Problems booting WinPE iso

[nilsga]

Hi!

I have set up a WinPE 3 bootable ISO, and I'm trying to use iPXE to boot it on a client. The relevant section of the configuration is:

Code:

:WinPE
initrd http://<myserver>/iso/WinPE40.iso
chain memdisk iso raw || goto failed

However, when the ISO has been loaded, the boot fails, and all I get is a Windows Boot Manager error screen. The error code is 0xc000000f, and the error message says "The Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors."

I have not copied any files to my tftp server besides iPXE files.[/code]

Am I missing something? I thought the whole point of WinPE was that it was a self contained boot environment in ramdisk?

[robinsmidsrod]

You need the memdisk binary on your TFTP server, or you need to change the memdisk url to http://<myserver>/memdisk. Memdisk is not part of the internals of iPXE.

[nilsga]

I have already copied memdisk from syslinux and put it in the root of the ftfp folder. I assumed that since the error is from the Windows Boot Manager that the ISO had been loaded by memdisk and attempted booted.

[nilsga]

I managed to get it working by following a different procedure for making the Windows PE ISO. Instead of following the walkthrough "Creating a bootable CD-ROM", I had to follow the walkthrough "Boot Windows PE from CD-ROM".

From the first walkthrough:

Code:

This walkthrough describes how you can create a bootable Windows® PE RAM disk on CD or DVD. Windows PE RAM enables you to start a computer for the purposes of deployment and recovery. Windows PE RAM boots directly into memory, enabling you to remove the Windows PE media after the computer boots.

And the second one:

Code:

This walkthrough describes how to build a bootable Windows® Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) CD or DVD media from RAM disk. For deployment or recovery, this method enables you to start a computer that has less than 512 megabytes (MB) of memory.

I'm not sure I quite understand the difference, but I guess the first walkthrough creates a bootable cd-rom image that in turn launches the Win PE ramdisk, and the second walkthrough is the actual Win PE ramdisk as an cd-rom image.

[mcb30]

(2012-08-09 20:03)nilsga Wrote:  I managed to get it working by following a different procedure for making the Windows PE ISO. Instead of following the walkthrough "Creating a bootable CD-ROM", I had to follow the walkthrough "Boot Windows PE from CD-ROM".

nilsga: you may be interested in the new support for loading WinPE directly via HTTP: http://ipxe.org/howto/winpe

Michael

[noisome]

(2012-09-18 20:26)mcb30 Wrote:  nilsga: you may be interested in the new support for loading WinPE directly via HTTP: http://ipxe.org/howto/winpe

Thanks! I am testing this as I write this. UEFI and Legacy both. So far, UEFI doesn't support cpuid, or at least my compilation didn't so I'm trying legacy mode PXE now.

[noisome]

(2012-09-18 20:26)mcb30 Wrote:  nilsga: you may be interested in the new support for loading WinPE directly via HTTP: http://ipxe.org/howto/winpe

I love it and it works wonderfully for legacy. Is there any way to get an UEFI version of wimboot since I can't boot it currently?

[robinsmidsrod]

wimboot and HTTP boot doesn't work (yet) in EFI mode. See http://ipxe.org/efi/vision for more details of what features of iPXE is supported under EFI. You need to set your computer to boot in legacy BIOS mode to use wimboot.

[noisome]

(2012-09-21 13:58)robinsmidsrod Wrote:  wimboot and HTTP boot doesn't work (yet) in EFI mode. See http://ipxe.org/efi/vision for more details of what features of iPXE is supported under EFI. You need to set your computer to boot in legacy BIOS mode to use wimboot.

Oh, I got it working in legacy mode. But I was looking for EFI mode because I am implementing iPXE in a test environment and wimboot EFI mode would be an incredible solution that is only put together by hacks currently in this very complex environment. WDS can't do what is needed by itself, and neither can a *nix environment without wimboot EFI.

iPXE and WIMBOOT together looks to be a fantastic duo!