WinPE+Ghost on RIS with NForce4 support

[der-shao]

Hi!

We want to image several clients with Ghost Solution Suite (V8.2).

In the near future we get some clients with NForce4 boards and S-ATA Drives.

The Ghost Bootdisk and the RIS Image do not support S-ATA drives. (Well officially they are supported, but its really luck if the hole image is transfered to the client without any errors).

Ghost has support for WinPE and we're already running a RIS Server. So atm i am trying to get WinPE running on RIS with the 32Bit Ghost Client (ghost32.exe).

But i can't get the NForce 4 drivers running on RIS.

The Steps I've done:

-Created a vanilla Image of WinPE (SP2)

-Downloaded the NForce 4 Drivers (nForce_6.53_WinXP2K_international.exe)

-Added the drivers to the PE Image: G:\build_x86>DRVINST.EXE /inf:G:\AdditionalDrivers\nForce_6.53_WinXP2K_international\Ethernet g:\winpe_tmp

-Done the Steps described in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;304992&sd=tech. (Method 2)

-Boot the client via PXE

That doesnt worked. No network card support. So I tried to integrate the NForce4 drivers in WinXP SP2:

-created $oem$\$1\drivers\nic\nf4

-copied whole driver into the dir above

-copied all inf's and sys's to i386 dir

-Added

OemPreinstall = yes

OemPnpDriversPath = \Drivers\Nic\NF4

in ristndrd.sif

-Restart binlsvc

-Boot the client via PXE

The same: No network support!

So my questions:

1) Does anyone Ghost Imaging via WinPE on RIS?

2) Has anyone Ghost on S-ATA drives running?

3) Has anyone WinPE with NForce4 Support running on RIS or another Win Installation via RIS with NForce4 support running?

Thanks!

Shaolin

[Metzen]

I believe the problem happens because the nForce NIC is done (mostly?) in software. If you software the machine by hand you'll find to enable the network driver for the nForce NIC you must first install the "NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator" then, once WinPE loads, factory -winpe will find your ethernet drivers and install for you auto-magically. THIS WILL STILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO RIS AND ONLY WORK VIA A CD/HDD METHOD.

To install the "NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator" you must go on a machine that is fully softwared and trace the registry keys needed for "NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator". They should only be in the SYSTEM portion of the registry, searching for "NVNETBus (IIRC)" will come up with all the keys (or nearly all the keys). If you're missing any I'll see if I can find my registry keys tomorrow that I used to get this working.

Fortunately for us, it appears the "NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator" uses the same HWID/registry keys across a broad range of hardware. I've tested it on a dual-proc iWill nForce 3 SFF system and the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe and the same registry keys worked to getting networking installed on both systems.

Again, this will not allow RIS to operate fully, but will allow for CD-boot. With the new "in-RAM" CD-boot method MS is using for WinPE 2005, this method will allow for RIS to work (only in the sense that RIS is only used to download and launch a CD-based image from RAM first).

[Chris242]

@der-shao

I had the exact same issues you are having except with a BroadCom Network Card. The issues isn't really with PXE or RIS but with the BINL. Strange enough the Driver was written incorrectly for the BINL and had to be edited and then the BINL service had to be restarted.

If you could please confirm that PXE is working and explain when you loose connectivity or error out that would be great.

Also, if it makes you feel better when I had the same issue I went threw the same process and got just as big of a head ache as you but when you get it working you are on top of the world. As said before you may have to edit that driver. If you like I can give you a few links to how I fixed my issue.

To answer your other questions I do boot WinPE from RIS and use Ghost32.exe to image PC's. Also I have been able to ghost SATA drives, but I can't answer your last question....

Thanks!

[Metzen]

If you could please confirm that PXE is working and explain when you loose connectivity or error out that would be great.

I loose connectivity immediantly after the text-mode "hash" setup. The computer errors out with a blue-screen saying "network drivers are either incorrect or missing" or some such.

[Chris242]

Okay so you are able to PXE boot and put in your UserID and Password... Then WindowsPE starts to inspect your hardware and then you get the error message?

What version of Windows Server are you using? 2000/2003?

What type of Network Card is it? Broadcom, 3com, Netgear.....

[Metzen]

Okay so you are able to PXE boot and put in your UserID and Password...  Then WindowsPE starts to inspect your hardware and then you get the error message?

Using PXE-Linux, though, Window's PXE has the same problem.

What version of Windows Server are you using?  2000/2003?

2003 SP1

What type of Network Card is it?  Broadcom, 3com, Netgear.....

