
This causes the join domain action to fail after many retries. When the system reboots and begins to install the staged drivers, it appears that the network card is not in a ready state. Reviewing the logs, I can see that the drivers from the driver package are integrated into the image. When the task sequence runs, the driver package install step runs and completes successfully.

Coming up, it flashed the BIOS successfully and started booting into Windows. The OS installed and the machine did its first reboot. I fired up the deployment and everything seemed to be going smoothly. I added the upgrade (1.05.04) to my deployment share to update prior to OS installation and complete the flash on the first reboot out of the PE.

Since I had just added brand-spankin' new drivers from Dell, I figured flashing the BIOS was the way to go. I figured it must be a driver or BIOS issue. On Windows' first boot after installation, it failed, but recovered on a second pass giving the 'Windows failed to start. A little puzzled, I gave it a second try and watched more closely. Out of the box, it took the image well enough, but failed to apply the unattend.xml to the OS installation. Let me first say that I made no changes in the BIOS initially. I added the drivers and updated the share with Dell's driver pack.


The 7710 is a new model for our company that we special order for our developers. This image and task sequence are both well tested and received on several Dell models. I'm working on deploying a custom Win7 image to a Dell Precision 7710.
