network boot problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger Levy
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R

Roger Levy

My device will have no attached mass storage of any kind and it will be
headless, keyboardless, mouseless, etc. -- it is just a number cruncher. I want
to boot via Boot Manager over a network although later I might use BXP or
another method. My device is PXE enabled. I am having trouble closing on the
TD configuration I need. I also have not been able to find any discussion of
this configuration in old NG postings or the documentation.

I attach a small disk drive for the FBA process but I want to remove it for
final deployment. Must I therefore always specify a configuration that has disk
drive, IDE controller components, etc. just to avoid Stop 0x7B before FBA? In
order to reduce final footprint, can I remove these components after FBA and
reseal? How will I know exactly what to remove since the components are
realized as a collection of DLLs?

Do I absolutely need EWF in this configuration or since I must have a ramdisk
can "disk" I/O be directed to the ramdisk? When I try to configure EWF I am
asked to select whether it's providing an overlay for an IDE or SCSI device but
my actual final target has neither so what is the interpretation of that
selection?

Finally, when I keep the disk related components in the configuration along with
FAT and FAT Format and then try my network boot, the target's RAMDISK gets is
loaded as evidenced by the progress bar and the transfer of over 100,000 UDP
packets but I get a Stop 6B. I read the FAQ which says this may be caused by
the file system component not matching the actual format of the file system.
But at this point the only file system I actually have is ramdisk. How can I
avoid Stop 0x6B in this instance?

Roger Levy
 
Roger,

You do not need the EWF component if you want to network boot. You need the
"Windows Ramdisk Driver:" component

You hit error 6B because you have the wrong file system component in your
config. You must have at a minimum the file system that is on the
destination partition on the target machine such as "FAT" or "NTFS". You can
add multiple file system components if you want.

- Nandini

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights


This indicates you have the wrong file system component in your config. YOu
must have at a minimum the file system that is on the destination partition
on the target machine, such as "FAT" or "NTFS". You can add multiple files
system components if you want

..
 
Nandini,
Thanks for the response but as I stated there is *no* destination
partition on the target system because it has no physical disk drive.
So which file system component should be in the configuration? Some
choices seem to be:
1. The same type that was used for the physical drive during FBA.
2. The same type as the SDI virtual disk that held the post FBA system.
3. Some type that matches ramdisks.
4. Dumb approach - all of them.
Is there a correct choice?

RHL
 
I experimented and I guess it seems obvious in retrospect but the answer to my
question is "2." The steps I followed were:
1. include the FAT components in the configuration.
2. copy the post FBA sealed system to an SDI disk (U:) formatted as FAT32.
3. cscript sdimgr /new deploy.sdi
4. cscript sdimgr /readpart:U: deploy.sdi
And that gave me a good image for the Remote Boot Manager. When I formatted the
SDI disk in step 2 as NTFS, I got Stop 0x6B. The linkage between the format of
the SDI disk and the file system component included in a diskless system wasn't
obvious to me.

RHL
 
Roger,
SDI contains your disk image (there is some header info etc.. but basically
its a sector by sector image). Since you will mount a Ramdisk using this
image, as you found out below you need the filesystem you format the SDI
disk with. Hope this helps..
Anil [MS]
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
 
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