[ipxe-devel] SAN Boot Windows XP with USB-NIC.

Fri Mar 4 02:25:14 UTC 2011

Hi, Andrew,

> Windows only uses ARC paths for BIOS level operations. As such, you could be seeing an issue with either iPXE *or* your system's BIOS at this point. You *might* have better luck if you try a different motherboard/bios combo.
>
> I wanted to mention also that I understand Windows 7 has been more gracefully(?) booted from USB sources. If you're trying to use Windows XP or 2003 for this, it may be worth starting with Windows 7 and working your way back. The forums at http://reboot.pro are a good place to start.

Thanks very much for your suggestion and good forum sharing. I know Windows 7 is more friendly in supporting boot from USB devices, but still have no chance to try it. I will try to find out the answer from the forum. Thanks again!

Regards,
Jerry
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: rulerof at gmail.com 
  To: jerrycheng-hinet 
  Cc: Michael Brown ; ipxe-devel at ipxe.org 
  Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 2:44 AM
  Subject: Re: Re: [ipxe-devel] SAN Boot Windows XP with USB-NIC.

  Hello Jerry,

  You're likely right about this:

  > I think it should be the similiar issue like "booting windows xp from USB device". Do you have any idea or suggestion about this issue?

  Booting Windows from USB has had a very long and buggy history. I don't think that Windows will ever, by default, consider the USB or its attached devices to be considered "boot critical," so booting from a USB NIC is likely to encounter the same and more obstacles than booting from a USB Flash drive or USB HDD does. 

  Though seeing this:

  > In ipxe, I got more detail fail reason. The screen hanged at "Couldn't open driver multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)".

  Windows only uses ARC paths for BIOS level operations. As such, you could be seeing an issue with either iPXE *or* your system's BIOS at this point. You *might* have better luck if you try a different motherboard/bios combo.

  I wanted to mention also that I understand Windows 7 has been more gracefully(?) booted from USB sources. If you're trying to use Windows XP or 2003 for this, it may be worth starting with Windows 7 and working your way back. The forums at http://reboot.pro are a good place to start.

  Best of luck with this, too. It's kinda neat :)

  Cheers,
  Andrew Bobulsky

  On Mar 3, 2011 1:12pm, jerrycheng-hinet <jaspers.cheng at msa.hinet.net> wrote:
  > Thanks, Michael.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > The patch works! I don't know how to express my gratitude to you!
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > After applying your patch, I can see the consistent result with ipxe and gpxe.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > In gpxe, the screen hanged at "Registerd as BIOS drive 0x80/Booting from BIOS drive 0x80".
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > In ipxe, I got more detail fail reason. The screen hanged at "Couldn't open driver multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)".
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > By comparing wireshark trace, both of them seemed to fail to read LUN0 (LBA:0x007ff5f7, Len: 8).
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > I think it should be the similiar issue like "booting windows xp from USB device". Do you have any idea or suggestion about this issue?
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > Thanks again for your great help!
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > Regards,
  > 
  > Jerry
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Brown" mbrown at fensystems.co.uk>
  > 
  > To: "jerrycheng-hinet" jaspers.cheng at msa.hinet.net>; ipxe-devel at ipxe.org>
  > 
  > Sent: Friday, March 04, 2011 1:07 AM
  > 
  > Subject: Re: [ipxe-devel] SAN Boot Windows XP with USB-NIC.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > On Thursday 03 Mar 2011 16:56:37 jerrycheng-hinet wrote:
  > 
  > 
  > > a) try running the "dhcp" command at the command line and, after it > fails
  > 
  > > with
  > 
  > > the same "Connection timed out" error message, run the "ifstat" command
  > 
  > > (http://ipxe.org/cmd/ifstat)
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > Still got connection timeout message. Then run the "ifstat" command, it
  > 
  > showed:
  > 
  > net0: 00:50:fc:8e:c7:8d on UNDI (closed)
  > 
  >  [Link:up, TX:4 TXE:0 RX:0 RXE:0]
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > That confirms that iPXE is seeing no received packets.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > > b) try setting a static IP address as described on the error page
  > 
  > > (http://ipxe.org/4c106035), and see if you can ping it from the DHCP
  > 
  > > server.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > Fail to ping the static IP address. Got "Destination Host Unreachable"
  > 
  > message.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > That is consistent with not seeing any received packets in iPXE.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > It's weird that by using the same USB-NIC, and almost identical DHCP
  > 
  > configuration, DHCP function seems to be ok in gpxe.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > If you have a known-working version tag (e.g. v1.0.0, which is common with
  > 
  > gPXE), then you could use git bisection (http://ipxe.org/howto/bisect) to
  > 
  > track down the commit that causes the problem.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > The only change I can think of that might be relevant to the UNDI driver is
  > 
  > 
  > 
  >  http://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git/commitdiff/006d9f1
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > It's possible that your card is erroneously reporting that it doesn't support
  > 
  > interrupts, when in fact it requires the interrupt-triggered call to
  > 
  > PXENV_UNDI_ISR_IN_START in order to make packet reception work.  You could try
  > 
  > overriding the interrupts-supported detection logic using the attached patch.
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > Michael
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
  > 
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