Image Creation/Deployment Issue

Playing around with Snap Deploy to see if it will work for our purposes. I have loaded everything onto one central machine (license server, pxe server, deployment management console, the whole works). Everything is working just great, but I'm running into this last little problem. Here's the scenario:

I'm PXE booting a "master" machine up to the Deployment Server, no problems there. I pick which physical HDD that I want to image first (there are two physical drives in this chassis, one IDE drive [primary] and one SCSI drive [golden]) and start that image creation process. The Primary drive imaging process completes with no problems and is stored on a network share on the deployment server. I then PXE boot the "master" machine back up to the deployment server once again, to image the Golden drive (SCSI) and store it on the deployment server as well. That goes perfectly, saving the golden image right next to the primary image. Needless to say, the "master imaging" process is working perfectly (as far as I can tell). I then take a look at the location that is storing both of the images, and I see them both, one "Primary" image and one "Golden" image. They are both showing to be the sizes that I would expect them to be; not identical, of course, but expected.

When I turn around to deploy those images back to a bare machine (same exact hardware as the "master" machine), I'm having an issue there.

On the deployment server, I have created two templates; one for the Primary image, and one for the Golden image. When I edit those templates, it indeed shows that the Primary image is physical disk #1 and the Golden image is physical disk #2. No problem, right?

When I go to deploy the Primary image, and look at the summary screen right before the deployment begins, it shows that it's going to write it to physical disk #1. When I go to deploy the Golden image, and look at the summary screen, it still shows that it's going to write the image to disk #1, even though the template itself shows that it should be deploying to physical disk #2.

Why is this? Why can't I get the Golden image template to put the image on the correct physical drive? I've even tried ignoring this and going ahead with the deployment, but it writes the darn thing to physical disk #1 every time. It's like the deployment process can't see that there are two physical drives in the bare machine. It just sees the IDE drive and that's it.

Do I need to load in any SCSI drivers into the deployment console (somehow) so that it will see that second physical disk?

See the attached screenshots of the templates, showing that the images are evidently aware of where they originally came from (disk 1 and 2).

Thanks in advance for any hints on why this may be happening. That's the only thing that is left to do before we fully implement this solution.

-kiplaws

 

Hello kiplaws,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Complete System Deployment Software.

Please collect the log files from the computer where Acronis PXE Server is installed:
Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\FileServer\Logs
Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Acronis\PXEServer\Logs

Please also boot your computer from Acronis Snap Deploy Bootable Media or PXE Server and press F11 key when the "Starting Acronis Loader..." message appears? After you get the "Linux Kernel Settings" prompt, please remove the word "quiet", click on the "OK" button and wait for # prompt to appear. Please insert a diskette into a floppy disk drive and issue the following commands:

cd tmp
mkdir mntdir
mount /devfs/floppy/0 mntdir
sysinfo > mntdir/sysinfo.txt
umount mntdir

Collect the sysinfo.txt file from the diskette.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
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Kirill Omelchenko

 

Don't have a floppy drive, but I do have a USB floppy attached. What is that going to look like in Linux? Instead of /devfs/floppy/0, what would it be? It's a generic Mitsumi USB Floppy Drive....

Thanks for any help....it's been a while since I messed with Linux.

 

Hello kiplaws,

Please take a look at this previous post of mine. It describes how to save logs onto a USB flash drive.

Thank you.
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Kirill Omelchenko

 

What about creating two new images? Image the SCSI disk first, then the IDE, you can leave the names the same. I vaguely recall having a similar issue with images I created using TI, and the disk had several partitions. I imaged the partitions in ascending order, however after applying the image the machine would not boot up. As I recall I resolved the issue by creating the images in descending order and that worked for me.
Give it a try and let us know...

 

Yep, I was able to successfully save the sysinfo information to a flash. Thanks for the help. I am now trying to submit my attachment to support, but the website is not letting me register the demo version's product key. I guess I will try to send it to regular customer support and see if they can forward to the correct parties.

 

Very interesting concept. I will try that!

Thanks!


-Kip

 

Hello kiplaws,

Please contact us either by submitting a pre-sales question which does not require a serial number or by sending the letter directly to support@acronis.com.

Thank you.
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Kirill Omelchenko