Installation of Win7 to iSCSI target on Skull Canyon NUC problem

[digitalis99]

First off, I know this may be a bit of a stretch for this forum, but I think I've narrowed my problems down to either iPXE itself or what I'm asking it to do. Here's my scenario:

I need to complete an installation of Windows 7 to an iSCSI target using an Intel Skull Canyon NUC, specifically a NUC6i7KYK model. I've successfully used iPXE in the past on a variety of hardware to do Windows 7 installs, but this NUC is giving me odd problems. Since it has only USB3 ports, I have to slipstream some drivers and updates into the Windows 7 install media so keyboard and mouse can work, as well as having access to the install media, since I've attached that via USB. This works if I leave the whole iPXE/iSCSI thing out of the loop. I can install Windows 7 to a local NVMe drive no problem. I mention this because the hardware platform is "newer" than the software I'm trying to install to it, and I know that information is relevant.

The problem comes in when I try to install Win7 to a sanhooked iSCSI target. My iPXE script is pretty simple:

Code:

dhcp
set keep-san 1
sanhook --drive 0x81 iscsi:<IPaddress>::::<iqn>
exit

Without the "--drive 0x81" spec, the bootup halts shortly after exiting iPXE with 6 letters displayed. I don't recall what those are right now (maybe "SLRBMG", or something like that), but I don't think it's too important as the install proceeds with the drive spec in place.

With the script in place as I've written above, the target is mapped by iPXE and the Windows install begins normally (off of a USB drive or USB-attached optical drive). The "Starting Windows" screen displays for about a minute, with the Windows logo pulsing. After that minute, the screen flashes and then the monitor goes to "no signal". The NUC is still running, but doesn't not respond to any mouse or keyboard input. It has to be hard powered down by holding the power button for a few seconds.

Obviously, something is different with the iPXE/iSCSI setup that is causing the install to fail at that point, but I can't figure out what it could be. Since an install from the same media to a local drive on the NUC works, I don't think it's driver-related issues.

I'm sure I need to provide more information for anyone to troubleshoot, so let me know what pieces are missing. Thanks for any and all time spent thinking about this.