I've done it in Knoppix, you can dd from one source disk to the other; dd is a standard *nix tool. I did 20-odd RH7 installs in the lab this way but Windows should be basically the same. All the disks showed 2.1G because that was the size of the source (and smallest, necessarily) disk, but fdisk takes care of that, and gparted could probably even grow the partition nowadays.
Altiris is nice for an enterprise because it saves per-computer customizations, can backup as new applications are installed/removed (and data backup as well of course), saves registry changes, solves multiple hardware and disk size issues, and is all around a nice computer management system. Not necessarily worthwhile for a few computers, but for hundreds it is amazing. -Tim who does not work for Altiris On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 9:06 AM, Curt Raymond <[email protected]> wrote: > Awesome-sauce... > > The Linux disk doesn't need to be LARGER though, just larger than the > installed portion of the target disk right? > > Do you have a suggested distro? > > -Curt > > Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 22:07:54 -0600 > From: Craig <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [MBZ] (SPAM?) Virus attack on the Information minister > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 18:15:19 -0700 (PDT) LWB250 <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Just replaced a bum hard drive in a classroom computer. >> >> Using Altiris Deployment Solutions and an image of a "golden" machine >> the workstation was back up and running as original in about 20 minutes. > > After you do a fresh install of Windows and update it, connect the disk > to your handy-dandy linux system (with a disk larger than the one with > Windows on it) and execute: > > dd if=/dev/windows-disk of=windows-disk.iso > > Shut the Linux system down, and put the Windows disk in its computer. > > Then when Windows barfs, you can quickly get back to where you were by > reattaching the Windows disk to the Linux system and executing, > > dd if=windows-disk.iso of=/dev/windows-disk . > > At work, I made 13 identical systems this way and only had to suffer > through the abominable Windows install once. > > > Craig > > > > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com For new and used parts go to www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
