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Going around in circles


JoeDe

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This WDS process is becoming quite the challenge. I have a 2008 R2 server doing only WDS. DHCP is an MS DHCP server running on another box (Authorized for WDS, options 66 and 67 set appropriately). I have a boot.wim file configured and assigned. The Boot tab on WDS server properties is set for \boot\x86\wdsnbp.com as is option 66 in DHCP.

When the client starts up it displays the following:

Downloaded WDSNBP...

Architecture: x86

Contacting server: 172.16.3.49.

TFTP Download: Boot\x86\wdsnbp.com

And it repeats forever...

I have all I can do to keep from going in circles. What have I missed???

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Hard to say - might want to enable WDS logging to get some further info before we can help. It's obvious the TFTP download is failing, but as to why, dunno. You could also remove the WDS feature (and all of it's associated files) and re-install the role to see if it helps - it could just be a corrupt or missing wdsnbp.com file.

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It is possible the TFTP Block size is too large for the client. I'm testing that theory out now with some success. Looks like I have to increase the TFTP time-out period too. Something I'll save for the morning.

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Configuring DHCP is of course a valid option, but you will get a faster and more reliable connection by setting ip helpers on the production VLAN. As a bonus it will work on all PXE ROMs too...

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Time to bail on deployment. 3 weeks of research on two platforms. This is too complicated and Microsoft's documentation leaves out too much info to actually make it work.

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I've never had issues with it, but then again I avoid upgrading OSes like the plague. Sorry to hear you gave up, but rebuilding would have saved you ~3 weeks ;). The WDS logs probably would tell you what's wrong as well. Did you try enabling those?

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Here are some questions (before you give up) as I've experienced this a long time ago...

1. What other roles does your WDS Server hold?

2. What is the OS version of the WDS Server?

3. What is the OS version on the DHCP Server?

4. Are either of these servers running DNS?

5. Are you using hostnames or IP Addresses for your DHCP/WDS Server options?

6. How much RAM is on the WDS Server?

7. What speed are the NICs set for on both servers, any switches in between and the client?

Note: I am asking about the OS version. I know you said 2008 R2 but there are many different versions it could be. Make sure to include architecture.

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Here are some questions (before you give up) as I've experienced this a long time ago...

1. What other roles does your WDS Server hold?

2. What is the OS version of the WDS Server?

3. What is the OS version on the DHCP Server?

4. Are either of these servers running DNS?

5. Are you using hostnames or IP Addresses for your DHCP/WDS Server options?

6. How much RAM is on the WDS Server?

7. What speed are the NICs set for on both servers, any switches in between and the client?

Note: I am asking about the OS version. I know you said 2008 R2 but there are many different versions it could be. Make sure to include architecture.

We have an open license agreement with Microsoft and have about 2500 machines in our organization. We have 4 technicians (need I say more). The purpose of this WDS server is to deliver windows operating systems to our machines with as little intervention as possible. I was attempting to use PXE and WDS to accomplish this goal.

Our current automation process uses freeDOS and up until now has worked quite well. Newer laptop (US15) driver file are now using filename greater that 8 characters and as DOS really doesn’t support the namespace we need to handle this process differently.

The WDS server is a VM server emulating a single Xeon CPU (E5430 @ 2.66GHz) with 1 Gig of RAM and 32-Bit architecture. I need to point out an error – the server is 2008 standard, not R2. DHCP and DNS are running on one of our Windows 2003 SP2 Domain controllers. Neither DNS nor DHCP are running on the WDS box. All the Nics are running 1 gig. It appears that Hostnames are used over IP, but as the question has not appeared in any of me research I can’t really give a definitive answer.

The target machines are Dell Mini 10 laptops (Atom processor using US15 Chipset).

I’m still open to suggestions, but the boss has instructed me to find an alternative – flash drive or DVD.

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If you're going to use flash/dvd, and you aren't using SCCM already, you might want to consider MDT. Also, MDT can use WDS to push it's boot images if you do get it working, so there's an easy migration path from flash keys / dvds to using PXE deployment.

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That's where I'm at at the moment. I'm trying to build the BCD file just to get PE running. My problem is I don't know how the flash drive is referenced in BCD. It's not a partition and default is RAMDISK and no machinism for loading the image on to the RAMDISK. Simplest way is to load from the flash drive and in the Windows Boot Loader section I don't know what the device definition are. No appearent documentation on it either (atleast from MS).

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There is no need to creating a custom bcd, the default one works great with USB devices.

Check the following section in the Windows AIK docs

Walkthrough: Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD

Its quite straight forward

1. Create a WInPE folder structure using CopyPE

2. Format a USB device on a Windows 7 machine and make the device Active

3. Copy the content of the WinPE folder structure to the device

4. Done

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The stept you mention result in Status: 0xc000000f Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessable. Which is what started me down this road to begin with.

That would be great if it were just that simple.

Edited by JoeDe
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You normally get error like that if the USB device has been partitioned/formatted in WIndows XP, rather then on a Windows 7 machine, or if the partition you created is not set active

The Walkthrough: Create a Bootable Windows PE RAM Disk on UFD section in Windows AIK provides super-detailed steps...

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