First Computer Installed

Well, I got the first of the new teacher computers installed yesterday. I had planned on getting one more installed, but I got sidetracked and then hit a little snag. Firstly, I got sidetracked in organizing and cleaning the computer lab. One of the teachers informed me that the closet in the computer lab (which was full of castoff computers, old software, empty component boxes, etc.) was needed to store books at the end of the year.

This was the excuse I needed engage in a little old-fashioned purge. I ended filling the school dumpster with junk and cleaning out the closet. The working components, cables and devices were stored on a large rolling cart, which can be stored in the closet but moved if the teachers need access.

Once I had finished, I went about installing the first of the new computers. This was were my small snafu emerged. I had setup one computer, then cloned the image onto the remaining four using Easus Partition Manager. Confident (over-confident?), I hadn’t acutally tried to boot any of the cloned drives prior to heading to the school. When I plugged in the first computer, I got an error about “no boot device.” Uh-oh. I then realized that I had forgotten to mark the cloned partitions as active. So I had two of the five computers with me, and one wasn’t bootable. What are the odds that the original disk was the other comptuer I brought? Turns out pretty good – for once.

With the one bootable computer, I was able to mark the second disk as active as well. I then set aside the second active disk to take back home, so I could “activate” the other cloned machines. “IT’S ALIVE!” Sorry – I couldn’t resist.

The rest of the install went without a hitch – I joined the new computer to the network (using a more logical naming convention for the teacher computers) and installed all the peripherals. Worked without a hitch. The only thing I didn’t do was activate Windows Steady State. Because the school has Active Directory, I’m going to read up a little more on how to integrate Steady State with AD before I implement it.

One other smart thing that I did – I added a local administrative account, Teacher, for the teachers to use when they needed to install software (Flash updates, etc.). Their network logins prevent this, which has caused some issues this year when they need to download and install browser plug-ins and the like. Certainly not Department of Defense secure to do it this way, but it’s a happy medium between security and usability, IMHO.

Once I activate the other cloned disks, I should be able to install the remaining pc’s without much bother.