[ipxe-devel] [gPXE] gpxe on USB or HD

Tue Jun 18 21:29:44 UTC 2013

Unfortunately I continue to be baffled by the fact that dd apparently 
does not work, or that all .usb files for gpxe and ipxe are defective in 
some way.  No matter what I do, the usb drive remains blank.  I have 
tried formatting FAT and EXT.  I have tried different .usb files.  
Nothing.  The contents are never replaced if there are any before dd, 
none are written if it's blank before dd. I'm at a loss.

As for this grub4dos, do you have a site where there is download and 
documentation?  So far all I find are blank and untrusted sites... If I 
can set something up in Windows on a flash stick easily to boot the 
files on the gpxe/ipxe ISO copied over, that would be great.

Cheers,
Yadin

On 6/14/2013 2:34 AM, LEVAI, Levente wrote:
> Sorry for butting in, but please notice that Michael suggested
>
>  dd if=bin/ipxe.usb of=/dev/sda
>
> From
>> ...the usb key results in a blank usb key (sdc1)...
> I suspect you tried something like
>
> dd if=bin/ipxe.usb of=/dev/sdc1
>
> The right command were
>
> dd if=bin/ipxe.usb of=/dev/sdc
>
> (your usb pen drive is /dev/sdc, not /dev/sdc1, the
> latter is the first partition on the pen drive)
>
> If nothing works you may use grub4dos to chainload
> ipxe (or even a gpxe, if that is your preference).
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Levente
>> As I have mentioned previously, using dd to clone the .usb file to 
>> the usb key results in a blank usb key (sdc1).  On the off chance 
>> that the entire contents were invisible for some reason, I tried to 
>> boot it anyway, and simply got a black screen with nothing at all.  
>> Per your other email request, a little more detail:
>>
>> We have a Windows DHCP server which passes PXE to our WDS server.
>> WDS has several boot and restore images available, which all work 
>> fine when PXE booting a Dell system normally.
>> The purpose of iPXE (previously gPXE) is to be able to PXE boot Mac 
>> systems and use this restore functionality.
>> This works perfectly when booting gPXE from CD made from the ISO.  As 
>> USB is more convenient, and not all Mac systems have an optical 
>> drive, I tried to get this working on USB.
>>
>> When attempting to use the iPXE ISO on CD, you get as far as choosing 
>> the PXE boot image to boot from, and then the boot process (loading 
>> windows progress bar at the bottom) simply never moves.  This 
>> indicates an issue with iPXE that does not exist with gPXE.  I'm 
>> happy to go with iPXE if gPXE is simply not going to be workable, but 
>> we may need to actually get iPXE working on CD then before we move on 
>> to USB.
>> When attempting to boot USB made via dd, you get nothing at all, just 
>> black.  If you try this same USB on a Dell, you get non system disk 
>> or disk error, cntl+alt+del to reboot.  Both behaviors are consistent 
>> with a blank volume which indicates the files aren't invisible, they 
>> just aren't there.  This would indicate to me either dd in Ubuntu 
>> 12LTS is broken in some way, or the source .usb file is empty.  A 
>> utility on Windows that is supposed to be able to open .usb files 
>> says it's corrupt or the wrong format.
>>
>> As a fallback, since you can copy the contents of a bootable WinPE 
>> ISO to a USB stick and simply boot it, I thought I'd try that with 
>> gPXE/iPXE.
>> When attempting to boot a USB device made by copying the CD files to 
>> USB, you get a black screen with GRUB and a flashing _ in the corner 
>> and that's it, nothing further happens.  I'm guessing this might be 
>> due to incorrect pointers for the device type since they are CD files 
>> on USB?
>> When attempting to boot a HD with the CD files copied to it, you're 
>> told something like no system files found (I don't have it in front 
>> me me this moment) which again I assume is some device pointer issue.
>>
>> Hope this helps flesh out the issues and guide some ideas what we 
>> might try to get things working.
>> Cheers,
>> Yadin
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>    Yadin Flammer - Systems Administrator
>>    College of Arts & Architecture, Penn State University
>>    228 Borland Building              Office Phone: 814-865-0990
>>    University Park, PA 16802         Dept. Phone:  814-865-1571
>>    Email:yxf4 at psu.edu  <mailto:yxf4 at psu.edu>                Dept. Fax:    814-863-6227
>> On 6/13/13 8:17 PM, Michael Brown wrote:
>>> Yadin Flammer<yxf4 at psu.edu>  <mailto:yxf4 at psu.edu>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the response.  I have tried ipxe and it also does not work.
>>>>
>>>> Trying to dd it to a drive under ubuntu 12 LTS results in a blank
>>>> drive.  Copying the files from the ISO to the USB results in booting to
>>>>
>>>> a black screen with GRUB and a flashing cursor and nothing else.  I
>>>> tried posting to the ipxe forums but they appear to not be working as
>>>> no
>>>> post happens and no error is given as to why.
>>>>
>>>> Any advice on getting a USB drive to work with ipxe, as well as getting
>>>>
>>>> the forums to work so I can reach a wider audience, are appreciated.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Yadin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 6/13/2013 1:01 PM, Michael Brown wrote:
>>>>> On Thursday 13 Jun 2013 17:14:49 Yadin Flammer wrote:
>>>>>> I've been trying to get gpxe to boot from a USB drive, and even an
>>>>>> internal hard drive, but no luck.  Using the ISO for a CD works
>>>>>> perfectly, but a USB key would be much more convenient.  The .usb
>>>> and
>>>>>> .dsk files that download appear to be corrupt every time as no
>>>>>> application can open them (winimage says they are corrupt), or the
>>>>>> contents when dd to a disk under linux are corrupt.  Copying the
>>>>>> contents of the .iso to a USB drive or internal HD does not result
>>>> in a
>>>>>> bootable system regardless of the format or setup of the drive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Has anyone managed to make a bootable USB key or internal drive with
>>>> the
>>>>>> gpxe environment and if so precisely how?
>>>>> gPXE has not been maintained for several years.  Please upgrade to
>>>> iPXE, which
>>>>> is the replacement for gPXE.
>>>>>
>>>>> You won't be able to open the .usb image, since it doesn't contain a
>>>>> filesystem.  It's a raw disk image; you need to transfer it to the
>>>> USB key
>>>>> using dd (or equivalent).  Be aware that this will erase all existing
>>>> content
>>>>> of the USB key.
>>>>>
>>>>> Michael
>>> Use dd to transfer the iPXE .usb image to the USB key, then boot from that USB key.  For example, assuming your USB key is /dev/sda, then use
>>>
>>>    dd if=bin/ipxe.usb of=/dev/sda
>>>
>>> (Warning: /dev/sda is probably your main system disk. Find out which device represents your USB key and use that instead.)
>>>
>>> Forum posts by new users are moderated to eliminate spam, which is why yours hasn't appeared yet.
>>>
>>> Michael
>>>

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
   Yadin Flammer - Systems Administrator
   College of Arts&  Architecture, Penn State University
   228 Borland Building              Office Phone: 814-865-0990
   University Park, PA 16802         Dept. Phone:  814-865-1571
   Email: yxf4 at psu.edu               Dept. Fax:    814-863-6227

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