How to stage Task Sequence Prestaged Media on a hard drive in Configuration Manager 2012 SP1

Hello all,

I have used sccm 2012sp1 Task Sequence Prestaged Media and captured a wim file.  now I am trying to stage it on a HD so that I can use our drive imager.  problem is after staging the wim file using a task sequence does not produce a bootable OS.

I followed this guide here http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2011/01/11/how-to-stage-task-sequence-prestaged-media-on-a-hard-drive-in-configuration-manager-2007.aspx

The major difference I see is with the system partition the 350mb volume created during the normal TS.  when I look at the captured wim it only has 1 index so I am guessing that it does not have the system partition used for booting.

in my staging TS I have it create both partitions just like I do in the capture TS and format and apply the wim to the windows volume that all seems to work, but the system will not boot.  I do not think the system partition is being updated with boot information or something similar.  I am using a very basic image at this early stage in development using only sccm at this point in time until I have a need for MDT.

Any suggestions on how to make this work?

Also where are the best practice guides for deploying windows 7? especially with using sccm 2012 or sp1 since they keep changing OSD quite a bit between patches.

October 9th, 2013 5:43am

Hi,

I suspect that your active partition contains no information related to the new image. So it cant produce a bootable OS. You can boot into PE, then run command line bcdboot c:\windows /l en-us to see whether the new OS can be booted.

Best Regards,

Joyce Li

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October 11th, 2013 3:58am

How do I ensure in the media capture TS that it captures both the boot partition and the os partition?
October 11th, 2013 1:06pm

the disk that has the prestaged media applied must be the boot partition.

create a task sequence to stage the prestaged media. In this task run a format and partition step which configures both the system disk and the os disk, though make the os disk the active boot partition. Then apply the prestage wim.

On your deploy task, somewhere after the OS has applied create a group that runs only if the media is OEM (from memory  _SMSTSMedia = OEMMedia)

in this group run the command bcdboot C:\Windows /s F: /f ALL where f: is the drive letter assigned to the system disk, then run another step that removes the drive letter and reboots. The deploy task will now continue and you will be booting to the system partition.

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October 14th, 2013 1:03pm

So I got it to boot with your guy's help.  But I found a new issue it does not resume windows setup after it boots.  I have a clean win7 with no apps all the packages are in a SMS folder. it seems it did not start the process correctly. 

This got me thinking.  Am I using the correct option to apply the pre staged wim?  I have been using "Apply Data Image" instead of the "Apply Operating System Image"  should I change this?  Wouldn't this do the bcdboot commands for me?  My only concern is that it says it also creates new unattended files.  since they are should already be included in the captured media task I do not want this.

If I stay with apply Data Image should I not use the system partition and only use the OS partition?  Something just does not seem right with the way your supposed to do this.

Looking back at http://blogs.technet.com/b/configurationmgr/archive/2011/01/11/how-to-stage-task-sequence-prestaged-media-on-a-hard-drive-in-configuration-manager-2007.aspx it does not seem to create the system volume in 2007.  Since it does not seem to be easy to find info on 2012sp1 I need your help.

Thanks

Don


  • Edited by warzer Thursday, October 17, 2013 6:03 AM
October 17th, 2013 9:01am

the task sequence used to prestage the media should create two partitions the first is your system partition, the second is your OS partition. unlike in your normal deploy task sequence, the key is to not mark the system partition as the active partition. Make sure the OS partition is your active partition.

You are correct in using the apply data image. once this applies the machine should shut down. Make sure this step is applying the image to the correct partition.

All the prestage process does is lay down the OS and stages any packages/applications/drivers you specified in the prestage media wizard. It still needs to run your normal deploy task sequence to actually execute these packages..

So before you startup the machine, make sure it is in a collection that has a deploy windows 7 task sequence targeted at it. The deploy windows 7 task sequence needs to be modified so that it doesn't format the disk if it is running from OEM media. It will automatically detect that the OS has already been applied and it will skip the apply OS step.

To sort out your system partition (because you have filtered out the format and partition step) you need to add a run command line step somewhere after setup windows and configmgr that runs the bcdboot command to configure the System partition as the boot partition.

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October 17th, 2013 1:06pm

I think I understand but need some clarification.

I have 2 Task Sequences.  One the network Deploy win7 (lets call it "Deploy win7x64")and the one that uses the media capture wim that only creates the 2 partitions and puts down the image and runs the bcdboot and shutdown commands(Lets call it Deploy for Disk Imaging).  The Deploy win7x64 was used to get the image used in the Disk for imaging wim file used in Deploy for Disk Imaging.

Per your latest recommendation on the Deploy for Disk Imaging TS I removed the check from the System reserved partition for "Make this the boot partition"  as I do not have an option for making it active or not in the default Partition and format disk TS.  I also made the OS partition bootable. I did not change the partitions on the "Deploy win7x64" TS. 

