DHCP Issues once in WinPE through WDS?

[Thona]

Ok, I am stuck again. Nice, isn't it?

I got Vista to install ONCE yesterday, ever since I am getting the same crappy error.

I can start my computer, press f12, start the Nvidia boot agend (it is a Shuttle SN 25P with an NForce 4 chipset). The boot agend comes, finds a DHCP and TFTP, starts downloading windows.

Windows PE starts - and stops with "WdsClient: An error occured while obtaining an IP Address from the DhcpServer". Reset time.

The same DHCP Server successfully handles my computer (in XP, DVD installed Vista) as well as all the other workstations in the company. Heck, as I said - it also is good enough to get the whole thing up into WinPE.

Anyone any idea what is going wrong here? I am having answer files prepared and am ready to start testing. But this is a bumper I have no way around.

[decaflame]

Thona,

I'm seeing this same error on a laptop client here. I think it has to do with the fact that the WinPE image doesn't have any NIC drivers for this laptop (as opposed to an issue with the DHCP server itself). I'm going to try and add the appropriate drivers into my winpe.wim file and have them enumerated and see if that doesn't fix the problem.

[Thona]

Nice I am not alone.

I do not think this can be it - i.e. lack of drivers.

Two reasons for this:

* It works with Vista installed. If I install from the dvd, it works.

* It worked ONCE on my test system. ONCE.

Could more be a faulty driver that just does work very rarely.

It also does not say it has no network. I would expect a PXE boot image (i.e. one that will be run from th e network) to provide a better error message if no supported network is found - i.e. one saying "ok, dude, I simply have no network card here that I support, sorry".

But nice that I am not alone with this issue :-)

[cluberti]

Have you taken a network trace from the DHCP server, or from a switch or hub between the client and WDS server, to see the actual DORA process and the error over the wire?

Sometimes what the client reports as an error is not the real error you'd see in a network trace, especially if DHCP denied the client an IP address...

[Thona]

Not yet.

Mostly because the DHCP works fine:

* I get an IP Address in Windows XP on that computer.

* I get an IP Address once I get Vista installed for Vista.

* I get a DHCP address from the boot rom, so WinPE starts.

All that make network errors a litle unlikely, or? DHCP is working, or a lot of peopel would complain here - and all the dozen or so vista reinstalls I made the last days to check setup automation (from dvd, though) would ALSO not get an IP Address.

I also have plenty of ip addresses in that scope that are unused.

[cluberti]

I understand it's working other than WinPE, but I would still like to see a trace of the failure. It could be the network driver PE is using too, but that's hard to say without a trace and seeing the behavior.