[gPXE] Windows 2008 install directly to iscsi target boot problem

[Andrew Bobulsky]

Hello Tomas,

The infamous error that you are getting, "Windows cannot be installed
to this disk," is, as I found out[1], an issue that's caused by a
combination of Windows' inability to resolve ARC paths for some system
BIOSes in the presence of BIOS INT 13h hooks like the one gPXE uses to
attach its SAN target.

Some of the troubleshooting steps, like attaching an internal hard
drive, allow you to "trick" (for lack of a better word) Windows into
resolving these ARC paths correctly and proceeding with the iSCSI
installation.  The problem is that it's hit or miss as to whether or
not that will work for your BIOS.  In your case, adding a drive
presented Windows with two installation sources, but the ARC path for
your iSCSI disk still wasn't available to the Windows installer.  As a
result, it only considered your local disk to be bootable, and wrote
the BCD and copied BOOTMGR to *it* while placing everything else on
the SAN.  The SAN disk will get its MBR written, so it'll *try* to
boot, but since there's no actual boot loader on it, it can't boot
without the other [local] drive being available for that data.

You *could* try manually hacking your BCD onto the SAN disk after the
first installation step... it *may* be as simple as a drag/drop from a
workstation that has both disks attached, but you'll more than likely
need to use BCDEdit to get things working right, but that's
*definitely* the most complicated way to get things working.  A BIOS
update couldn't hurt, but I doubt it would fix your problem.

The simplest thing you can do is to install to the local disk and
image over to your SAN.  Obviously, it's also the most time consuming
way to do it, and completely kills the cool factor ;)

The unfortunate thing is that I couldn't find any method to get
Windows to just perform all the installation steps anyway.  It really,
really seems to think that if *it* doesn't know for sure whether a
disk is bootable, that you couldn't know either.   Sigh :P

Cheers,
Andrew Bobulsky

[1]: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/cea6177e-9cb2-420e-bbc0-0cac487e51e2


On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Tomas K <tksoft2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I am trying to install Windows 2008 directly to iscsi disk using
> gPXE. I've tried almost everything and I am still (now for 2 months)
> stuck on this.
>
>
> I have DHCP set according to guidelines bellow and as iscsi target I
> use Openfiler 2.3 (I have also tried CCBoot with the same result).
> Booting computer has MB Gigabyte GA-8I915PL-G. There is local HDD in
> computer.
> I have followed http://etherboot.org...8_iscsi_install .
>
> At first I have used NIC Marvell Yukon 88E8001 and chainloaded gPXE
> via PXE, using this I have during installation to iscsi target seen
> iscsi disk (when was prompted where to instal to), but i got message
> "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware
> may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's
> controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu". At this point
> installation ended, because despite all guidelines I couldn't proceed
> any further.
>
> Then I got NIC Intel pro 1000 gt and flashed gPXE1.0.0 rom onto it.
> Using this, when I am in selection where to install windows, I select
> iscsi drive and I got the same message "Windows cannot be installed to
> this disk. This computer's ...", but when I click Next, installation
> starts and it goes to point where it needs to restart computer. The
> problem is, it copy windows files to iscsi disk, but bootloader writes
> to local HDD in PC. So after restart, there is no bootloader gPXE
> (embedded in NIC) could load.
>
> I have also tried CCBoot to install Windows 7 to and it's the same
> problem (without Intel card with flashed gPXE I cannot install to the
> disk at all, with that card I could proceed to the point where setup
> restarts computer and I find 7 GB written on CCBoot server but loader
> is written on local HDD).
>
> When I physically detach local HDD, I couldn't install windows either,
> it ends at the point when I select disk to install windows to with
> "Windows cannot be installed ...". I have tested this on 2 other
> computers and got the same results.
>
> In all cases, gPXE + linux server + Openfiler has exactly the same
> results as CCBoot.
>
> I will be grateful for all insights where could the problem be and how
> to solve it.
> Thank you, TomasK
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