Looking at the default Create and format TS the _SMSTSMediaType not equals OEMMedia is set.  I re-verified that is was indeed set in both TS.

I will be testing this shortly to see the results.

October 18th, 2013 4:20am

So one problem I noticed with the above change is that the system partition no longer has a drive letter. 

I will uncheck the do not assign a driver letter option to give it one.  the problem is I do not see a way to assign it a specific letter to use so that the bcdboot command will always work.  I can assign it a variable but do not know how to use that variable in the bcdboot command.

Any suggestions?

Regards

Don


EDIT: I seem to be getting another error in the logs after the "Deploy for Disk Imaging" completes.  when I power it on it just reboots constantly into winpe.  the log shows several errors but this one sticks out. "Failed to run unattended because there is no mandatory deployment" Do I need to make the "Deploy win7x64" required or the "Deploy for Disk Imager" one? Is there a way to do this with out required?
  • Edited by warzer Friday, October 18, 2013 8:18 AM
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October 18th, 2013 6:02am

So I got a bit further today, By creating a new deployment task that was required and only pxe or media clients.  None hidden as that did not work. 

But then it fails when it gets to applying Operating system task.  Since it already did that when I did the task sequence media.  I added the option _SMSTSMediaType does not equal OEMMedia and it skipped the apply OS but again fails on detecting hardware with "failed to find the current TS configuration path"  and "Failed to find the configuration path. The system cannot find the file specified. (Error: 80070002; Source: Windows)

Any idea what log on the server I can check to see if the client is talking to the server for the TS?

I am at a loss for what to do.  The MS guides for this do not include any of these settings or requirements and I have not found any others.


  • Edited by warzer Monday, October 21, 2013 6:30 AM
October 21st, 2013 5:40am

So I found some of this issues with the DNS, but no clue how to fix.

This one event of 80072ee7 is right after the system runs sysprep in a build and capture.  once that happens ping fails and IPconfig shows no dns servers.  this specific attempt shows up at Non fatal error 0x80072ee7 in sending task sequence execution status message to MP.

The system reboots and continues the upload.

I have not been able to get the other more critical versions of this error fixed as they seem to be different then the above as sysprep is not run.

As for the prestart script I am not sure I am doing it right as when the TS logs do not show the correct retry and time out values.

win7Prestart.vbs -

dim osd: set env = CreateObject("Microsoft.SMS.TSEnvironment")
dim logPath
' You can query the environment to get an existing variable.
logPath = env("_SMSTSLogPath")
' You can also set a variable in the OSD environment.
env("SMSTSAssignmentsDownloadInterval") = "10"
env("SMSTSAssignmentsDownloadRetry") = "10"

Does this look right to you?  I cannot tell if its working or not.

The other thing I have noticed is that sometimes CLibSMSMessageWinHttpTransport::Send: URL: YSMS020.srf.local:80  CCM_POST /ccm_system/request

Fails the first time then succeeds the 2nd time.  This happens more then I would like.  But during the media TS deployment it never retries and just fails.  I need to find a way to work around this issue.

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October 30th, 2013 9:56am

the disk that has the prestaged media applied must be the boot partition.

create a task sequence to stage the prestaged media. In this task run a format and partition step which configures both the system disk and the os disk, though make the os disk the active boot partition. Then apply the prestage wim.

On your deploy task, somewhere after the OS has applied create a group that runs only if the media is OEM (from memory  _SMSTSMedia = OEMMedia)

in this group run the command bcdboot C:\Windows /s F: /f ALL where f: is the drive letter assigned to the system disk, then run another step that removes the drive letter and reboots. The deploy task will now continue and you will be booting to the system partition.

So I wanted to get back to working on this issue.  I noticed that when I said it Worked that it was actually still booting from C drive instead of the reserved partition.  For the past few days I have been trying to get the prestaged to work like a network deploy but fail every time.  I cannot get the prestaged to boot from any other partition other then the partition where windows was imaged too.

So where I am at today.  When I do as suggest above the D drive (The reserved Boot volume) return on reboot. it will not stay hidden.  also the OS is till booting from C and does not change to the D drive or no drive letter drive with the above commands.  I think there is some other command missing that tells it to boot from a new location that is not bcdboot.

Has anyone seen any guides for how to use prestaged and bitlocker enabled task sequence?  I think that would help me figure out my current issues as with bitlocker you must have this other partition.

January 7th, 2014 11:57am

Trying to do the same as you but with UEFI.  Have not tried it but it may help.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/steverac/archive/2013/09/13/osd-pre-stage-and-uefi-systems.aspx

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January 29th, 2014 4:20pm

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