Nvidia...

[Metzen]

Here's the solution I found to enabling the software-based nForce 4 NIC:

1) Software the nForce machine completely off a CD or whatever medium you choose. The nForce NIC must be working once you are finished.

2) Open regedit, and click on the SYSTEM\ControlSet001 registry key. CTRL-F for find and type the following (without the quotes) "NVNET". You should come across a key in a similar location as this example one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\{1a3e09be-1e45-494b-9174-d7385b45bbf5}\NVNET_DEV0057

3) Export the registry key to NVNET1.REG

4) Search for (without the quotes) "NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator". You should come across a key in a similar location as this example one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0057&SUBSYS_289510F1&REV_A3\3&1070020&0&50

5) Export the root of the key. IE, remove the part after PCI so you are exporting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0057&SUBSYS_289510F1&REV_A3 to NVNET2.REG

6) Search for (without the quotes) "NVIDIA Network Bus Enumerator". You should come across a key in a similar location as this example one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Class\{1A3E09BE-1E45-494B-9174-D7385B45BBF5}

7) Export the registry key to NVNET3.REG

8) Search for (without the quotes) "nvnetbus". You should come across a key in a similar location as this example one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\nvnetbus

9) Export the registry key to NVNET4.REG

10) Go into each file and do a find and replace on the following:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM

to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\PE_SYSTEM

11) Load your setupreg.hiv file on your PE system and name it PE_SYSTEM.

12) Import each registry file into your PE_SYSTEM hive.

13) Unload the hive and rebuild the system. You should have a working NIC if your files are in the correct place (use DRVINST.EXE to install the files into your PE_Config_Set).

NOTE: This will be specific to your motherboard. You will need to do this to each motherboard you want to add the nForce NIC to. I have only tried it on two different motherboards on two different WinPE images so I don't know if combining more than 1 set of registry keys will work.

[cn0saj]

Hi!

We want to image several clients with Ghost Solution Suite (V8.2).

In the near future we get some clients with NForce4 boards and S-ATA Drives.

The Ghost Bootdisk and the RIS Image do not support S-ATA drives. (Well officially they are supported, but its really luck if the hole image is transfered to the client without any errors).

Ghost has support for WinPE and we're already running a RIS Server. So atm i am trying to get WinPE running on RIS with the 32Bit Ghost Client (ghost32.exe).

But i can't get the NForce 4 drivers running on RIS.

The Steps I've done:

-Created a vanilla Image of WinPE (SP2)

-Downloaded the NForce 4 Drivers (nForce_6.53_WinXP2K_international.exe)

-Added the drivers to the PE Image: G:\build_x86>DRVINST.EXE /inf:G:\AdditionalDrivers\nForce_6.53_WinXP2K_international\Ethernet g:\winpe_tmp

-Done the Steps described in http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...;304992&sd=tech. (Method 2)

-Boot the client via PXE

That doesnt worked. No network card support. So I tried to integrate the NForce4 drivers in WinXP SP2:

-created $oem$\$1\drivers\nic\nf4

-copied whole driver into the dir above

-copied all inf's and sys's to i386 dir

-Added

OemPreinstall = yes

OemPnpDriversPath = \Drivers\Nic\NF4

in ristndrd.sif

-Restart binlsvc

-Boot the client via PXE

The same: No network support!

So my questions:

1) Does anyone Ghost Imaging via WinPE on RIS?

2) Has anyone Ghost on S-ATA drives running?

3) Has anyone WinPE with NForce4 Support running on RIS or another Win Installation via RIS with NForce4 support running?

Thanks!

Shaolin

In my research to try and get a WinPE CD boot disk working for the nforce 4 network controller I did find a solution for the RIS problem. I don't know if it works because I haven't setup RIS yet but I will be in the near future.

There is two parts. Apparently the PXE ROM needs to be at a certain revision as there was a bug in the earlier ones. From my understanding this covered pretty much all m/f (at least abit, msi and asus). I would guess that most have it fixed in their current release BIOS img. I can find out the specific PXE version it was first fixed in if you PM me.

The second part is that there is a specific driver for RIS and the nforce released by nvidia. The driver was NDA and I don't think a public version has been released. It has however been leaked onto the internet and is posted on some driver site but its not obvious to find at all. It took me around 4 hours of internet searching to find.

[Netorious]

I have a question for the forum. I use RIS to install all the new computers at our office. It seems that quite a few of you use RIS to boot to WinPE, then use Ghost to image the machines. Are there benefits to this method?

Net