iPXE discussion forum

Hey folks, great project here. I'm pretty excited

I have an intel 82540 (8086:100e) based Gb NIC here so I decided to make it even better and get some iPXE loving on there.

The problem is BootUtil just does NOT want to understand these ROM files. No matter what I do (flash, attempt to verify), if it tries to read the ROM image, it just sits using exactly 50% of a single CPU core and never outputs ANY text.

Here's the things I've tried:
- Renamed the ROM to everything remotely sensical
- Leaving it for twenty minutes
- Using an image from gPXE's online ROM builder
- Built my own ROM in Linux from Git HEAD (had to ignore build warnings BTW)
- Tried running the Windows BootUtil (both 32 and 64 bit) on Win7
- Tried running BootUtil as regular user and super user
- Tried updating as PXE with `-up`
- Tried flashing as the backup ROM type
- Tried flashing from FreeDOS (followed all instructions here: http://ipxe.org/howto/romburning/intel)

What the heck am I doing wrong here? Is it just that newer versions of BootUtil hate the project? Is there a place I can grab an older copy?

Any help welcomed.

Most likely the ROM is too large (not sure what the limit is for intel, but 64KB is a common limit), or it is not aligned to some boundary. The src/util/padimg.pl script in the main git repo can help you to get an aligned ROM image by padding NUL bytes. Have a look at the original ROM and see if you can make the new (ipxe) ROM exactly the same size (by starting smaller and padding as required).

Please report back your findings so that we can update the intel romburning page on the wiki with some new info. Version numbers and such of tools and vendor PXE ROMs are quite useful.

I assume that you have no problem to flash an official ROM from Intel on your card?

I recently ran into this myself.
If you go and download the latest preboot.exe (I got mine from here:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_D...iid=dc_rss
version 17.4, which gives a bootutil.exe version of 1.4.03.0, it apparently does not like the rom format that iPXE presents. When I try to use it, I get the following (I renamed the rom file for later):

>bootutil -nic=1 -up=pxe -file=80861229.iba

Intel® Ethernet Flash Firmware Utility
BootUtil version 1.4.03.0
Copyright © 2003-2012 Intel Corporation

ERROR: Input file invalid format

Port Network address Series WOL Flash Firmware Version
==== =============== ====== ==== ================== =======
1 0002B365A2E0 10/100 YES Flash Unknown

(Note, echo %errorlevel% shows error 14).
Also, I tried the bootutil in Linux, and got the same error. I also tried many forms of the filename, and it didn't change the error.

However, grabbing the old prorpl.exe, from
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_D...t&lang=eng
version 10.4, IBAUtil version 3.03.06.00, it works fine, with the following:

>ibautil.exe -nic=1 -restore
Intel® Boot Agent Utility
IBAUtil Version 3.03.06.00
Copyright © 2002-2004 Intel Corporation

Restoring image on NIC1 from file 80861229.IBA...done

NIC Network Address Series WOL Boot ROM Type Version
=== =============== ====== === ================ ========
1 0002B365A2E0 10/100 YES PXE/RPL 88.106.129

Indeed, upon reboot, I'm presented with iPXE.

Trying the suggestion above (also suggested by Sha0 on IRC), I reduced the size of the image, and padded it to the size of one saved from the bootutil, and I still got the same error message.

At this point, it seems either the ROM needs to be saved in a new (or old -- as references to FLB exist in the bootutil docs, but say it's old..) format for the bootutil, or we have to use the old ibautil to flash it.

I also posted to the mailing list, to hopefully spur conversation there too: http://lists.ipxe.org/pipermail/ipxe-dev...01979.html