WDS Imaging

This page describes how to get access to OIT provided images using the Centralized WDS service on campus.  The following OIT images are available on the WDS server:

BIOS

Make sure the BIOS is locked down as appropriate to prevent unauthorized access to the computer or alternate boot devices (like the NIC or CD/DVD drive).  The following settings are needed for WDS Imaging:

• Network card Enabled w/ PXE
• The Windows XP images do not have support for AHCI mode, so on newer Dell models, SATA Operation Mode should be set to ATA.  On the Optiplex 780 it should be set to "RAID Autodetect / ATA"
• Dell Optiplex 760 and 780:  Under Performance, disable "C States Control"
• VirtualBox VM should be set with ACPI and I/O APIC both enabled. For a 64-bit image, hardware virtualization will need to be turned on in the VM settings and in the host machine's BIOS.

QIP

Machines need to be registered in QIP with the correct MAC address, set for M-DHCP, and for the DHCP template using "WDS-main" (main campus), "WDS-centennial" (centennial campus), or "PXE-all".  Virtual machines will need a separate IP address from the one used by the host machine.

Pre-Staging (Active Directory based images only)

When using the Active Directory based images, you will need to pre-stage your computer.  This consists of:

• Creating a computer object in desired OU
• Modifying the netbootGUID attribute of the computer object.  The value used can be either the network cards GUID (as shown when it attempts to PXE boot) or twenty zeros followed by the mac address.
• Making sure the Wolftech-WDS-Client account has the correct rights to join a computer to your OU.  It is recommended you make use of your OUs "Computer Migrators" group to do this by granting rights to the group and putting the WolfTech-WDS-Client account into that group.  The WolfTech documentation site has instructions regarding "Using the Computer Migrators group" to grant the correct rights..

Network Boot

Once QIP is set and the DHCP servers have had time to get the update (update starts at the top of the hour weekdays 8-5), you can get to WDS by booting the workstation from the network.  If using the pxe-all template type "wds" at the boot prompt.  If using the WDS-main or WDS-centennial template, select the "Default" boot option.

WDS Setup

When the machine finishes booting from one of the WDS boot images, the WDS Setup program will launch automatically.  The first screen asks you to select your locale, click next to select the default language and keyboard layout (en-US).

It will then prompt you to login.  You will need to use the appropriate account as listed in the OIT Images table above under "Login to WDS as" based on the image you need.  You need to specify the domain name in the username field by putting "WOLFTECH\" in front of it.  WARNING:  Be very careful after logging in, do not press any additional keys or try clicking with the mouse until the image list shows up.  It is possible to accidentally select an image (usually the top image in the list) and not even see or know which image you selected.  Once the image is selected you cannot go back to the image list without rebooting and starting over.

After login, you will be given a list of images that you have access to.  Select the image you want, and click next.

You will get a screen with a partiion selection.  Click on the advanced options link at the bottom right.  Make note of how many partitions show up and what the number is of the first partition (the lowest number showing).

If the first partition is not partition number 1 (disk 0, partition 1), you may have issues with the boot.ini for any Windows XP image.  See the Known Issues "Fixing the boot.ini issue" below.  If all you see is unallocated space, you may or may not have this issue.  You can click on the advanced options link and create a new partition, if that new partition is not partition 1, then you will have to fix the boot.ini issue.

If you previously had a linux install or a WolfPrep Zen Restore partition on the machine, it is likely the disk has a GRUB or LILO master boot record (MBR).  To fix this, you can bring up a command prompt by pressing SHIFT-F10 and typing "mbrfix /drive 0 fixmbr".  More information on the mbrfix tool can be found at:  http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm

Delete all partitions that show up.

Select the unallocated space, click next.  Imaging will start and the machine will reboot when finished.

Known Issues

Fixing the boot.ini issue:  WDS was designed for use with Windows Vista and later, however some compatibility with Windows XP was maintained.  However, WDS does not modify the boot.ini based on what partition you image to, so if installing to a partition other than the first partition, you will have to modify the boot.ini to point to the correct partition.  Windows Vista and later do not use boot.ini so the issue only exists with Windows XP.  Please note, getting rid of all partitions and installing to the first partition is the only way to permanently fix the issue. 

The biggest case where this has been seen is on some new machines from Dell, where the first partition is small (around 50 MB) and appears to contain a first boot Dell EULA.  This partition is usually not visible from within the WDS setup program, so it cannot be deleted through that method. 

There are a couple of options to delete the partitions.  The first would be to open a command prompt with SHIFT-F10 once the machine has booted from the WDS boot image, but before you start imaging.  You can use the "diskpart" command to delete the existing partitions.  More info on this command is in Microsoft Knowlegebase Article 300415.  You can also use a disk erasing utility like KillDisk or DBAN.  Running the erase utility on the drive for a few seconds and then exiting should be enough to wipe the partition table, and also has the benefit of taking care of any LILO/GRUB MBR issues you may have.

While not the recommended method, you can also edit the boot.ini to point to the correct partition.  You can edit this while imaging is occurring, but if you miss it or don't finish with the edit before imaging is done, you can boot again from the network card to one of the WDS boot images.  Open up a command prompt with SHIFT-F10.  If you are doing this during imaging, check first to see if the boot.ini file has been copied from the image to the machine yet by typing "dir /a C:\boot.ini".  If it isn't there, wait a little bit and check again.  Once verify that it is there, you have to change the attributes on it so you can modify it with "attrib -s -h -r C:\boot.ini"  and then open it with "notepad C:\boot.ini".  There will be two lines that list the partition, change both of them to the partition number you are installing to, save the file, and exit notepad.  In the command prompt again, change the attributes back to what they were originally with "attrib +s +h +r C:\boot.ini".