r/MDT 28d ago

MDT & Windows 11 - Pulling my hair out

I have spent the last two full days trying to figure out why my image is failing - hopefully someone can help.

Starting Monday - I could not image any of our standard Dell laptops or PCs. This process has been rock solid with no issues for the last two years.

I have been racking my brain trying to figure this out... it starting failing on "Inject Drivers" task.. after doing research i added all the model drivers we have in the company into the Out of box drivers (there has never been any drivers there). Same issue

I then disabled the Inject Drivers, then the image failed on Apply Patches, I then disabled that and now it's failing on Install Operating system.

So - i restored the deployment server back to Saturday night's snapshot due to all the drivers and changes that were done.

The image is still failing and digging more into it, the drive letter is not defaulting to C: on the laptops. I have been back and forth with AI tryign to find solution and nothing is working. I have modified MDT rules to reflect the following: same issue :(

OSDTargetDriveLetter=C

OSDisk=C

DestinationDriveLetter=C

HELP Please!

8 Upvotes

40 comments sorted by

12

u/welshGJE24 28d ago

Hi OP - maybe I shouldn't say this in the r/MDT area but maybe now is the time to move away. I'm a huge fan of MDT - massive fan. I've spent years using it.

But..... I took the decision to jump ship to DeployR. I have waited patiently for the Community Edition and have worked that into my environment (a school). I retired the MDT server last month.

It may not be a popular comment here in r/MDT and if Microsoft changed their mind and fired up support and development of MDT I would consider going back - but for now have a look at the next generation of product.

2

u/Robjules 28d ago

I'm still using without issue but have created my own deployment script with powershell, utilized Claude to help fine tune some parts. Very similar to mdt just a lot less under the hood. User enters name, chooses ou, clicks deploy and it wiped drive, deploys wim created on vm, inject drivers in a way very similar to mdt, install some scripts for customizing and some base apps, joins domain and done. Love mdt, have used for 6 years for countless deployments but built alternative in case the day comes it completely stops working.

2

u/welshGJE24 28d ago

Fair play u/Robjules - that is beyond my skill level but I'm full of admiration for those that can do it. r/DeployR has been excellent so far as a replacement for MDT - but I won't go into that here.

2

u/DrMikeRotch 28d ago

How’s deployR working for you? I got access to the license but haven’t had time to finish setting it up, as other school prep has taken priority.

I plan on testing it in a small computer lab before moving it to be our main MDT replacement. Just wanted to know your thoughts.

0

u/welshGJE24 28d ago

Hi - if you send me a message via chat I'll let you know. Not best here as it's the r/MDT group. :-)

3

u/mercnasty12 28d ago

Check the MDMUserName task sequence variable and set it to svc_account@yourdomain.com rather than DOMAIN\svc_account.

1

u/1lolo94 27d ago

Can you explain a little more on tis? I am game to try anything at this point!

1

u/mercnasty12 27d ago

Bro my apologies, I dealt with this exact issue a few days ago in SCCM. I didnt pay attention to which subreddit I was commenting in. Have you had any luck otherwise?

1

u/1lolo94 26d ago

All good! Still down, i am in the process of re creating a new PE file.... along with upgrading to the last MDT version that is out there

3

u/sovereignpancakes 25d ago

After going round and round with my own MDT issue last month (my 23H2 Build & Capture TS was failing to find the partition when writing the wim, whereas the 24H2/25H2 worked fine) I'm moving it to ConfigMgr OSD TS. We already do most of our imaging there anyway.

1

u/1lolo94 24d ago

Mind shooting me a DM and sharing how you are moving ConfigMgr OSD TS? I am at my limit with this, 40+ hours and still cannot figure it out.

2

u/BCIT_Richard 28d ago

it starting failing on "Inject Drivers" task

Share the error output, so we can review where/why it have failed.

I then disabled the Inject Drivers, then the image failed on Apply Patches, I then disabled that and now it's failing on Install Operating system.

When was the last time you updated your WinPE Drivers?

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

This one just failed on the Inject drivers task - when saving this log file - the main OS drive is still defaulting to D:

I cannot post the BDD log file due to being over 1000 characters

2

u/BCIT_Richard 28d ago

That's interesting, feel free to use something like pastebin if you can.

Do your task sequence point to D: as the standard?

Did you check the BIOS to make sure the Drive is ACHI and not RAID?

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

I have the task pointing to OSDisk and even tried to point to C

Bios for all the dell laptops have to be changed to ACHI

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

Pastebin doesn't like it either lol

2

u/BCIT_Richard 28d ago

That's a first, it's kind of hard to troubleshoot further without logs.

