T61 ghost image hangs on blank screen but works in safe mode

[dmw]

I have been using a Bartpe boot disk with ghost v8 on it to successfully deploy an image to T60's. I got a new T61 recently and setup everything how I wanted in windows, sysprepped it, and captured the image. I then tested deploying the image on the original laptop and another T61 and it hangs when starting up with a blank black screen. I can start up fine in safe mode. I instantly thought it must be the video. I tried uninstalling the video and reinstalling but that did not work. The 1st laptop has this display driver (Intel 940GML, 945GM, GL960, GM965 - 950, X3100) for Windows XP, 2000 - ThinkPad 2007-08-29.

Just now I booted into safe mode on the 2nd laptop which has the nvidia quadro nvs 140m adapter. I downloaded and installed the driver as the image did not have it because it was built with the other adapter, rebooted and it started ok in normal mode.

Why doesn't the laptop load a generic driver and boot into windows at which point I could install the correct driver? This is how it has worked for me in the past.

[dmw]

Well an update for anyone following this riveting saga (anyone, anyone...)

The 2nd laptop that started ok after reloading the video driver went back to the black screen after a reboot or two. Note that the XP splash screen does appear but then it goes to a blank screen. I found that on both laptops when I switched the bios setting sata controller mode option from compability to ahci it booted fine. I had gone in and set it to compability mode because I've heard the ahci causes a variety of issues.

Note these laptops have all the update ibm and windows updates. They are both T61 laptops but not the exact same type.

[rbena]

Thanks for the update. I'm looking at Ghost for imaging the T61, including Ghost versions 8 and 11, and this information is helpful.

[dmw]

Now I remember why I had changed the sata controller mode option from ahci to compability, when it is in ahci ghost does not detect the sata drive. This is with v8 not sure about newer versions of ghost.