image of 98 , a copy of win98 folder from the cd, folders for any video drivers, modem drivers, sound cards etc... and getting very fast installs. I assume this would work with ME and 2000. But I personally never tried it...

It was also helpful to run a diagnostic after the ghost but prior to the driver installs to identify the actual hardware so I knew which drivers it was going to need. Everest is a good one... Free for home use fee for business use...

So give us a little more information and we will see what can be done to help get you going...

Oh, and the Xircom cards...
Pull them prior to the install... do install everything else,
Install the drivers for the Xircom then reinstall the Xircom Card and that problem should be gone..

[ArtChess]

sorry for the late reply. Yeah the PC's we need to ghost (make copy of NOT create Image for) vary. From IBM T23, T30, T41, T42, Dell 280, Dell 270 desktop, Dell Latitude Cpx's and Cpi's, IBM Netvista's.

In any event I will need to actually create a mutli-boot disc or CD that will have the Network Driver's for those PC's so the when I boot from the CD/disc i can ghost the machine. And this disc will be all in one for those such machine(s).

I am going through the steps in this site: http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/modboot/#makedisk

and it reads:: Format a bootable MS-Dos floppy diskette (version 6.x or higher required)
format a: /u /s

however I am doing this from windows XP, and when i try it it reads
invalid parameter - /s

what does the /s switch do and how can i get around this from XP pc.

[alc6379]

The /s switch is unavailable in Windows XP. In DOS, it stood for "system", basically it added DOS bootfiles onto the disk, making it a bootable floppy.

If I recall correctly, I ran this bootdisc once. The trick to getting any setup like this going is to have each needed driver available, and then select the one you want to run at boot. Is there any chance of using a bootable CD, rather than a floppy?

My guess is that "multiboot" just means it's driver-compatible with several different systems.

[ArtChess]

well i know that i can create a bootable floppy in XP via right click and format putting a check mark on the create an MS Dos start up disk.

[Thong_Ispector]

I would like to se a directory listing of the existing single system disks that they give you now. It might be easier for us to fix the flat instead of reinventing the wheel.

So, you need to make a single - boot CD with drivers for multiple systems

Nero 6 and most CD burning software will let you create a bootable CD

You would then put all the network drivers on the one CD...

That site you refer to specifically says Windows 95 98, 98se and not me...
It does not mention XP at all...

So, you are trying to use a single cd to boot the network drivers and create a ghost BACKUP of you existing system.

You are NOT trying to Ghost a single XP image onto several machines..

An additional point to consider...
Are any of these computer running SATA drives or RAID configurations?
Dont forget the drivers for those...

You might take a look at ghost 4 linux...

It is a bootable cd with generic network drivers that will autodetect most network cards.

It might be just what you need..

It has worked on every machine I have needed...
However, if your server or archive is NTFS... Don't Do This...
It can read NTFS but I would avoid writing to NTFS with linux...

[ArtChess]

thanks Inspector..
Uhm,.. I have now just rec'd a CD that is a All In ONe CD, that is pretty much able to detect most network Card and then i am able to ghost PC's to a mapped drive. However in particular we Have a Dell 280. And all i want to do is burn/copy this CD and also add some *.inf files for the network card of the 280 using
roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator Home 6.0.0.171.

I am using a laptop with one CD drive. I insert the source CD and copy it and also add the *.inf file to the desired directory of that and attempt to burn it on a blank, CD.

however after disc caching for over an hour Roxio tells me I need 4 CD's?? and the file/image is way over 700MB it's like 2000MB??? the file i added is barely 200KB??

So to make the long story short, how do i copy/burn a bootable CD and at the same time add files to it.

I went to Roxio site and they are asking to call a toll free number and to have a CC ready b/c they will charge 35 bucks?? Nice support eh?!

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

[Acidburn]

perhaps check nero out, they do support for multi session cd's - however never created a multi session Boot CD .......