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

[Christian Nilsson]

On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 11:51 AM, shouldbe q931 <shouldbeq931 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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


Windows refuses to use a disk as installation media if it is not set as
"bootable device" by the bios.
Some bioses have separate "boot order" selection depending on which way it
was selected to boot.
The standard one usually have disk first, but the PXE might be missing the
disk and thus windows won't be able to use it.

There is also some bioses that does not make a disk bootable until after it
has partitions, in that case you need to create the partitions first then
reboot and then it should work.

/Chrstian
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