Setup PXE and Refresh of Systems

[GPITMAN]

HI all,

 

In the good old days of RIS I could have my field techs when they had reached the end of their 30 minitye troubleshooting window just re RIS the system. Most of the time it grabbed it's orginal computer name, the tech could just then walk away knowing the system would continue on to install the OS then continue on to install sofware from SMS.

 

I am trying to have a similar process in SCCM using the OSD deployment but now having much success, so what do I want?

 

I want to be able to provision bare metal systems easily, that part works, I can pop in a Mac address of a system, have a task applied to a collection based on that system type and Bobs your uncle it works. But when we try yo refresh that box by reinstalling the OS I have havig a touch time.

 

Any ideas??

 

Thanks

[anyweb]

what problems do you see when you try a refresh scenario ?

[GPITMAN]

what problems do you see when you try a refresh scenario ?

 

I am getting no PXE boot. I know about the clear last PXE, which seems hit and miss, but I would really like SCCM to behave like the p;dd RIS or WDS I guess now

[anyweb]

what errors are you getting i need that info

 

or at least tell me what you have done/configured and what happens on the clients

[GPITMAN]

what errors are you getting i need that info

 

or at least tell me what you have done/configured and what happens on the clients

 

I have setup a TS and advertised it to the All Systems Collection. It's a optional advertisment. PXE boot and can select the TS. Systems does install. Go to redi the same system again and it will by pass the PXE (F12)

[anyweb]

first off i would NEVER advertise a new operating system install task sequence to the All Systems collection,

 

just imagine if someone boots (however how) a server and it gets reinstalled with XP, or whatever...

 

for that reason and others, I setup deploy collections, and those are further broken down into each Os and so on, and in addition I have build and capture, capture,

 

look at this screenshot

 

 

using a method like this you can advertise task sequences to specific collections and make them mandatory (or whatever)

 

you can then add systems to them and they'll get imaged, or captured or built and captured...

 

by the way, if you are seeing the abortpxe error when you try to reimage then look at this post

[GPITMAN]

first off i would NEVER advertise a new operating system install task sequence to the All Systems collection,

 

just imagine if someone boots (however how) a server and it gets reinstalled with XP, or whatever...

 

for that reason and others, I setup deploy collections, and those are further broken down into each Os and so on, and in addition I have build and capture, capture,

 

look at this screenshot

 

 

using a method like this you can advertise task sequences to specific collections and make them mandatory (or whatever)

 

you can then add systems to them and they'll get imaged, or captured or built and captured...

 

by the way, if you are seeing the abortpxe error when you try to reimage then look at this post

 

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Thats makes good sense to me. So once these systems have been imaged and a tech in the field needs to reimage it, we have a 30 minute rule,how would he be able to reimage without using the SCCM console.

[anyweb]

someone would have to 'clear the last pxe' on the computer in the deploy collection it is in,

 

or use Roger zanders SCCM Client center, or Right click tools

 

I think you need to test your strategies first in a lab and then work from there, and be careful about advertising anything, particularly an OS to the All Systems collection

 

cheers

anyweb

[GPITMAN]

someone would have to 'clear the last pxe' on the computer in the deploy collection it is in,

 

or use Roger zanders SCCM Client center, or Right click tools

 

I think you need to test your strategies first in a lab and then work from there, and be careful about advertising anything, particularly an OS to the All Systems collection

 

cheers

anyweb

 

Thanks for the great advice. Will have a look at the program you suggested. It's to bad that MS could not have included a way for people to be able to re-image a system quickly and easily in SCCM as it was/is in RIS and WDS.

 

:-)

[anyweb]

you can still reimage quickly using sccm with Media (usb key or cd/dvd)

 

you'll learn more about that here