Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
There are a number of users here who regularly build computers. Others support desktop machines, and others are simply hobbyists keen on a handy treat.
Want a treat?
Sysprep.exe is a treat. Available from your Windows 2000 or XP installation CD, or here, Sysprep, used in conjunction with your favorite-ever drive imaging package- Ghost, DriveImage or TrueImage, will do something so special you'll be ashamed you haven't tried it.
How it works:
1. Build PC as normal. Load an NT-based version of Windows. Reserve 10GB or 10% of the drive for a second partition.
2. Install applications and drivers.
[Allow me a brief digression]
For me this means Acrobat Reader, WinZip, IBM's Java VM, Flash (sigh), IrfanView, WinAmp (+ geiss and milkdrop, 'cause they're neat), Nero, CDex, Mozilla, and every service pack, security update and hotfix I can get. I also load absolutely-current drivers at this point - latest Catalyst and Detonators (even if I don't use them, they're better than the ones that come with Windows), Via 4-in-1s, every Winmodem driver I can find, HPT and Promise RAID drivers, etc. I install drivers from a directory called C:\Drivers (about 250MB) that I make expressly for that purpose.
I also clear all the startup crap and the Windows tip balloons, change XP back to the less-stupid control panel and search views, turn on the quick launch tray and put "My Computer" and "My Network Places" on the desktop, where they belong.
... and schedule a task to run daily, to back up \documents and settings and System State Data to a z:\ drive. (typically a 10GB partition that will contain the sysprepped image we're about to make and the backup). Another scheduled batch file renames the backups, so there's always a five days of backups on hand.
[/digression]
3. When everything is as it ought to be, run sysprep. When it finishes, your computer will shut down. Do not let it restart.
4. Pull out your bootable ghost CD. These Instructions are very good if you've never made one. I actually use a slightly-customized 1.44MB boot image of the disk ghost makes for booting and restoring for this purpose, but the 2.88MB Village Idiot method is great, too.
5. Boot off your CD.
6. Create a partition image of your hard disk's first partition, storing the image either on the second partition (that 10GB we set aside), or directly on CD-Rs, if possible (Ghost 2003 retail supports this method). Ghost also offers to make the CDs it creates bootable. This is not a bad thing. It reads the contents of A:, which must be a 1.44MB floppy or 1.44MB image file (the disc will be non-bootable if you use a 2.88MB floppy image).
Be sure to tell your imaging program to operate in 670MB chunks, if imaging to another disk partition.
Obviously, you'll have to put the chunks on CDs yourself if your imaging software doesn't do it for you.
7. A typical sysprep image of a brand new machine will be approximately 1000MB. Maybe 1200 if MS Office has been added to the mix. Using "high" compression, it is more than possible to fit everything on only two CDs.
8. To restore the image, follow your software's normal restore procedure. Be sure that the system that is being restored is fairly similar to the image in question. This normally means ensuring that the two systems have or do not have ACPI enabled, have the same number of processors, and have similar motherboard chipsets (Generally, Intel to Intel will work, or Via to Via. I've gotten a Via image to work with a SiS board, but not an Intel to SiS).
9. After restoring, reboot as normal. Windows will go through an abbreviated hardware detection, ask for a serial number and possibly ask to be activated (note: this also applies to MS Office, if it has been made part of the image!). Once these steps have been completed, your PC is ready to use.
Using a sysprepped image, I can go from blank hard disk to up-and-running with apps installed in under 15 minutes. And because of the way this image has been built, "gold disking" the PC is unlikely to have a serious impact on the user.
Want a treat?
Sysprep.exe is a treat. Available from your Windows 2000 or XP installation CD, or here, Sysprep, used in conjunction with your favorite-ever drive imaging package- Ghost, DriveImage or TrueImage, will do something so special you'll be ashamed you haven't tried it.
How it works:
1. Build PC as normal. Load an NT-based version of Windows. Reserve 10GB or 10% of the drive for a second partition.
2. Install applications and drivers.
[Allow me a brief digression]
For me this means Acrobat Reader, WinZip, IBM's Java VM, Flash (sigh), IrfanView, WinAmp (+ geiss and milkdrop, 'cause they're neat), Nero, CDex, Mozilla, and every service pack, security update and hotfix I can get. I also load absolutely-current drivers at this point - latest Catalyst and Detonators (even if I don't use them, they're better than the ones that come with Windows), Via 4-in-1s, every Winmodem driver I can find, HPT and Promise RAID drivers, etc. I install drivers from a directory called C:\Drivers (about 250MB) that I make expressly for that purpose.
I also clear all the startup crap and the Windows tip balloons, change XP back to the less-stupid control panel and search views, turn on the quick launch tray and put "My Computer" and "My Network Places" on the desktop, where they belong.
... and schedule a task to run daily, to back up \documents and settings and System State Data to a z:\ drive. (typically a 10GB partition that will contain the sysprepped image we're about to make and the backup). Another scheduled batch file renames the backups, so there's always a five days of backups on hand.
[/digression]
3. When everything is as it ought to be, run sysprep. When it finishes, your computer will shut down. Do not let it restart.
4. Pull out your bootable ghost CD. These Instructions are very good if you've never made one. I actually use a slightly-customized 1.44MB boot image of the disk ghost makes for booting and restoring for this purpose, but the 2.88MB Village Idiot method is great, too.
5. Boot off your CD.
6. Create a partition image of your hard disk's first partition, storing the image either on the second partition (that 10GB we set aside), or directly on CD-Rs, if possible (Ghost 2003 retail supports this method). Ghost also offers to make the CDs it creates bootable. This is not a bad thing. It reads the contents of A:, which must be a 1.44MB floppy or 1.44MB image file (the disc will be non-bootable if you use a 2.88MB floppy image).
Be sure to tell your imaging program to operate in 670MB chunks, if imaging to another disk partition.
Obviously, you'll have to put the chunks on CDs yourself if your imaging software doesn't do it for you.
7. A typical sysprep image of a brand new machine will be approximately 1000MB. Maybe 1200 if MS Office has been added to the mix. Using "high" compression, it is more than possible to fit everything on only two CDs.
8. To restore the image, follow your software's normal restore procedure. Be sure that the system that is being restored is fairly similar to the image in question. This normally means ensuring that the two systems have or do not have ACPI enabled, have the same number of processors, and have similar motherboard chipsets (Generally, Intel to Intel will work, or Via to Via. I've gotten a Via image to work with a SiS board, but not an Intel to SiS).
9. After restoring, reboot as normal. Windows will go through an abbreviated hardware detection, ask for a serial number and possibly ask to be activated (note: this also applies to MS Office, if it has been made part of the image!). Once these steps have been completed, your PC is ready to use.
Using a sysprepped image, I can go from blank hard disk to up-and-running with apps installed in under 15 minutes. And because of the way this image has been built, "gold disking" the PC is unlikely to have a serious impact on the user.
