Overview

This document will provide an overview of the process of adding a driver into the Faronics Imaging server to provide support for newer or specialized hardware that Windows does not natively support.

Problem

In some cases, Windows may require specific drivers to support operating on newer, or on specialized hardware. When working with the Faronics Imaging service it is possible that a device with newer or specialized hardware may not properly be able to be imaged if appropriate drivers for the hardware on the system are not included in the pre-boot environment used to image a client device. 

In cases where the pre-boot environment does not have the appropriate drivers, the drivers can be added to the imaging server and updated in the pre-boot image to support the hardware device being imaged.

Customers seeing this issue will generally see a client device being able to reboot into the pre-boot environment to start the imaging process and then very quickly return to the Windows Desktop eventually showing as failed in the imaging server status once the task times out.

Importing Drivers

Finding Drivers

The first step in resolving this issue is to locate the drivers required to allow the pre-boot image to properly boot on the client device. For devices manufactured for business use several hardware vendors package their drivers in a way that is appropriate for importing into various imaging tools. Links to some common hardware vendors are provided below;

Lenovo

https://support.lenovo.com/ca/en/solutions/ht074984-microsoft-system-center-configuration-manager-sccm-and-microsoft-deployment-toolkit-mdt-package-index

Hewlett Packard (HP)

https://hpia.hpcloud.hp.com/downloads/driverpackcatalog/HP_Driverpack_Matrix_x64.html

Dell

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-ca/000124139/dell-command-deploy-driver-packs-for-enterprise-client-os-deployment

Samsung

https://pcmanagement.biz.samsung.com/drivers-for-os-deployment/windows/

Microsoft

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/download-drivers-and-firmware-for-surface-09bb2e09-2a4b-cb69-0951-078a7739e120

Acer

https://community.acer.com/en/kb/articles/15378-microsoft-system-center-configuration-manager-sccm

Asus

https://www.asus.com/us/support/article/755

For devices manufactured for home or for sale in retail channels, drivers may need to be downloaded individually from the hardware manufacturer.

Extracting Drivers

Once the drivers have been obtained they may need to be extracted from the installer package. Drivers that have been extracted and are ready to import into the Imaging Server should have a number of files and should look something similar to the screenshot below;

Once the appropriate files are extracted the drivers can now be imported into the Imaging Server.

Importing Drivers

Open the Faronics Imaging Server and click on the Drivers tab.

Enter the path to the extracted driver in the folder location.

Click Next

A list of drivers in the folder will be displayed. To import the driver click on the checkbox next to the driver to import the driver into the Imaging Server and click Next

A summary will be shown, click on Next to import the driver.

Once imported the driver will be listed in the driver list in the imaging server.

Update the pre-boot image.

To update the driver and include it in the pre-boot image click on Win-PE Drivers at the top of the imaging server window.

To import the driver click the check box beside each driver and click on Update Boot Image.

A progress dialog will be displayed.

Once completed you will be returned to the WinPE Drivers page with the driver now showing a check mark indicating that the driver is included in the image.