[ipxe-devel] wimboot installs not working if doing PXE boot through IPMI commands

[shouldbe q931]

On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 2:28 AM, Floris Bos <bos at je-eigen-domein.nl> wrote:
> On 08/01/2017 07:43 PM, shouldbe q931 wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 6:00 PM, Floris Bos <bos at je-eigen-domein.nl>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>>
>>> We normally tell servers to initiate a PXE network boot through IPMI
>>> commands, among the lines of:
>>>
>>>
>>> ipmitool -I lanplus -H 1.2.3.4 -U ipmiuser -P password bootdev pxe
>>> ipmitool -I lanplus -H 1.2.3.4 -U ipmiuser -P password power cycle
>>>
>>>
>>> Works well for starting Linux installations, however if we do this with
>>> wimboot Windows fails to install.
>>>
>>> Gives a "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an
>>> existing system partition" error message in Windows setup.
>>>
>>> While installation does go fine if not sending the "bootdev pxe" command,
>>> but manually selecting boot device from BIOS boot menu.
>>>
>>>
>>> Like Windows setup has problems detecting what is the first hard drive
>>> when
>>> we meddled with the boot order through IPMI, or something like that.
>>>
>>> Any solution to this?
>>>
>> Have you tried a wimboot boot of WinPE of the OS version that is
>> failing the install and seeing if it can see drives/partitions ?
>
>
> Problem seems to be specific to one Supermicro board model (X11SSL-F)
> Does work on older models (e.g. X10SCM-F)
>
> Windows does see the drive (but refuses to install on it)
> But apparently BIOS/wimboot does not, as it's emulating drive 0x80 instead
> of a higher number.
>

I've seen Windows refuse to install to a drive before, and IIRC it was
because Windows didn't see the disk as a bootable volume, so it could
be that when those specific motherboards are set to boot from PXE via
IPMI, "something else" is also set, which would be something that
you'd need to take up with supermicro...

Cheers