Using iPXE on installed on local drive to boot Windows from local drive

[FreeMinded]

(2016-02-15 19:18)NiKiZe Wrote:  --drive 0x80 refers to the first BIOS disk, BIOS can never boot a specific partition, it's up to the disks bootsector code to do that,

(2016-02-15 19:18)NiKiZe Wrote:  exit returns from ipxe and leaves the selection of "next boot device" to iPXEs loader (BIOS in most cases)

OK, that clarifies it somewhat. As Grub and iPXE are started from the hard drive the next device in the boot order is nothing...

(2016-02-15 19:18)NiKiZe Wrote:  

(2016-02-15 10:58)FreeMinded Wrote:  Questions:
How can I boot a specific partition from iPXE?

The sanboot hack only allows to boot disks, and not booting partitions.
Simple answer is then you can't boot a specific partition from iPXE.

(2016-02-15 10:58)FreeMinded Wrote:  Is there a better way to accomplish what we are trying to do?

if you want to run the windows setup i suggest you boot it from the network with wimboot, you can still keep the install.wim on local disk if you want to, but load wimboot and boot.wim over the network.

I'll have a deeper look at winboot. But on first sight it does not seem to do what we need

(2016-02-15 19:18)NiKiZe Wrote:  

(2016-02-15 10:58)FreeMinded Wrote:  Is there a way to use timeouts in case the server does not answer (clients should then always boot Windows from the local drive)?

You can end ipxe script lines with || command on fail
command on fail in this case can be a goto and then exit gracefully or do the sanboot hack. You can specify a timeout for most types of fetch commands.

Hope it helps somewhat.

Thanks for the hint with the timeout. This certainly solves the problem if the server is not reachable.

My follow-up questions now are:
1. Is there another way or hack to chainload the Windows Bootloader from iPXE?
2. Is there a way in Grub to have a different default selection if Grub is invoked for the second time (through the sanboot hack)?
3. Is there a way to hand over some variable to Grub from iPXE?

I guess this is now more a Grub than iPXE thing...

Thanks a lot for your help!