Not seeing Computers Near Me
My Snap Deploy 5 is not seeing any Computers Near Me when I try to create an image.
I've tried both booting to the PXE server and using the bootable media, and in both cases, it won't find the Snap Deploy 5 server to save my image.
The image I'm creating is for an HP Elitebook Folio 9840m, and the Snap Deploy 5 build is 660. Thank you for your help in advance.
Thanks for the suggestions, but I'm not using Windows 10. I'm trying to set this up on a Server 2012. When it starts up, it says that I have an IP and everything on the Product Configuration screen. That should mean the NIC is being picked up, right?
Or should I still be trying to use a WinPE bootable media? Thank you for your help!
Hi Sharon,
I may not have the picture right, so let's confirm a few things and go from there.
1) Are you trying to take a system image from the server of a computer on the network, or trying to take an image from a computer and save it on the server.
Ultimately, I believe the process will work better if you boot your source computer from the bootable media (WinPE or Linux default), and use image creator there to create teh image and save it to the server that way. If the NIC is not being picked up by the default bootable recovery media, then try WinPE. Using the USB3.0 to Ethernet adapters, the Linux bootable media has always worked for me going this route. WinPE should also work though, but WinPE does sometimes require drivers to be added as well. Windows usually wants the manufactuer drivers for these USB network devices (even windows 10), so in this case, the Linux bootable media actually usually works better for them. If still trying to use the internal NIC though, then WinPE is probably a better option.
2) "When it starts up, it says that I have an IP and everything on the Product Configuration screen. That should mean the NIC is being picked up, right? "
Are you talking about the server or the source computer that you want to take an image of? Also, when "it starts up" - is that a reference to PXE boot picking up an IP or in ACronis bootable media. Just because the system can PXE boot, does not mean that once the Acronis application runs that aCronis will have a working IP (usually, but not always - Acronis is it's own OS bascially and once it is booted up, it needs driver support just like Windows does. PXE, on the other hand is hardware level and tied directly to the BIOS level of the NIC. Once booted into the application, it is then applicaiton level and will require compatible drivers).
Thank you so much for your help!
1) Are you trying to take a system image from the server of a computer on the network, or trying to take an image from a computer and save it on the server.
Taking an image from a computer and saving it to the server.
Ultimately, I believe the process will work better if you boot your source computer from the bootable media (WinPE or Linux default), and use image creator there to create teh image and save it to the server that way. If the NIC is not being picked up by the default bootable recovery media, then try WinPE. Using the USB3.0 to Ethernet adapters, the Linux bootable media has always worked for me going this route. WinPE should also work though, but WinPE does sometimes require drivers to be added as well. Windows usually wants the manufactuer drivers for these USB network devices (even windows 10), so in this case, the Linux bootable media actually usually works better for them. If still trying to use the internal NIC though, then WinPE is probably a better option.
So what you're saying is create the image using WinPE, then save it to the server rather than trying to create the image using Acronis?
2) "When it starts up, it says that I have an IP and everything on the Product Configuration screen. That should mean the NIC is being picked up, right? "
Are you talking about the server or the source computer that you want to take an image of?
Source computer I want to take an image of.
Also, when "it starts up" - is that a reference to PXE boot picking up an IP or in ACronis bootable media.
I'm referencing the PXE boot picking up an IP.
Just because the system can PXE boot, does not mean that once the Acronis application runs that aCronis will have a working IP (usually, but not always - Acronis is it's own OS bascially and once it is booted up, it needs driver support just like Windows does. PXE, on the other hand is hardware level and tied directly to the BIOS level of the NIC. Once booted into the application, it is then applicaiton level and will require compatible drivers).
Okay, I think I'm getting it. So I should install WinPE on the source computer?
:)
WinPE is just another form of the Acronis Bootable media. By default, the Bootable Acronis media you download from your account, or create in Snap Deploy on from your server console, is the "default bootable recovery" media. This is actually LINUX based (not Windows). Generally speaking, it works on "most" computers, but drvier support has been a bit slower so some of the newer Intel NICs and the latest PCIE NVME hard drives (Samsung 950 Pro's) don't alway work with the default bootable media.
In those cases, Acronis has the ability to create WinPE bootable media. Essentially it works the same way when you boot to it, but instead of being Linux, it is Windows-based under the hood. WinPE is more customizable in regards for being able to add extra drivers which may not already be available in the default WinPE that Acronis creates.
to create WinPE Acronis bootable recovery media, you would first download and install the Windows 10ADK (see my signature - you can install it on Windows 7/8/8.1/10 and Server 2008/2012, etc). Basically, it just downloads the default installers of Windows 10 (for the most part) and ACronis builds a bootable enironment with it that has all of the same driver support as Windows 10 does when you install it out of the box. The Windows 10ADK already has the newest drivers for the NVME PCIE hard drives and most of the latest intel NICs so is more compatible wiht newer systems than teh default LInux bootable recovery media (in some cases).
You can create your WinPE bootable recovery media and try it out and hopefull it will detect your NIC and allow you to connect to teh server to store the image there.
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One other note. If your machine is getting a valid IP address, in WinPE you can minizime acronis and use the command prompt to ping, run "ipconfig /all" etc to verify that you have a valid network address.
Also, once you have confrimed that, within Acronis, when it asks for the location where you want to save the image, just type in the UNC share name:
example: \\myacronisservername\backupshare\
It should prompt for credentials. When it does, if this is on a domain, enter the credentials for the share as:
domain\username and the domain account password in the password field. Assuming it is correct and the account you provided has access to that server share, you should be able to proceed with creating the image and having it saved to the share then.
i have the WINPE with my custon drivers uploaded to the PXE server. when i PXE boot and then select PE image its just boots to a command prompt and i have a command prompt and dont know what the next steps are
Heather, is there any specific reason needed to use WinPE instead of the default Linux boot media? V1660 boots just about everything I've thrown at it out of the box. The only ones people seem to be having trouble with are some of the newer HP Elite system NIC's, but it seems like if you contact an ACronis engineer via PM in the forums, you can get a beta copy of V1662 which addresses those as well.
I'm guessting that either your PE image is bad, or it's just taking a really long time to load. In my experience, using the Acronis .wim from PXE is the slowest method and can take several minutes before it starts up. Assuming when you say it gets to a command prompt, that means an command prompt from the WinPE, it should be calling on a file in X:\Windows\system32 called startnet.cmd which is supposed to launch Acronis. You can try to navigate there in the command prompt if it's not frozen. Alternatively, if you can navigate in the command prompt, just launch
X:\Program Files\Acronis\SnapDeploy\bootmenu.exe
which is what the startnet.cmd file should be launching anyway as that file should contain the following and launching automatically once the WinPE is loaded into system memory on the machine:
wpeinit
"X:\Program Files\Acronis\SnapDeploy\bootmenu.exe"