JSI Tip 8678. How do I identify, create, and deploy an OEM diagnostic partition by using Automated Deployment Services in Windows Server 2003?

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 875418 contains the following summary:Administrators can build and manage very large deployments of Microsoft Windows-based servers by using Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Automated Deployment Services (ADS). ADS includes a new set of imaging tools and a new infrastructure to quickly deploy Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows 2000 Server.

To quickly and efficiently deploy an operating system and programs to a computer, ADS uses new imaging technology from Microsoft. The imaging process is straightforward. You can use this process to capture and to deploy complete operating system and application bundles to one computer or to many computers at the same time.

Some original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) include a diagnostic partition that is installed from media that they provide. The diagnostic partition may also be named the OEM partition, or the Eisa partition. If you use ADS to deploy an image to a computer that requires a diagnostic partition, you may want to capture and to deploy the diagnostic partition together with your system partition.

This step-by-step article describes how to use ADS imaging to capture and to deploy a diagnostic partition. You must be familiar with the image-capture process in ADS to complete this procedure.