14 DAY TRIAL // Long gone are the days when we had to format our PCs and reinstall Windows just because the sound was no longer working, but the IT engineers at the Emory University in the United States are sure reliving some old memories these days after accidentally reformatting all their Windows PCs.
While the term “accident” could sound a bit weird since we're talking about absolutely all Windows devices belonging to the university, it appears that it was all caused by a Windows 7 deployment image which was by mistake sent to all these machines.
And because misfortunes never come singly, the Emory University hasn't only formatted all Windows PCs, but also its very own server and with no backup, the whole reinstallation thing had to be performed manually.
Here's what the university said in a memo posted on its website (which was still running, luckily):
“A Windows 7 deployment image was accidentally sent to all Windows machines, including laptops, desktops, and even servers,” it said.
“This image started with a repartition / reformat set of tasks. As soon as the accident was discovered, the SCCM server was powered off – however, by that time, the SCCM server itself had been repartitioned and reformatted. Restoration of servers began immediately but the process took far longer than expected – we have been using consultants to help validate the health of the SCCM servers and that work only completed last night.”
As mentioned, reinstallation had to be performed manually, since no backups were available, which means that IT engineers really had to restore system and services one by one using the traditional methods.
“We were without our preferred methods for deploying images to desktops/laptops all yesterday and relied on older methods – USB + Ghost, LANDesk (we still had our old LANDesk server) + PXE. These methods required a lot of manual work plus our success was uneven with them,” the university explains.
An updated notification posted on its website today reveals that the university is still working to resolve the issue, and Windows is still being installed on some of the affected machines. At the same time, the university adds that support staff is also working to install critical applications, including Microsoft Office, Flash, Firefox, iTunes, Adobe Reader, and McAfee Anti-Virus, along with Visio, Project, and Adobe solutions on a number of systems.
Those affected by the issue and who have not yet been contacted by the Incident Management Team are recommended to contact the Service Desk at 7-7777.