[gPXE] Windows 7 and gpxe iSCSI diskless boot

[Andrew Bobulsky]

Stefan,

It might help you to enable some advanced boot options for Windows 7 to better diagnose your issue.  I ended up with a similar problem booting Windows XP some time ago and narrowed the issue down to my NIC not being well supported by native gPXE drivers, and the solution was to switch to using undionly.kpxe rather than gpxe.pxe in a chainloading scenario.  It turned out that the system didn't actually hang, it was just extremely slow.

If you have a working Windows system you can use, grab a copy of EasyBCD from http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 and install it on that system.  Use the iSCSI initiator on the working system to connect to your iSCSI target, load the EasyBCD program, and select "File > Select BCD Store" and point it to {driveletter}:\Boot\BCD" on the iSCSI drive.  Click "Advanced Options" and select the checkbox for "SOS Mode."  Save the changes, log off from the iSCSI target, and attempt your iSCSI boot again.  

You should get a verbose boot from the system that will detail every driver that loads when Windows starts up.  If it's extremely slow, then you may have the same issue I did.  If not, it may at the very least help you to diagnose your issue better, especially if it's a driver related cause.

Best of luck to you,
Andrew Bobulsky


On Mar 12, 2010, at 7:51 AM, Stefan Mosoi wrote:

> So ... after i install win 7 on the iscsi target from the dvd it reboots
> and :
> DHCP (net XX:XX:XX:XX:XX) ... ok
> net0: 10.10.10.22/255.255.255.0 gw 10.10.10.1
> Booting from root path "iscsi:10.10.10.1::::freebsd:target0" (my iscsi image)
> Registered as BIOS drive 0x80
> Booting from BIOS drive 0x80
> 
> after that the screen blinks as loading windows but the screen remains with the Windows 7 Logo (Starting Windows)
> 
> On the server i use:
>  - FreeBSD
>  - ZFS for the storage
>  - isc-dhcpd 
>  - istgt 0.2 (20100125) for iSCSI
> 
> It loads the image, and when the client it connects:
> 
> sock = 8 , addr=10.10.10.1, peer=10.10.10.22
> drop old connections freebsd:target0 by iqn.2000-09.org.etherboot:unknown,1,0x400272230000
> Login from iqn.2000-09.org.etherboot:unknown (10.10.10.22) on freebsd:target0 LU1 (10.10.10.1:3260,1) ISID=40002723000, TSIH=1 CID=0 HeaderDigest-off DataDigest=off
> Connections(tsih 1): 0
> 
> Thanks, 
> Stefan Mosoi
> 
> 
> --- On Fri, 3/12/10, Michael Brown <mbrown at fensystems.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> From: Michael Brown <mbrown at fensystems.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [gPXE] Windows 7 and gpxe iSCSI diskless boot
> To: gpxe at etherboot.org
> Cc: "Stefan Mosoi" <mosoi.stefan at yahoo.com>
> Date: Friday, March 12, 2010, 2:23 PM
> 
> On Friday 12 Mar 2010 10:13:00 Stefan Mosoi wrote:
> >   I have a problem with booting Windows 7 with gPXE and iSCSI. I install on
> >  the iSCSI image a Windows 7 (it worked no problems here) .. but when i try
> >  to boot again from it , it hangs after the connection with the iSCSI
> >  target is created.
> 
> Can you be more specific?  When precisely does it hang?  What is displayed on 
> screen at the time of the hang?
> 
> Michael
> 
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