The Ghostcast server runs under Windows. You use this application to dump an image from the model (client) computer to the server and to load the image on one or more client computers from the server. However, the client computers themselves must be running the Ghost DOS-based application. You can create the necessary DOS diskettes with the ghost application, network drivers, ip addresses etc. using the Ghost Boot Disk Wizard which is installed when you install Symantec Ghost.
The critical piece of information you need to create Ghost boot disks is the type of network card. The boot disk (if you plan to use Ghost over a network or cross over cable) must have the necessary drivers to access the card.
Symantec Ghost includes a large number of network drivers for most of the popular network card models. You select the desired one during the creation of the boot disks. However, the built-in drivers were not adequate in our case even though the Boot Wizard included the drivers for the Intel Pro 1000 which was installed in the computers we were working with.
Assuming that the drivers shipped with Ghost are adequate:
Start Ghost Boot Disk wizard:
Start > Programs > Symantec Ghost > Ghost Boot Wizard
Select Type of boot disk. Create the Network Boot Disk to connect two PCs directly over a crossover cable or via a hub or other network device with TCP/IP . (Another useful choice is the CD ROM boot disk. This boot diskette includes generic support for CD drives. You can use this boot diskette to load an image from CDs.)
Select driver from list (e.g. 3C920 Integrated).
Select Use PC-DOS
Select Symantec Ghost
Enter the starting IP address, gateway and subnet mask. Say you wanted to create eight boot diskettes to use simultaneously over a network, if you select 169.168.167.4 as your starting address, the second of the eight will have the address 169.168.167.5, the third will have 169.168.167.6 and so on up to 169.168.167.11. These do not have to be real addresses if you are using Ghost on a local network not attached to the campus network. (This information gets stored in the wattcp.cfg file on the Ghost Boot disk. If you manually duplicate the diskettes, you can adjust the IP addresses by editing this file.)
sample wattcp.cfg
IP = 169.168.167.2 NETMASK = 255.255.255.0 GATEWAY = 169.168.167.1
Select the number of diskettes you want to create.
The Intel Pro/1000 driver included with Ghost did not work with our PCs. We received the message: Unable to locate PCI LAN Adapter. We then downloaded a newer driver from Dell and added a template for it in the wizard. To add a template:
Start Ghost Boot Wizard
Select Network Boot Disk
Select Add
Template Type: NDIS2 driver
Select browse and navigate to the Dell driver directory where the extracted drivers are stored. In the case of the the Intel Pro 1000, highlight e1000.dos. Enter a name. Based on the patterns on other boot disks, use the filename of the driver (e.g. e1000).
The drivers are loaded in the config.sys file and are actually stored in the \net folder on the diskette.
DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos DEVICE=\net\e1000.dos
Add the -ja option to the Ghost command.
@echo off prompt $p$g \net\netbind.com MOUSE.COM cd \ghost echo Loading... GHOST.EXE -ja=itrcast
[protman] drivername=PROTMAN$ [pktdrv] drivername=PKTDRV$ bindings=nic intvec=0x60 chainvec=0x66 [nic] drivername = E1000$