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Kace 2000 and Dell Venue 11 Imaging

KACE 2000 and Dell Venue 11

I have been spending the last month plus trying to figure out a way to capture an image to the KACE and deploy and image from the KACE with a Dell Venue 11.  It hasn’t gone so well, but I have come up with a “sort of road map” to help those trying to accomplish the same thing I am.  I will summarize what I have learned and if anyone needs more detail, please let me know.  Most of the information I have gotten from a long, long search on the internet from dell sites, it ninja, and even using some other sites to acquire all this information.  I know for some, you would like my step by step as to how I got where I got (as I know I wish someone had done that for me), but there is quite a bit of information, so like I said, I will summarize.  And Again I can try and help to the best of my ability to get you to the point I am at now.

Before I get started you should make a backup over the factory image (2 USB flash drives recommended).  To do this there are some docs out there that work well but in a nut shell, you have to 1) create the recovery drive on USB flash drive 1 (this is the bootable drive that will allow you to restore the factory image you create and 2)create the system image on USB flash drive 2.  Also make sure secure boot in the bios is disabled. INSTRUCTIONS: FOR THESE STEPS: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5132-recovery-drive-create-usb-flash-drive-windows-8-a.html (THESE GUYS ARE AWESOME)

This way if anything goes wrong, you will be able to restore back to the original factory default.

1)      NETWORK CONNECTIVITY to THE KACE: The biggest problem I am seeing is that people are unable to connect to their KACE device using the Dell Venue.  I have had no issues with this and this is what I have been using to be able to boot with using WINPE 32x bootable flash drive. I have been able to boot to my KACE with the dell venue 11 (5130) model using either a USB dongle (SIIG 2.0 Fast Ethernet Adapter) or the Dell Latitude 10 Docking Station. 

 

2)      DEFAULT FACTORY IMAGE: The default factory image that comes with the Dell Venue has a few different partitions, one of which is a 5-6GB partition for system images.  When I load up into windows, I try to delete that system image partition to free up some space, by using partition program called EaseUS Partition program.  Every time I try and delete this partition and add the additional space the OS partition, it freezes up on me.  Everywhere I have read says that I should be able to remove that system image partition, and yet when I try, it FAILS., which is why I have moved onto the next step: Create my own image from a OEM copy of Windows 81.

 

3)      IMAGE CREATION: Because the default factory image has 4 different partitions, I used a win32 OEM 8.1 DVD and created my own image.  The problem here is you need to create a special UEFI Windows 8.1 boot 32x boot disk.  IRONICALLY, UEFI is generally 64x, but a 32x is needed and I was able to create a bootable Win 8.1 boot disk using 32bit UEFI. My best guess is because my machine has 64bit architecture, but the OS we are using is 32bit, it required a 32bit. I went through the Windows install process and wiped out all partitions, and created a new one.  When I delete all partitions at the windows setup, I then do a new, partition it as one partition, but then windows make a couple of hidden partitions , one of which is the EFI partition (100MB), the other is some 300mb partition. I then installed Windows and now have a working Windows 8.1 32bit non factory edition that I am going to use for this process (IT is important to make sure if you do this, that you have a OEM DVD, if you don’t, then you are having to pay for the licenses.. you can request a OEM license through possibly Dell or your vendor.

 

4)      IMAGE CAPTURE: I was able to successfully login and capture my image using my Win 32X PE boot drive and capture the image.  Using the compressions it was a bout 3GB+ (but remember this is for testing so there are only a few apps on it). Image capture successfully and I now see it on my KACE.

 

5)      IMAGE DEPLOYMENT: In the initial tasks on the KACE I go into the image and the prerequisite and add the following for this image:

a.       Create single partition

b.      format c

c.        install MBR for Windows

 Using the 32x WINPE boot disk, I get into the KACE and push the image back down to another machine.  The push is successful, until I reboot, and this is where trouble begins. I boot up and get the issue right as it starts up:

No bootable device found
Press F1/Volumeup to retry reboot

Press F2/VolumeDown key for setup utility

Press F5/Home key to run onboard diagnostics

 

This is where my road ends.  Once I have created the image and have tried pushing it down multiple times, I always get the above error.  I have messed around with the pre-requisites as explained in Step 4 on the KACE, but still I get nothing.  I have to believe the problem has to do with the EFI partition that is automatically created when I install the windows OEM copy.

