i need to do hardware independent imaging as looking after so many hardware is doing my head in. basically what i am looking for is one master image that can go into 3 different hardware (desktop).

 

What operating system is this? IIRC Vista's HAL will adapt when being imaged, I havent experienced this first hand however.

What do you use to clone them, in my support days I would use Barts PE with the corporate version of ghost on it with all the network drivers loaded in then on the XP image

Latest DriverPacks | DriverPacks.net

when making the xp image extract those driverpacks to c:\sysprep\drivers

then use this tool to put all the drivers into a database

Vernalex.com - Welcome

then sysprep the image

when the image is downloaded onto another desktop it installs all the drivers from the database. The guide on the vernalex site states to alter the HAL but I found it will switch from single core to multicore but not the other way around, so I built the image on a low spec machine

 

some other alternatives

PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost)

DriveImage XML Backup Software - Data Recovery Product

 

Comprehensive deployment solution that enables IT organizations deploy or restore laptops and desktops quickly and easily

 

Try www.hardware-independent.com. It is designed for medium and large businesses (100+ units) not for a single PC.

 

I should have mentioned that we use it in my Uni for the labs and it works well

 

before sysprep, do you usually delete the following folders/files?

c:\windows\$NtUninstallKBxxxxxx
c:\windows\system32\dllcache\
c:\pagefile.sys

 

I haven't in the past to be honest, people also say stopping services can help with it and whatever account you use to sysprep gets copied to default user so set up any desktop shortcuts etc with that account and clean out temp files etc

 

not always -- XP SP2 had a "feature" where the administrator profile was used to build the default user profile post sysprep

a hot fix was available to revert back to usual operation

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/887816

I consulted on a "gold" image (windows XP) for a large educational instruction a few years ago

I built one base image that could be rolled out to 3000 clients of 20 different hardware types

the technology was basically a stripped OS install (with a Device driver library)
and a heavily modified sysprep file

I suspect technology has moved on now though