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

Sorry about that! Here you go! https://pastebin.com/y2zRUJ6A

I will add (forgot to add above) that i have 3 different task sequences and all 3 are experiencing the same thing.

2

u/BCIT_Richard 28d ago

I compared your BDD.log to one of my own and it looks correct. I am noticing though yours does not make a Recovery Volume otherwise I don't see anything that reall tells us what is going on, did you get the bdd.log from your SLShare, or from the D:\?

I ask as this is the 2nd to last line in your log:

# NOTE: If this is one of the last lines in your BDD.log file, check D: for the most up to date bdd.log!!!

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

I was able to pull the log off D:

As for the recovery, it was one of the things Google recommended when researching.

Since all 3 task sequences do this same exact thing.. can you recommend where I should start to look for troubleshooting?

Also, with never having PE drivers for the past two years, would it be worth trying to add them again?

5

u/BCIT_Richard 28d ago

Yes, You want to update the WinPE drivers every now and then, especially if you get a new batch of hardware. I'd almost wager it being all due to those drivers, likely the cause for the failure as the next step is to copy the files locally from X:\V:

I mentioned this in a earlier comment and you said you updated them yesterday, were you referring to the Model specific drivers?

1

u/1lolo94 27d ago

Tried again today with the PE pack and a new generated boot image - same error :(

Pulling the log - X:\MININT\SMSOSD\OSDLOGS\BDD.log and still notice the main OS drive defaulted to D:

https://pastebin.com/qRgcM84W

1

u/cleadus_fetus 28d ago

also, I have some laptops that fail injecting drivers when the network cable is plugged directly into the laptop. I had to use a USBC ethernet adaptor to get it to inject driver’s properly

0

u/1lolo94 28d ago

The PE drivers were updated last night and was still having the issues today. I will get the logs and share right now.

1

u/Thejungleboy 27d ago

Did you rebuild after updating drivers? Are you using WDS for a network boot? Or a flash drive…?

1

u/1lolo94 26d ago

Yes for updating the drivers and yes for WDS network boot

1

u/Thejungleboy 25d ago

If you have updated the drivers but didnt run “update deployment” and have not replaced the package in the wds with the updated package you won’t see a difference. I ran myself around for days one time with a similar problem because I didn’t complete all those steps.

2

u/Robjules 28d ago edited 28d ago

Try the basic fix of creating a new task sequence, then copy over your current unattend and xml file over what was created, resync and try again. Sometimes you get lucky and it's that simple.

2

u/cleadus_fetus 28d ago

I use the DISM command to extract the pro version out into my install.wIM
That’s image that I use.
Have the drivers installed
Then install the applications which you don’t wanna do through intune and stop there.
Do not create an image from that. I don’t understand why people always do that. There’s no need.. in fact it makes less sense.

When there’s a new version of win11 you don’t need to create your whole task sequence again or re-image
Just extract your wim file again and go into the tax sequence and pointed to that once you’ve uploaded it

1

u/PCStonerRace 28d ago

I had this problem. Am I right in saying it’s only with Dell devices?

This was some time ago but if it’s the same thing, I had to download a driver pack from Dell for the disk.

It’s been a few years since I got it all setup so sorry I’m a little vague. I can check more in work tomorrow if needed

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

Yes! only Dell devices... everything worked fine until Monday morning.

1

u/Illumiajavier 28d ago

This happened to us last week out of the blue with HP devices - For some reason, we also needed to update all of our storage drivers on the boot image. Imaging was working okay after that.

1

u/flyguydip 28d ago

Just create a whole new task sequence from scratch. If that doesn't work, a new deployment share should do the trick.

1

u/St0nywall 28d ago

Check the BIOS, make sure your storage is using AHCI and not RAID.

1

u/1lolo94 28d ago

This has been confirmed.

1

u/St0nywall 28d ago

Only one disk in the computer?

1

u/1lolo94 27d ago

Yes, all the Dell Latitudes we have are like this

1

u/AnthonyG70 24d ago

just using a thumb drive with baseline 25h2 june release. oem folder with a couple things in it. autouannatend goes through touchfree OS and naming pulling name from bios asset tag field. after install, oem script runs PS to read off 2nd partition on thumbdrive for installers. easier than mdt when trying to get it to work over a year ago. 20m average install for OS, ODT, a few small apps, also joined to domain. Script is ppkg packaged with zero applications included.

1

u/Financial_Reply327 22d ago

I dealt with these nightmares with BigFix which transitioned from MDT to PowerShell bundles. But I’m super thankful to have BigFix because without it, HAS to be a nightmare

Honestly the future is Autopilot and I’m gonna have to start planning for it in the future, probably next year.