Ok, so what we know so far is the boot process has done this in terms of
execution flow:
Power On -> BIOS -> iPXE -> wimboot -> bootmgr.
Somewhere at/after bootmgr things are failing. Now this could be because of
issues with iPXE, wimboot, the BIOS, or something else, but at least we know
bootmgr or something later in the boot process are executing when things break.
If you have a functional Windows 8/Server 2012 or newer machine, you can copy
your BCD file over to it, open a command prompt, and run the bcdedit command:
bcdedit /store <path to your bcd file> /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
Bcdedit will modify the BCD file to use the legacy boot menu policy, which for
our purposes will change the visual boot flow to go from iPXE/wimboot -> two
progress loading bars -> the Windows logo, and further narrow down where things
go wrong.
If you don't have a Windows machine you can use, for this test you can also try
using this BCD file I've applied the setting to:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=1F9FB6FE110265E6!2126&authkey=!AN_v1cLMXND2bVM&ithint=file%2c
Let us know what you see on boot as a result of trying this change!--Ian
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 02:53:01 +0000
Hi Ian,
I have tried on a couple of physical servers (same types) and see same issue.
After commenting initrd for BCD I do see an error screen (Recovery screen
complaining about missing BCD).
I am not sure how do I run bcdedit without OS being loaded. Can you explain ?
Thanks a lot for your help.
Amit
From: Ian Bannerman [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 10:14 PM
To: Amit Shah; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Does the problem only happen on that machine, or do other, different, physical
machines have the same problem?
Also, let's try to narrow down where things are going wrong. If you comment out
the initrd for the BCD, do you see an error after everything is downloaded? If
so, we know we're making it
that far.
If so, can you use bcdedit to enable the legacy menu: bcdedit /store <path to
your bcd file> /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
That will cause a few loading bars before you should see the Windows logo
(which we're not reaching). What do you see in this case?
--Ian
From:
[email protected]
To: [email protected];
[email protected]
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 01:25:58 +0000
Hi Ian,
The new wimboot did solve the issue with Server 2012 R2 of “bootmgr.exe not
found”. But even in this case I am left with a blank screen after all files
finish
loading. Also to re-iterate the same script works on a VM on xen but gives a
blank screen on a physical server.
Thanks
Amit
From: Ian Bannerman [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 8:56 PM
To: Amit Shah; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Ok, great. This should be pretty straightforward then. There were some changes
to how bootmgr.exe was stored in bootmgr and wimboot was recently updated to
support this. Can you grab the
latest version from here and see if it resolves your issue -
https://git.ipxe.org/releases/wimboot/wimboot-latest.zip ?
If that does not work, please try directly using bootmgr.exe (thus avoiding
wimboot extracting it) by grabbing the file from inside the winpe.wim file at
Windows\Boot\PXE\bootmgr.exe
--Ian
From:
[email protected]
To: [email protected];
[email protected]
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:51:59 +0000
Server 2012. This is the script
#!ipxe
echo ======================================================================
echo freeing all loaded images to ensure wimboot works
imgfree
echo ======================================================================
set base <%= repo_url.sub(%r{/$}, '') %>
kernel <%= file_url('wimboot', true) %>
initrd ${base}/bootmgr bootmgr
initrd ${base}/boot/bcd BCD
initrd ${base}/boot/fonts/segmono_boot.ttf segmono_boot.ttf
initrd ${base}/boot/fonts/segoe_slboot.ttf segoe_slboot.ttf
initrd ${base}/boot/fonts/segoen_slboot.ttf segoen_slboot.ttf
initrd ${base}/boot/fonts/wgl4_boot.ttf wgl4_boot.ttf
initrd ${base}/boot/boot.sdi boot.sdi
initrd ${base}/winpe.wim boot.wim
echo ======================================================================
imgstat
echo now booting WinPE client
boot
Server 2012 R2 doesn’t work atall. I get an bootmgr.exe not found error. Is
there any fix available for this ?
Thanks
Amit
From: Ian Bannerman [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 8:22 PM
To: Amit Shah; [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Server 2012 or Server 2012 R2? Can you please share the wimboot portion of your
ipxe script?
Thanks!
--Ian
From:
[email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 21:01:25 +0000
Subject: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Hi,
I am trying to install Windows Server 2012 on physical servers. Followed the
instructions here
http://ipxe.org/wimboot. After loading all the files I see a blank screen. I
found several posts with this issue but with no definitive solution.
http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7085
http://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=7121
http://lists.ipxe.org/pipermail/ipxe-devel/2013-January/002176.html
I added the missing font, made sure the bios is at latest, etc.
The same task works fine on a VM hosted on Xen but doesn’t work on a physical
servers. These are some hardware details
"bios_vendor":"HP",
"bios_version":"P58",
"bios_release_date":"05/02/2011",
"manufacturer":"HP",
"productname":"ProLiant DL360 G5",
"serialnumber":"USE839N9CA",
"uuid":"33393935-3234-5553-4538-33394E394341",
"type":"Rack Mount Chassis"
Are there any know issues ? Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Amit
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