How I got Clonezilla to image our Surface Pro 3s

Introduction We have Surface Pros hitting our company, and so far, these are the most annoying things ever. PXE boot will take 3 hours...

Introduction

We have Surface Pros hitting our company, and so far, these are the most annoying things ever. PXE boot will take 3 hours to pull down the image from the server and then fail during the install.

I was tasked with finding a way to do this, and thus, I set off on an epically frustrating journey.

EDITED 11/5/14 - Added directions for my steps to remove the image from the flash drive.

Steps (5 total)

1

Gather your tech

Here's a list of the tech I found I needed for this project.
*A Surface Pro 3 (duh)
*A USB 3.0 USB hub with AT LEAST 4 slots (yeah, the 3.0 is important)
*2 small flash drives, doesn't have to be USB 3.0, we're talking like 256mb small, one is to put Clonezilla on, the other is for GParted. If you don't want to get another one out, do step 3 before step 2. A disk format in between, and you can just use the same drive.
*1 decent sized USB 3.0 flash drive. The Surface image ended up being a tad over 30gb, so I grabbed a 64gb drive. ( I got a PNY Turbo 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive P-FD64GTBOP-GE)
*1 USB keyboard
*1 USB mouse (optional, but made my massive initial fails with Clonezilla a little easier to back out of)

2

Prepare your Clonezilla drive

Grab the latest Clonezilla image from Clonezilla.org. Then save yourself some time later on by grabbing a copy of the LinuxLive USB Creator (http://www.linuxliveusb.com/). From there, it's a simple as plugging in the smaller drive, choosing it from the dropdown, choosing the Clonezilla ISO and clicking the Lightning bolt at the bottom. Set that drive aside.

3

The Battle Royale, or Prepare your image storage drive

This took me DAYS to figure out.

The first time I booted up Clonezilla with an external hard drive, I had no problems whatsoever. Clonezilla saw the drive right off the bat, but that drive was slow and pitiful, and then..., it randomly started overheating and sometimes.... the clicking...........

I got the above listed drive, cause if USB 3.0 is good, then the Turbo in it's name must mean it's been dipped in Cheetah blood (please get the reference, please)

However, Clonezilla refused to see the drive. So, after MUCH trial and error, and some help from a fellow SWer, I got GParted to boot up.

So, if you have a brand spanking new flash drive, follow the steps below. If not, try skipping this step and boot into Clonezilla and see if your flash drive will be found.

*Download the GParted ISO.
*Use the same steps as above to load the image onto a flash drive.
*Boot to the flash drive (if you have a loaner computer or something, it's a good decision to use that instead of your computer)
*Stick in the drive that you want to store the image on. I usually did this while GParted was still loading up.
*Once GParted opens up, select the image drive in the top right hand corner.
*Delete any partitions.
*Click Apply.
*Create a new partition table, select GPT from the dropdown.
*Click Apply.
*If it doesn't create a new partition for you, you'll need to create one with Ext4 formatting.
*Click Apply. (Can you guess what cause me some problems???)

At this point, your flash drive should be ready. Don't freak out, like I did, if you plug it into your computer and it wants to format it. Of course, don't let the computer format it.

NOTE: I got a flash drive that was only slightly larger than my image. So, a problem I ran into was when I had to update my image (we decided Office 2013 was better for the Surfaces than 2010). My Win 8.1 laptop couldn't read the flash drive after formatting it with GParted. My solution was to keep the GParted flash drive on hand, so when I DO need to update the image (we're not buying more Surfaces, so hopefully never again), I follow the steps above to reformat the disk with the proper setttings. Wipes all the data, leaving me with enough storage space to get a new image.

4

Prepare your Surface

This is the *easy* part. Get one of the Surfaces set up how you want them all set up. Obviously, you do NOT want to add it to your domain or set up a user.

I was prompted to log in with a MS based account. I wasn't happy about this, and couldn't find a way around it. So, once I got in, and enabled the local admin account, I deleted the MS account (since I had to use my live.com account). Then, I ran into a problem that the registered owner (the line that shows up in InstallShield) was listed as my live.com account. No bueno. Then I remembered there was a registry path to change that. HKLM-> Software-> Microsoft-> Windows NT-> Current Version

Under Registered Owner, delete the contents.

Get your base software installed, change your basic settings, run your updates. When you're happy with it (and maybe run it past another tech to make sure you have everything), shut her down.

5

The CLONING!!!

First thing you have to do is turn off Secure Boot.

With the Surface adequately braced, hold down the Up button on the left side of the Surface and hit the power button. Keep holding that Up button, and you'll start to understand why I mentioned having it properly braced. Right as you start to wonder if something went wrong, the screen will come on. You probably can let go of the Up button as soon as you see the screen come on, but the proper directions are to wait until you see the word Surface show up.

Tap on Secure Boot to open the option, and tap Disabled. Then tap Exit to reboot.

Once it reboots, turn it back off.

Get your hub plugged in, make sure the power cord to the Surface has plenty of slack. Based on my experiences, though, taping it up might be a good option. No. Seriously. I had about restart about 5 times because the power cable got bumped and it fell out of the Surface.

When you're all set up, hold down the Down button and tap the power button. Same rules apply. Wait for 'Surface' to show up on the screen to let go of the Down button.

It should now boot into Clonezilla.

And, honestly, from this point out, you use all the standard settings, so I'll just point you to Clonezilla's documentation. I used all the default settings, and it just worked. http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live-doc.php

One thing I will clarify though... since it was a pain point for me. The first disk you select will be the drive you want the image saved to... the flash drive we set up in step 3. I got myself rather confused with that, but with all the trouble I had, and the amount of other things I was forced to do at the same time..., it probably makes sense. 

References

• Clonezilla