Cloning a computer, what am I missing?

Ric · January 21, 2014, 10:42:00 AM

I have cloned a hard drive of a computer using Acronis to streamline the installation and configuration process. At least that's what I was hoping.

The computer that has the original drive was placed in service last week. I started configuring the new computer today. When the original computer tried to log into the network today it said it could not find the computer name on the network (paraphrase)

The 2nd computer that is using the copy of the drive has a different static IP address and computer name.

What am I missing? Something in NetBIOS?

Thanx.

Ric

Jeff Zylstra · January 21, 2014, 10:50:57 AM

You probably know this, but for those lurkers out there.... When you clone a computer, you have to run a process in Windows ( used to be called sysprep?) to remove the machine specific identifiers before cloning. That process will cause you to go through the new computer process where you have to set the region, time, date, machine name, etc.... It then configures Windows with machine specific information. This process can be automated, but it's way too much hassle for me. Anyways, it sounds like this process did not get completed fully or correctly. Could that be it?

Ric · January 21, 2014, 10:54:47 AM

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on January 21, 2014, 10:50:57 AM
You probably know this, but for those lurkers out there.... When you clone a computer, you have to run a process in Windows ( used to be called sysprep?) to remove the machine specific identifiers before cloning. That process will cause you to go through the new computer process where you have to set the region, time, date, machine name, etc.... It then configures Windows with machine specific information. This process can be automated, but it's way too much hassle for me. Anyways, it sounds like this process did not get completed fully or correctly. Could that be it?

Jeff, no, I am not familiar with sysprep!

what's the order that it gets done?

Format the drive
sysprep
clone the drive from the previously saved image?
change static IP address
change computer name
join domain

Thanx!

Mark · January 21, 2014, 10:55:39 AM

Yes, what Jeff says. You need to Sysprep PRIOR to taking an image. When you fire up a sysprep'd machine, it will ask for a computer name and prompt to join to domain if desired.

Steps are basically:

Configure source machine
Sysprep source machine
Create image of sysprepp'd machine
Deploy image

Jeff Zylstra · January 21, 2014, 11:09:29 AM

What Mark said. A couple of more pointers... I would do a direct, disk to disk clone by inserting the "target" disk into the original or "source" machine. This is much faster than using a USB drive as an intermediary. Also, I have had issues with Acronis in the past with dissimilar sized disks, especially when cloning the disk to an image file on a USB drive, then having transferring it to the target disk.

I have had good luck with the Clonezilla Live CD. You download the .ISO file and burn that to a CD or DVD and boot from it. It's pretty simple, reliable, and fast. I cloned two disks the weekend before last, and it took me about 45 minutes a disk. Not bad at all. And of course, it is Free! It's about a 15 Meg download, so not bad at all. Let us know if you have questions.

P.S. Don't forget to install all the software, drivers, settings, etc... on the source machine before cloning it. And remember to update all of the software to latest versions, and update to the latest drivers, as well. That is the real benefit of cloning. Also, check your group policy settings if you're on a domain, and remember to make sure that this user is a member of the given group so that the group policy settings take effect at login.

Jeff Zylstra · January 21, 2014, 11:35:07 AM

Quote from: Ric on January 21, 2014, 10:54:47 AM

Jeff, no, I am not familiar with sysprep!

what's the order that it gets done?

Format the drive
sysprep
clone the drive from the previously saved image?
change static IP address
change computer name
join domain

Thanx!

P.S. The cloning process is a sector for sector, byte for byte, exact copy of the disk, including the formatting information. You can even do a "bare metal" clone of a new, unformatted disk and it will be the same as the original disk. One thing on that however, is that if the original disk is smaller than the cloned disk, the new cloned disk will be the same size as the original and then have empty, unformatted space at the end of the disk. Windows virtual disk manager can easily and quickly take care of that for you and extend the partition. Virtual disk manager is in My Computer- Manage - Virtual disk manager.

