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phenrichs
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Windows Guest Partition re-image

Our old system used ghost images and occasionaly we would need to reimage a partition. WIth Ghost this was easy. VMware does not play well with Ghost. Can someone give me a few ideas of how one goes about 're-imaging' a partition in a vm.

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oreeh
Immortal
Immortal

Simply clone the VMDK and when you want to reimage clone the VMDK back.

Or, even better, use templates and deploy a new VM from the template.

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kucharski
Commander
Commander

With the use of using templates. Or you can use the snapshot feature. Both of these features are only perform within VirtualCenter.

Michael

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BryanMcC
Expert
Expert

I basically use a tool called drive snapshot and you can get a fully functional trial here....

http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/down.htm

I make a snaphot of the drive/partition and save it to the network..

Then I use a helper VM.. Create a new disk and attach it to the helper.

Restore the snapshot

disconnect the drive from the helper

attach it to the VM

And turn it on.



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phenrichs
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If all three partitions are contained on one vmdk then deploying from a template would wipe out all three correctf? I want only one partition. I have heard of people using one vmdk for each of their partitions, in that case cloning the vmdk would be the answer. Do you think this would be the best solution?

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phenrichs
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I haven't worked with snapshots very much. Are you saying it is possible to take a snapshot (much like an image) of just a partition, and then restore that partition from the snapshot?

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kucharski
Commander
Commander

It is recommend to have individually partitions as it's own VMDK file. That is best practice. So with that said. It would be the best solution. But if you don't want, that product called drive snapshot (http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/) is an excellent tool to use.

Michael

BryanMcC
Expert
Expert

That is correct.. But you would have to have the partitions created on the helper with this tool...

Basically you would have to create 1 vmdk the size of the other

Attach it to your helper VM

Create the partitions

Then restore the snapshots...

May not be what you are looking for if you want to consolidate all three partitions to one.



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scerazy
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If you have a licence for Ghost & feel OK with it then use it.

There are no problems (that I seen) with using Ghost (11.1) for VM imagining in ESX

I use it with VistaPE ISO (check www.boot-land.net/forums/VistaPE-f51.html)

Seb

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Chamon
Commander
Commander

How about using converter to resize the partitions. That is an easy way to do it.

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