 

That is where I stand now. Please if anyone can add to this great, or if someone needs additional information, please let me know.  I have a bout 350 venue 11's that need to go out and imaging them this way would be awesome if we can get it working

 

 


Comments

  • Dell sales engineering is actually working on release a white paper on this due out in the near future that discuses this as well - brucegoose03 9 years ago
  • If you're turning off Secure Boot you can also enable the Legacy Boot options. Otherwise, you have to create your partitions as EFI partitions, not MBR partitions as you are doing using the built in tasks above.

    Edit: I tried to post an example of my pre and mid tasks that I use for EFI partitions on my Dell Venue 11 Pro's but these reply boxes don't preserve formatting... didn't look right at all. - BHC-Austin 9 years ago
  • Take a look at the "Create UEFI Partitions" and "Apply UEFI Partitions" as examples and see if you can tweak them to the partitions you're capturing from your image. - BHC-Austin 9 years ago
  • So here is my dilema. I am trying to push out this cpatured image file. With the Dell Venue 11 I am unable to deploy the image i saved. I am not sure what i need. I have followed the steps about creating the UEFI partition and the applying it, but it has not worked. I was hoping someone might have the steps in doing this as far as what i need to do, what my pre-install task, mid level tasks, and even post installation task should look like. Any help would be greatly appreciated. thank you - mkahn 9 years ago
    • You need to create the UEFI partitions and also apply the boot partition separately. So your source machine has to be a UEFI install, and you must capture both partitions and deploy them both as well. Fortunately the boot partition can be from any image that has the same OS version and arch (so you can have a generic x32 and x64 boot partition WIM saved for any of your deployments). - nheyne 9 years ago
    • You cannot create a single partition and then apply a UEFI image. The boot data is on the additional UEFI partition so your image won't boot without it. - nheyne 9 years ago
  • thanks nheyne, so here is what i have. We actually captured the image and captured the c & s drive, so there are two partitions. I am having issues with deploying the image, i guess i ma not sure what the steps are and what i need to do to get these two partitions (c & S) working. this is where i am in need of some help. thanks - mkahn 9 years ago
    • You'll actually need to create 3 uefi partitions. S: was likely a "System" partition. C: is your OS partition, then there is a hidden "MSR" partition. Take a look at the built in Pre-Install Task called "Create UEFI Partitions" to get an idea of the commands. Although, you may be able to use that one as is. Also the same with the "Apply UEFI Partitions" built in Post-Install Task (acutally runs at mid-level). Those two should fit your needs fairly well. - BHC-Austin 9 years ago
  • I have done that. I have used the Create UEFI partition in the pre-install tasks on the KACE and when i go to push the image, it fails on that task... this is where i keep getting stuck. - mkahn 9 years ago
  • To use UEFI you will need to clean the partitions and create a GPT volume. Then create the UEFI partitions. Yes you will have trouble with the 32bit UEFI if you aren't using 32bit through the whole chain of tools. I recommend using 64bit if you are using UEFI. From memory there were some drivers for WinPE that were released 64bit then 32bit later. Also some of the Microsoft tools didn't support 32bit UEFI at release, MDT 2013 or WDS from memory. Is there a desperate reason you need to install 32bit? - 352x416 9 years ago
  • I have co-created an imaging process based off booting to WinPE and then applying an image from a network share based on scripts for 7130's. We partition the drive into 5 partitions. WinRE tools, System (EFI), MSR, Windows, Recovery image. I had plans to use the recovery partition to load down new images and set next boot to image to the new image, but I haven't used it. Recovery image probably isn't needed. You could just use 4 partitions. What we have done is use diskpart to clean then convert the disk to GPT, then primary partition WinRE 300 ntfs, efi fat32 350, msr 128, primary partition Windows ntfs. - 352x416 9 years ago
  • Hello everyone. Some issue at my location. When taking the image of a factory image Venue. Do you only capture the OS volume??? or do you need to capture one of the other "Hidden" volumes??? - Omishlord 9 years ago
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