[gPXE] Having trouble with windows XP diskless boot over AoE, boots fine with HDD plugged into the mainboard but Diskless boot fails

[The Mad One]

Hello there,

I'm facing a problem for booting win XP over AoE, the gPXE chainloading works just fine, the client computer (a Dell optiplex GX620) boots from aoe disk then everything stops just before the loggin prompt.

The first time that client booted over aoe just fine, logged in ...etc but that time the hard drive was still plugged into the motherboard and it was detected, listed & accessible but when you run cmd you can notice the path is F:\Windows... and when you check the hardware information for the F:\ you can see it's an AoE disk e11.1 so, AoE boot was successful.

THE PROBLEM:

When I try to boot over AoE with no hard drive on the mainboard, win XP boots til just before the loggin prompt and everything stops there & you never see the desktop.

I re-plugged the hard drive & the boot went fine & complete so, i wanted to rename the C:\ partition to be sure it wasn't used by the system & in fact i could rename it...then, i wanted to rename F:\ to C:\ & got a message saying windows can't change the drive letter for the system drive...ok so this prouves F: is the system drive & AoE drive...AoE boot successful !

I changed system date in the bios, switched off the computer & unplugged the power corde to be sure the motherboard's battery was fine...I replugged the power cord & checked date & time in the bios & they were saved, so, battery ok

BUT when i wanted to boot over AoE, win XP stopped before the loggin prompt no matter if the physical disk was connected to the mainboard or disconnected, this time the system wasn't able do a complete boot over AoE & I never saw the desktop again.

Ok I hope I have been clear enough & If any one already faced such a problem & knows how to solve it, it'd help me much ...PLEASE HELP ME

Thanks !
TheMadOne.




      
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