Bootcamp Image

[tbraga]

Hi All,

I work for a company that has over 700pc's and we just bought a half a dozen MACS and I am completely lost on what I think is a simple issue. I have configured the MACS with bootcamp and have successfully loaded and configured all of our applications onto the MacBooks.

As we continue to buy more MacBooks, I need to know how I can make an image of the hard drive and capture both partitions (MAC and Windows). Obviously this has to be done through the MAC OS. I tried using disk utility but can't get it going.

Basically I was hoping I would make a mirror image of the current HD and upload that to one of our servers. Then when we buy more MacBooks I could simply load that image onto the machine, therefore loading bootcamp and all our applications and customizations onto the new machine.

Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Tim

 

[symondavis]

I wouldnt see a problem with taking a HD image apart from if you use NTFS for the Windows partition, as this can not be written in OSX with out a patch(even then I wouldn't suggest it)

You should be able to install Windows on a FAT32 partition to which OSX and read as well as write, I think then SuperDuper should also see the FAT32 partition and become able to write once you want to reinstall. It may be a two stage process. ie Superduper the OSX partition and then the FAT32 partition, remembering to partition before the installation process begins on the new drives to install the OS's to their correct area's.

thats the only way I can think of unless you find some LiveCD version of something that can read and write to both NTFS and OSX

 

[kaidomac]

For OS X, use SuperDuper. For Boot Camp, it's a little more complicated. I have only found one way that works - BartPE with the DriveImageXML plugin. Basically you boot into the BartPE LiveCD and backup the Windows partition using DriveImageXML. To restore, you first create a Boot Camp partition equal to or larger than the original partition you cloned. Then, format the partition using a Windows CD. After it formats it will start installing Windows, you can take it out at this point. Next, use BartPE to restore the image to the newly formatted partition. I can't remember if it works on only USB or Firewire drives or both.