standalone OSD2 boot up in PXE is failed

[wilber82]

Hello,

I'm working on deploy PXE to my lab enviroment, I'm using pxelinux as PXE server, and TFTPD.exe as TFTP service in a Windows2008 server. The server installed AIK for win7 as well.

I have two OSD2 images which is ISO format, image A is 153MB, image B is 3.99GB.

Since OSD2 is using WINPE v2, the boot up process is different with WINPE v1, so I'm using following script to translate the ISO image to WIM:

Step1, decompress the ISO to folder "winpe_x86", then mount the WIM file in winpe_x86\SOURCES folder:

"C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe" /mountrw C:\winpe_x86\SOURCES\BOOT.WIM 1 c:\winpe_x86\mount
xcopy /s /y c:\winpe_x86\SMS\DATA c:\winpe_x86\mount\SMS\Data\
xcopy /s /y c:\winpe_x86\SMS\PKG c:\winpe_x86\mount\SMS\PKG\

Note the last line, it's copy PKG folder to mounted SMS folder since image B is a standalone image, all software is stored in SMS\PKG.

Step2, commit image and unmount it:

"C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe" /commit c:\winpe_x86\mount
copy c:\winpe_x86\mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\pxeboot.n12  C:\PXEServer\TFTPRoot\boot\
copy c:\winpe_x86\mount\Windows\Boot\PXE\pxeboot.n12  C:\PXEServer\TFTPRoot\boot\
"C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe" /unmount c:\winpe_x86\mount
copy c:\winpe_x86\boot\boot.sdi C:\PXEServer\TFTPRoot\boot
REM copy c:\winpe_x86\Sources\BOOT.WIM C:\PXEServer\TFTPRoot\boot\winpe_x86.wim

Step3, edit BCD file:

set BCD-File=c:\PXEServer\Tftproot\Boot\BCD 
del %BCD-File%
Bcdedit /createstore %BCD-File%
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options" 
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice  boot
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath  \boot\boot.sdi
for /f "tokens=1-3" %%a in ('Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /create /d "WinPE x86" /application osloader') do set guid1=%%c
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set %guid1% systemroot \Windows
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set %guid1% detecthal Yes
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set %guid1% winpe Yes
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set %guid1% osdevice ramdisk=[boot]\Boot\winpe_x86.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set %guid1% device ramdisk=[boot]\Boot\winpe_x86.wim,{ramdiskoptions}

Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /create {bootmgr} /d "Windows Vista BootManager"  
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set {bootmgr} timeout 30 
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /set {bootmgr} displayorder %guid1%
Bcdedit /store %BCD-File% /enum all
pause

According to the process above, ISO file is translated to WIM, the WIM of image A is around 147MB, it's can boot up and work fine, the WIM of image B is 3.24GB, it's cannot be booted up and show the error ( see attachment ).

I also did a testing, image B is worked if I just copied few file to SMS\PKG folder, looks like 2GB or 1GB WIM can be booted up via PXE, but it's not support 3 or 4GB.

Does anyone have any idea about this issue? Do I have another choice if PXE really can not support big image file?

Thanks in advance!

[Tripredacus]

I am going to presume that the 3.99GB image is the install.wim or the Install Image. You cannot boot off of that. The process is you Boot off the Boot Image (Boot.wim) and that looks to Install.wim for the content.

Is there a specific reason you are using PXELinux instead of WDS that comes with Server 2008?

[wilber82]

I am going to presume that%2

Edited October 15, 2010 by wilber82