[ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers

Wed Apr 30 15:27:26 UTC 2014

Hmm I was reading through the bcdedit options and the default for Server 2012 is already Legacy. So this change in bcd wouldn't have had any effect on the process.

bootmenupolicy [ Legacy | Standard ]
Defines the type of boot menu the system will use. For Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows RT the default is Standard. For Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, the default is Legacy. When Legacy is selected, the Advanced options menu (F8) is available. When Standardis selected, the boot menu will appear only under certain conditions: for example, if there is a startup failure, if you are booting up from a repair disk or installation media, if you have configured multiple boot entries, or if you manually configured the computer to use Advanced startup. When Standardis selected, the F8 key is ignored during boot. Windows 8 PCs start up quickly so there isn't enough time to press F8. For more information, seeWindows Startup Settings (including safe mode)<http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=313921>.

I can install server 2012 just fine from a CD on the same hardware so looks like something that wimboot is doing is causing the blank screen. Any other ideas on debugging this ?

Thanks
Amit

From: Ian Bannerman [mailto:ian at internals.io]
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2014 11:13 AM
To: Amit Shah; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers

Ok, hmm. That would seem to indicate that the wimboot portion proceeded well, bootmgr ran through the entire WIM without erroring.

Have you installed Server 2012 or 2012 R2 on this hardware before? It doesn't look like HP 'officially' supports it though others on the internet have succeeded. I did see you're using the latest BIOS version and there didn't appear to be any related updates.

--Ian

________________________________
From: amit.shah at citrix.com<mailto:amit.shah at citrix.com>
To: ian at internals.io<mailto:ian at internals.io>; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 14:36:02 +0000
Hi Ian,
I changed the bcd file. But I see exact same behavior. After loading all files I see the windows "Loading files" scroolbar and then a blank screen.
Thanks
Amit

From: Ian Bannerman [mailto:ian at internals.io]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 11:02 PM
To: Amit Shah; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
Subject: RE: [ipxe-devel] wimboot issue with server 2012 on physical servers

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<https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=1F9FB6FE110265E6%212126&authkey=%21AN_v1cLMXND2bVM&ithint=file%2c>

Let us know what you see on boot as a result of trying this change!
--Ian
________________________________
From: amit.shah at citrix.com<mailto:amit.shah at citrix.com>
To: ian at internals.io<mailto:ian at internals.io>; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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:ian at internals.io]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 10:14 PM
To: Amit Shah; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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: amit.shah at citrix.com<mailto:amit.shah at citrix.com>
To: ian at internals.io<mailto:ian at internals.io>; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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:ian at internals.io]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 8:56 PM
To: Amit Shah; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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: amit.shah at citrix.com<mailto:amit.shah at citrix.com>
To: ian at internals.io<mailto:ian at internals.io>; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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:ian at internals.io]
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 8:22 PM
To: Amit Shah; ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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: amit.shah at citrix.com<mailto:amit.shah at citrix.com>
To: ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org<mailto:ipxe-devel at lists.ipxe.org>
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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