If you buy a Mac with Leopard does it come with Boot Camp already setup

Do they sell them with XP already installed too or does this have to be done afterwards?

Also can Mac's be ghosted if they are running Leopard and Bootcamp with XP installed

Reason I ask is that I need to quote on how many days it will take to install 30 Macs with Bootcamp and XP all patched up and around 20 apps installed

 

I'm sorry the job isn't working out. I'd complain about the conditions if I were you. Working with Macs? <shudder>

 

I have rescinded my notice and I am staying where I am (for the time being at least)

 

Evenin'

No, a new Intel based Mac does not come with the disk pre-partitioned for BootCamp, and no they do not come with a copy of XP. Thus you would need to run BootCamp assistant to partition the drive and then install XP/Vista onto it.

In regards to ghosting a machine with OS X and XP on it, have a read of this. It details exactly what you need to do, and what to use (essentially just NetRestore)

 

Cheers Markus

Will have a read tomorrow at some point

 

Hi,
I don't know if you meant me, but being a sales guy for HP Clients, I cannot and will not give you a answer for another Hardware-Vendor. The only information I can give you is, that XP (as XP OS only) will become EOL (End of Life) this 31. May 08. If you want to install and run XP, you have to go for the downgraded Vista version to XP. That's at leased the information I got from our Business Unit. Why Mac?

 

bloody swiss imposter

sonic..hello
Think markus sharkus has answered your question ...there is little I can offer other to say I did 14 in 2 days once by myself. That was fully manual, no images, ghosting etc. Obviously you can cut that time down using disk images for apps and more people.

 

if you want to shudder, look at the latest hack on the iphone

mmmm, vista running on an iphone <shudder>

 

Bombich Software: NetRestore

That's all you need.

I confess I've never done the XP roll out. but I have created an OS X image using Netrestore and imaged it to over 30 machines. Took a while to create on a G3/G4 but restoration took about 20 minutes tops.

You can also use something like DriveImageXML to image the XP partition. But you would have to manually setup the Bootcamp each time I think.


Edit: Just seen Markus' link

 

Just working it out and we did 32 iBooks (a mixture of G3 and G4's) and approx 24 iMac/eMacs in 2.5 days. This was without Bootcamp but with a lot of Apps and using Firewire Target mode.

There were 2 of us.


(and we're due to do it again this summer!)

 

I did read the link, it will only be one person doing the install, so we could be looking at quite a few days, its a trade off by the looks of it to spending quite a bit of time setting up one Mac with everything that is needed, and then deploying it (Xp side has to use sysprep) using the mentioned software above

May be easier just to run round with the CD's as they will all be in one room

 

Little tip, dont do the CD run, its a right royal PITA. Image them using Disk utlity. I imagine for that amount of machines, you are using site licenses, which of course allow you just to use one media and then a site license serial number.

If you get into a pattern, you can do quite a few in a go. All updates from apple re the OS and apple software can all be done via a single volume.

 

Sonic, do you have a Macserver?

 

Christ on a bike, who'd do such a thing?

I actually love the iPhone.

 

No, this will be a Windows Server

 

I think Mike was going to suggest using OS X Server's netboot/net restore thing to image the machines. Ignoring the lack of the OS X Server, the other main issue is you'd have to learn how to configure OS X Server to do the net boot/restore deal, and to be honest, by the time you learnt to do that, you could have setup the master images and used netrestore to restore a couple of machines.

One thing on the NetRestore side of things, sysprep for the windows machines. I'm not totally sure what it actually does, but I'm guessing it may clean things up so it won't matter what type of machine the image goes onto. If your machines are all the same type/spec, then you might not need to perform that step, you may simply need to format the drive, and restore the NTFS image.

I have used NetRestore to create an image of my BootCamp partition and did look at the sysprep stuff, but never used it, and I was still able to save and restore the image file without issue. Having said this, Mike Bombich knows his stuff and if he says "Jump" it'd be prudent to say "How High?"

 

I was yes but I take your point it would be easier to use a local drive for cloaning . Sysprep though? If these Macs are going to be bound to Active directory, it would defo be needed as Sysprep strips the identity of the machine, creates a new SSID for the machine and can also prompt you for a machine name before re-joining it to the AD domain. Active Directory doesn't like duplicate SSID's. IIRC the bootcamp drivers can be extracted off the Leopard disk and placed onto the XP partition to allow it to go onto different Macs. Sysprep can do this part to (OemPnPDriversPath line in your sysprep.inf file) ........or have a look at this

Vernalex.com - Welcome

 

I would definatley recommend creating a disk image of the Mac with all updates/software. I'd say that would restore in no more than half an hour. Use can use Firewire Target Disk mode - just connect 2 mac's via Firewire, one in Target mode and send the image over. Even handier if the machines are laptops - after an hour you would have at least 3 machines that could be used as Masters.

As for the Windows - I have used DriveImageXML on my Mac to take the Windows Partition image - and got the Mac to boot from a BartPE disc ready for a restore. Don't know if that will save you any time.

 

That would work but Bombich's new version of Netrestore can do both partitions in one go. I used to use Bart pe and Ghost 11 which worked tidy for the Windows part

 

Cheers for the suggestions guys, keep them coming

Im ok on the Windows side of things, it would just be nice if one utility could do both partitions at once

when I upgraded Compaqs manufacturing plant to Windows 95 (back in march 95) I used a special cloning hardware device that took one master and you plugged 4 hard drives into it and pressed a button, 10 minutes later 4 hard drives fully cloned

 

NetRestore should be able to do both partitions at once, or that's the way I read it. All you need to do is prep things first and you should be good to go.

 

I may have only had a quick read Markus, but I thought he said you do each partition seperatly I might need to re-read it when Im not just about to go to bed

 

It looks like if you do the "automatic deployment" then that'll handle both OS X and XP at the same time. If you do the manual deployment then, yes, you will need to restore the OS X and then XP images separately.

 

Sonic drop me a line at allan.bayman@macwarehouse.co.uk we've done lots of these kind of roll outs and can give you some guidance.


AllanB