Ghost a G7 to a Gen8

[SYSTEM]

Any SysPrep experts out there?

I am working with a customer who is wanting to augment his G7-based “golden build” to include Gen8 drivers, so he can capture it with “ghost” and have a unified image deployable from G5 thru G8. Their attempts to bundle drivers into a sysprepped image have failed.

I went thru a similar exercise this morning – downloading the raid, nic, chipset, and ilo drivers for a 380e Gen8 – unpacking them and including a line for them in sysprep.xml. Sysprep with OOBE option was run, I then ghosted the server and attempted to deploy to a gen8 – inaccessible boot device almost immediately after rebooting the server once the ghost finished.

So, have any of your customers done this very thing? Made a “unified image” between G7 and Gen8? My theory is that it is more than just the “hpsa.inf” that I need to bundle. IF so, what is it?

(And, unfortunately, this is the method that they are insistent on working with – no pxe /scripted / build methods are allowed, including RDP, ICSP, SA, or whatever… needs to be “sysprep + ghost” …)

Thanks!!!

[SYSTEM]

I don’t know the answer but might suggest you build the image on the Gen8, Sysprep, Ghost and deploy it back to the G7 and see if that works.

[SYSTEM]

Question on Sysprep, doesn’t it run once the server has been booted, so it has to be able to boot before it can add the drivers for the raid card?

[SYSTEM]

Here is a trick I used to use-mostly successfully.

Load a G7 with your Golden image.
Add the Array controller that the Gen8 servers will be using (inserted but un-cabled).
Load the Array driver from SPP or smart component.
Capture the image as the baseline for your golden image.

[SYSTEM]

In my case, this is a no-go, because the raid controller at destination is embedded….