Ric · January 21, 2014, 12:30:24 PM

where do I get sysprep?

these extra steps are making reconsider cloning again. What a PITA

I have about 150 items on my checklist to deploy a new machine and I'm still thinking cloning is a waste of my time and patience.

Will give it some consideration though.

Thanx.

Ric

Mark · January 21, 2014, 01:24:56 PM

You already have it. It's in

Code Select

C:\Windows\system32\sysprep\

If you have 150 things on your checklist, imaging is definitely the way to go in my opinion. Once you get passed the hurdle of figuring it all out, you'll be able to hammer through all those machines. You keep the image around or even update it, someone gets a virus or just some weird problem you cannot figure out, just re-image their machine and forget about troubleshooting or otherwise wasting time.

Jeff Zylstra · January 21, 2014, 02:04:41 PM

The more identical machines you are doing at a time, the more cloning makes sense. If you have a lot of common programs, printers, devices or settings that are not specific to a user, then cloning is even more of a benefit. If it is a simple installation with 2 computers, then maybe not. Sysprep takes about a minute or so to remove the machine specific information. Like Mark said, cloning is an excellent "backup" of sorts for workstations. The user specific information should be either in roaming profiles, then backed up off the server, or backed up another way, but workstation backups have always been a pain. Cloning helps that, I think.

Your frustration is talking right now. Just use Sysprep without any additional command line options. You will be prompted when the machine boots up after being cloned, just like an "out of the box" machine. So what. You're still ahead, even if you clone 1 machine, you will have learned a LOT and found another wonderful tool to make life easier. Hang in there, because it WILL be worth it in the end.

Mark · January 21, 2014, 02:07:04 PM

Well said Jeff!

Jeff Zylstra · January 21, 2014, 02:10:50 PM

Quote from: Mark on January 21, 2014, 02:07:04 PM
Well said Jeff!

Thanks, Mark. I think you're the one who helped me originally with cloning, and someone else here turned me on to Clonezilla, so I'm just passing the help along in the AU tradition.

Jeff Golas · January 22, 2014, 11:07:24 AM

I started to find that in some cases, cloning (while awesome in itself) is a pain for some stuff. Look at your checklist, then decide how much of that can be automated rather than cloned? Installing office? Automate it (gpo using startup script that looks for existing folder). Installing flash/java? Automate them (gpo install).

Ric · January 22, 2014, 11:18:35 AM

definitely frustrated

can I sysprep the machine I am working on and leave the original cloned machine alone?
And then make an image of this machine to use in the future?

Better explanation if the above is not clear....

Set up #1 Machine and configured it as far as I could generically
Made image of #1 machine with Acronis
Cloned new machine (call it #2) from the Acronis image of #1
can I Sysprep #2 and then make an image of it to use in the future?

Mark · January 22, 2014, 01:20:50 PM

Most likely, yes.

Jeff Zylstra · January 22, 2014, 02:04:42 PM

Quote from: Ric on January 22, 2014, 11:18:35 AM
definitely frustrated

can I sysprep the machine I am working on and leave the original cloned machine alone? NO. You will need to sysprep the original, fully setup machine to remove machine specific information before cloning it to the new computer.
And then make an image of this machine to use in the future? Yes, after Syspreping, you can store the image on a server or USB drive and then just refer to that image in the cloning process.

Better explanation if the above is not clear....

Set up #1 Machine and configured it as far as I could generically
Made image of #1 machine with Acronis - AFTER your Syspreped it to remove the machine specific information, I hope. Remember, Syspreping only takes a couple minutes to remove the information, and about 5 minutes to go through the "out of the box" configuration of Windows.
Cloned new machine (call it #2) from the Acronis image of #1
can I Sysprep #2 and then make an image of it to use in the future? Yes, you can, or if it has the same hardware and printers as the first computer, just use the image that you stored to a USB drive or Server.

See the interlinear above.... I hope that is clear.