WinPE not booting with certain network cards

[sherl0k]

Hi all, I'm in a weird predicament and I'm not really sure how to go forward with this. Running Server 2008 x64, and using WDS to launch WinPE. Typical stuff. I'm running into this problem where after the client PC gets an IP from DHCP (running on the same server as WDS), the screen goes blank. Maybe after a halfhour after it sitting there doing nothing it will show the "Windows is loading files..." bar but it almost looks like it freezes there.

I've used the same PE file and put it on a bootable thumbdrive, and it loads from that without a hitch. I'm guessing it's something with the network card? Is there another pre-requisite I should be looking at to get these NICs to boot?

Chris

[Tripredacus]

Some NICs will allow you to get an IP but not boot. Can you post which NIC it is, and also if its onboard, which board it is.

In the past I've experienced two different issues:

1. The NIC was an RTL8201 which is a virtual device and does not work in Win PE (any version).

2. The pxe code is out of date or corrupted. This happened initially with an AOpen iGMT-LA motherboard. I had talked to Realtek Engineering department and also AOpen. This was fixed by getting a BIOS update for the motherboard. It should be noted, at this time there was no BIOS update for the board, and AOpen made a custom beta version to use. They had since fixed this issue with these boards and a BIOS update is no longer needed.

So post what you have and we'll go from there.

[sherl0k]

nVidia Boot Agent. It PXE boots just fine with Server 2003 x64 as the host, which is what is really confusing about the whole matter. I've got a couple other NICs that are onboard Realtek that are also in the same boat: boots with Server 2003, but not 2008. I checked the configurations of both and they're the same - used "wdsutil /get-server /show:config" to check. I enabled architecture detection also, no dice.

[Tripredacus]

You didn't mention what bit the 2008 was.

Try this out on the 2008. Copy your pxeboot.com from the 2003, rename it to say "2003pxe.com" or something. Find where you current PXE boot file is located, you can get this name from your Server properties. Stick this renamed file in that folder. Next, get the MAC Address for the client that won't boot properly. Next, add a WDS exception for that client to use your 2003 boot file.

Reference the following:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=849425

After these changes, try to pxe boot the client. See what happens.

note: This is an idea that just popped into my head. I cannot gaurantee that this will produce any results.

[sherl0k]

No dice I have to say it was a good idea though! So the pxeboot.com file is not the culprit here, the problem must lay somewhere else.

Are there any other dependencies I could rip out of '03 and put in '08?

Edited April 23, 2009 by sherl0k

[Tripredacus]

No, I wouldn't recommend going that route. Compare all the settings between the two setups to see if you missed something. That may include WDS, Domain Group Policy and/or DHCP settings.

Also, can you confirm if all MININT clients fail to boot off the 2008, or just some?

[sherl0k]

No, the majority of computers I boot off of it work without a hitch. I'd say 90% of what I have, works flawlessly. There are just a very small few that have this problem.

I'll double-check all the settings between the two and see if I can find any discrepancies. Thanks for the quick reply.

[sherl0k]

One thing I noticed with 2003 is that it recognizes the client as x86. On 2008, it recognizes it as x64. I tried forcing the x86 pxeboot.com but still got the same result. *sigh*

[Tripredacus]

OK that is weird right there. My 2003 server x86 and 2008 x64 both detect clients as x64. I currently force both servers to use the x86 boot file, but this is done by manually changing the path and not changing a rule. You can see this setting in my tutorial i wrote a while back:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=113927

[sherl0k]

Alright, been a few days since my last trip here. The issue is still happening, even with forcing a different pxeboot.com.

Am I required to add drivers to RIS or something? I've checked all the configs and I really can't find any difference at all.

[Tripredacus]

For the clients that cannot boot to the network, can you post some additional information for me?

1. Motherboard make and model

2. Motherboard BIOS version

3. the name of the boot rom that is displayed prior to it getting an IP address.

4. The hardware id of the NIC*

* you can get this from Device Manager, under the details tab of the NIC. This would require a machine with Windows installed on it already. If you do not have this option at all, then boot to DOS and run PCISCAN -V and it will tell you that information as well.