Diskpart to the rescue

12 October, 2018 MB Note to myself Shared with the world

In my work, I recently heard that more often new devices (desktop’s/laptop’s) fails in the beginning of the OSD (OS deploy) because of something is wrong with the partitions on the hard drive. The Boot-image can’t download policys or files to the disk, so it fails. Often the IT-person needs to boot the device and re-partition the disk, and after that start the OSD again, and it will work. I have not done some examination on why it fails. The OEM’s OS works on the device/disk. But I have a workaround, or it’s not mine workaround. I did find it on the Internet for a few years ago, so I don’t remember whos to credit (I’m sorry).

But this is the workaround I have.

Begin by creating a txt-file with the content of commands for diskpart we will be using later (this is for UEFI-disks).

sel disk 0 clean convert gpt cre par efi size=200 assign letter=s format quick fs=FAT32 cre par msr size=128 cre par pri assign letter=c format quick fs=NTFS exit

Save the file (I have named my file uefi_disk.txt ), and put it on your SCCM Package-share. Then you will need to create a Package in your SCCM-console, where you will point out the source files (where you saved your new .txt-file).

You don’t need to create a program, just select “Do not create a program” and click next, and just go on and finish the wizard.

Here is two ways to use this. The first one, if you boot your PC’s from a boot-media (CD/USB), you can create a new boot-media and put in a prestart command to run diskpart. So go one and create a new Task Sequence Media if you choose this way.

Mark Boot media, and Next

Continue the wizard, entering your “SCCM-info” till you come to Customize the task sequence media. Here you will need to tick the Enable prestart command checkbox, and also enter Command line: cmd.exe /c diskpart /s uefi_disk.txt <– or the name you gave your .txt-file You must also select the Diskpart package you created earlier, and point out your Distribution point.

After that, finish the wizard, and you are now ready to boot using your new boot-media.

The other one is to put this in your boot-image (if you PXE-boot your devices, choose this). Using this way the prestart command will always run (when using TS using this boot-image), and you don’t need to create a new boot-image with this prestart command. Go to your Boot-image in the SCCM-console, and right-click it and choose Properties. Go to the Customization tab, and tick the Enable prestart command checkbox, and also enter Command line: cmd.exe /c diskpart /s uefi_disk.txt <– or the name you gave your .txt-file Klick Ok, to save and re-distribute your boot-image, and after that your done.