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Capture physical drive not virtual?


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Currently evaluating the product and working through the tutorials it seems that Smart Deploy can only capture a master PC generated within a VM environment? I have the need to create a master image buit on a physical box due to software and peripherals that do not work well inside VM. Is it possilbe to capture a physical reference machine? Thanks!

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Currently evaluating the product and working through the tutorials it seems that Smart Deploy can only capture a master PC generated within a VM environment? I have the need to create a master image buit on a physical box due to software and peripherals that do not work well inside VM. Is it possilbe to capture a physical reference machine? Thanks!

Hello,

SmartDeploy Enterprise only supports capturing of virtual hard disks for use with the Deploy Wizard. We do this to ensure the operation of the hardware independent imaging process we have in place. The VM gives us a know starting point. When capturing from a physical machine driver conflicts can occur with the drivers that are in the Platform Packs.

What are the specific applications and peripherals that are giving you a problem? We could probably help you figure out a solution for using them in a VM or installing them after the image has been deployed by using a task.

If you would like to capture a physical machine you can do so using SmartWIM /capture from the command prompt of the SmartDeploy boot media (SmartPE). To open a command prompt simply press shift + F10 form the main screen. To apply this image to a machine you can use SmartWIM /apply, please note that this method does not do all of the service work that is done in SmartDeploy Enterprise, i.e. injecting drivers, fixing the BCD, running sysprep, etc... This image should only be applied to like hardware.

Thanks,

Erik

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Thanks Erik! The devices we use are USB RFID proximity readers. I think we've found a work around but it remains to be tested. What we're going to try is use our VMWare environment to P2V a physical box which will generate a .vmdk file. We'll then use Smart Deploy to capture that file and generate the WIM. If that doesn't work we'll try the SmartWIM route.

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Thanks Erik! The devices we use are USB RFID proximity readers. I think we've found a work around but it remains to be tested. What we're going to try is use our VMWare environment to P2V a physical box which will generate a .vmdk file. We'll then use Smart Deploy to capture that file and generate the WIM. If that doesn't work we'll try the SmartWIM route.

You can still run into issues with a P2V conversion as well. It is essentially the same as taking an image of the physical machine. If you need to add drivers/software for the USB RFID readers adding those packages to a Platform Pack or running the installation as a task during deployment may be the best route.

If you would like you can shoot an email to support@smartdeploy.com and we can setup a call or gotomeeting to discuss how to setup the deployment to add the drivers/software after the image has been deployed.

Thanks!

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