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Converting from ZENworks Imaging 

Nov 07, 2008 11:54 AM

Is your organization moving from Novell Imaging to using ONLY Altiris DS? Did your organization use Image safe data during imaging? Are you still going to have Novell Client / Agent in in POST Altiris world? If you answer yes to all of these questions you will need to have a way to remove the image safe data. In the Novell world you would simply add a line to your linux script to call zisedit -c or zisedit -r and this would clean out the image safe data. But since you are now imaging with DS, this cannot be done directly in Altiris.

So after some Google searching I have found a very simple tool called ZisdCtrl from a company named Expert Networking Group Limited http://www.engl.co.uk With this tool and a simple script you can do the following:

  1. Download the tool (http://www.engl.co.uk/products/zisdctrl/index.html) [this site does require you to register]
  2. Unzip the zip file
  3. Copy everything from the bin to a location on your eXpress share
  4. Edit the install.bat file to suite your needs (IE get rid of the pause commands)
  5. Create embedded script and or call this vbs script from your console
  6. Run a machine that has image safe data

You also verify before and after removing the image safe data has been removed by running zisdctrl-get.vbs from the examples folder.

Example VBS to remove ZENWORKS image safe data:


' ***************************************************************************************
' ENGL ZisdCtrl 3.0
' Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Expert Networking Group Limited 
' http://www.engl.co.uk
'
' This example demonstrates use of the remove() method to remove ZISD from the hard drive.
' ***************************************************************************************

' Connect to ZisdCtrl
Set ZisdCtrl = CreateObject("ZisdCtrl.ZisdObject")

' Remove ZISD (false indicates that a prompt will be displayed before removal commences)
' Remove ZISD (true indicates that a prompt will NOT be displayed before removal commences)
Dim status
status = ZisdCtrl.remove(true)

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Comments

Nov 10, 2008 01:45 PM

Ahh, thanks for the clarification.

Nov 10, 2008 12:20 PM

Creating a new image or convert has nothing to do with this. I would assume you would create a new image to deploy. The reason you would want to use this tool is even if you were to hand delete partitions / format the drive the IMAGE SAFE DATA is stays behind on ALL THE COMPUTERS, Novell designed this to allow machines to be imaged with their tools or even other tools like Altiris and this area of the HD would be preserved ie the name IMAGE SAFE DATA. Basically it I think they mark an area of the drive as a bad and store info there (This is guessing).

Nov 10, 2008 12:14 PM

What do you mean with image safe data? We are using zisedit -r because of the data like computer name stored in the little zen/linux partition.
I will try to explain a little clearer:
OLD ZENWORKS WAY:
Machine #1 was imaged 3 months ago using Zenworks
Machine #1 got re-imaged 1 week ago using zenworks (zisedit -r was called in PXE script via ZENWORKS linux imaging before the new image came down via to it via ZENWORKS)
NEW ONLY ALTIRIS WAY:
Machine #2 was imaged yesterday in ZENWORKS
Today you no are no longer using zenworks to image you have no way to run ZISEDIT -r anymore and you don't want this machine to keep ANY old computer names etc So you could use the method I described in this article to allow machine #2 not to keep any of the image safe data on it.

Nov 10, 2008 08:26 AM

That's awesome that there's a utility out there, but I might make a suggestion. To those who have the time and aren't restricted by other business reasons, you may find value in creating a new image.
You will inevitably need to do it at some point and it also will help familiarize you with the new options available to you.
Still a very handy find though.

Nov 10, 2008 03:45 AM

We are moving from ZENworks to Altiris. At the moment we are starting with software delivery and deployment will be the next step.
What do you mean with image safe data? We are using zisedit -r because of the data like computer name stored in the little zen/linux partition.
Linne

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