WinPE 2004 Ramdisk problems with Dell 2850 and DRAC

[campbrs]

Hello, I am having issues getting the MS ramdisk driver working within WinPE 2004 on a Dell 2850. I have used this same build on many other systems and have never had problems with this driver.

When I try and access the ramdisk I get an "invalid function" error, on other Dell's the ramdisk works fine.

These 2850's where ordered with Dell Remote Access Cards (DRAC 4s) and was wondering if the problem is with these cards (as they add in a couple virtual drives, etc).

Does anybody have any pointers on getting the MS ramdisk driver working in this configuration (i.e. are there any special settings in the registry, is there a way to disable the DRAC card, etc)?

Thanks,

Richard

[Br4tt3]

Lo dude...

I also have alot of DELL PE 2800 & 2850 running at our place with DRAC cards attached to them. Took me a while get the solution in place. I am also running RAM boots from WinPE2005 on these machines... However, I didnt have the same problem as u r mentioning. The only problem that I encountered was that the DRAC cards allocated a drive letter that it shouldnt.

Check if the drive letters are in place so that it doesnt colide with the WinPE2005 drive letter mappings. I managed to solve it by..

1. Upgrade the firmware level of the DRAC cards to a version that will allow u to force the DRAC virtual drives

to be displayed as floppies and not as the default CD's... In my case it required me to run a tool named racadmin.exe

which could be extracted from the DELL CD's and that will allow you to manipulate the DRAC properties accordingly.

Good luck to ya and get back on how it goes and how u managed to solve it....

[ChrisBaksa]

I had the same issues. When virtual Disks are enabled it causes the Virtual devices it creates to assume the logical values of 0 and 1 and pushes the HD out respectivly. This caused all my scripting to fail because I deal in the logical volume of the device. If they would have put teh Virtual Defices AFTER that of the HArd Disk.. all would be fine in the world.

Here is what I did. Enter the DRAC (control-D) and DISABLE VIRTUAL MEDIA. At my firm we have no use for this function. So we shut it off.

Chris

[campbrs]

Thanks for the responses!!

I worked through the issues of the two virtual drives that the DRAC added as well.

I actually solved this by adding to my scripts a method to parse the output from diskpart commands and then move all devices that where not "Partitions" to other letters prior to partitioning the drives themselves.

About the RAMdisk I still cannot get this to work and I have changed the drive letters.

I am in the process of getting WinPE2005 (but this takes time at my company). In the intirm can one of you please post the Registry entries for the WinPE2005 Ramdisk settings so I can compare? Here are the keys that I need:

CurrentControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk

CurrentControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk\Parameters

CurrentControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk\Security

CurrentControlSet001\Services\Ramdisk\Enum

CurrentControlSet001\Control\Class\{78A1C341-4539-11D3-B88D-00C04FAD5171}\0000

CurrentControlSet001\Enum\Root\UNKNOWN\0000

CurrentControlSet001\Enum\Root\UNKNOWN\0000\LogConf

CurrentControlSet001\Enum\Root\UNKNOWN\0000\Control

Thanks In Advance,

Richard

[Br4tt3]

I am not sure if WinPE 2004 ramdisks are supported, I only thought WinPE2005 with Win2003 SP1 as the source binaries were supported? Dunno... atleast that is what I am running!

Best Regards

Lars Wurm

[mats]

Ramdisks are suportet from pe1.1 at least.

The ramdisk-image bootoption is new with pe2005 and requires files from 2003SP1 source media .

[campbrs]

With Windows PE 1.1 and 2004 you have to add the Ramdisk to the build manually, whereas in WinPE2005 it is included in the build (this is in addtion to the ramdisk boot option).

To add a ramdisk to 1.1 and 2004:

1. You have to use the files off the Microsoft web site referenced here:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;257405

2. You then need modify the source code of the driver per the instructions at the bottom of this KB article and recompile the driver.

3. Once this is complete you have to create the registry entries (the Keys that I referenced in the thread) or pull them from a existing WinXP ramdisk install (the ramdisk driver comes with an INF file that you can use to install it on any windows XP system). (I believe microsoft has published an updated ramdisk.sys in the WSSRA_Deployment_Toolkit.msi under the C:\WSSRA\Deployment Kit\MSAAPFTree\WinPESupport folder called ramdrv.sys - I am going to test out this driver as well to see if I get better results)

4. Inject these registry entries into the WinPE "SETUPREG.HIV" file and then copy the inf and ramdisk.sys into the inf and drivers folders respectively.

I have used the driver this way in both 1.1 and 2004 without issue till now. I'll keep you all posted on if the ramdrv.sys file works.

Thanks,

Richard

[campbrs]

Well the ramdisk (ramdrv) driver off the link I referenced earlier in the Thread worked. I simply renamed the sys file and inf and then renamed all references to ramdrv to ramdisk in the inf. Then I copied over my existing files and now the 2850 sees the ramdisk.

Thanks for everyone's ideas and help on this!!!

Richard

[sgadsby]

(I believe microsoft has published an updated ramdisk.sys in the WSSRA_Deployment_Toolkit.msi under the C:\WSSRA\Deployment Kit\MSAAPFTree\WinPESupport folder called ramdrv.sys - I am going to test out this driver as well to see if I get better results)

Thanks heaps campbrs - the the driver here works great and saved me a deal of heartache.

For others looking, the MSI is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...40-9ED4BA3765DF

Note that they have a couple of minor typos in the INF in this MSI (eg. missing a quote), but it doesn't stop the driver from working.

I have used the driver this way in both 1.1 and 2004 without issue till now. I'll keep you all posted on if the ramdrv.sys file works.

The new one from the MSI works fine under 2005 also.

Simon.

[mats]

Yes it does. There is an older ramdisk thread on this forum. I have posted a fixed regfile + instructions for how to use it in winpe in that thread