<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><div id="yiv1536016964"><span style="background-color: rgb(223, 255, 191);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></span></span>Good day Shao !, and good news too<img src="http://mail.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/01.gif"><br><br><span style="background-color: rgb(223, 255, 191);">>>If you really wish to repair, please report your findings.</span><br><br>before restarting from the begining I wanted to give a chance to that registry trick you pointed me, in fact when I did a google search on "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\" I've found an article(sorry, I couldn't find it again) about the same kind of issue I was facing(can't login), the article provided four different solutions to the problem, the solution that interested me the most said to create a directory tree(I think it was windows\system32 but i'n not
sure) on the drive that became named C: (in case C became say F: & F: became C:)..<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 223, 191);">.This explained why I was able to boot with the HDD attached but couldn't boot without it, it seemed to be booting from AoE disk F: while it was reading the directory tree from HDD C: at boot time & that's why I wanted to repair.</span><br style="background-color: rgb(223, 191, 255);"><br>Here's what I've found:<br><br>To repair the install that was on the HDD I booted BartPE loaded the system hive in regedit & deleted all the entries named \DosDevices\C: up to \DosDevices\Z: from the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" key but left the other entries untouched(disk/volume signatures I think), rebooted the system & everything went fine.<br>Once in the system I mounted the AoE disk (F: where i restored C: using "macrium reflect backup" free edition) & loaded the system hive that was on the AoE
disk and did the same modifications as stated previously, I turned off the system unplugged the HDD then the AoE diskless boot went fine :)<br><br>The result: It no more necessary to boot a linux liveCD to create a disk image using the "dd" command and attach that HDD to the target or transfer that big disk image to the target (had an Ipod 160GB & it was useless in transferring that 7GB image because of fat32, frustrating, I couldn't even create an NTFS partition) well, no more pain now, no more LiveCD no more "dd" nor image trasfer problem, all you need now if you want to create a block device image of your C: drive on the san target is to:<br><br><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1</span>. Delete all \DosDevices\X: entries from the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" then<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">2.</span> Create a backup of your C: drive using "Macrium reflect backup free
edition"<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">3.</span> Mount an AoE disk (you'd like to boot from) and restore that backup to the mounted AoE disk<br><span style="font-weight: bold;">4.</span> Switch off the computer, unplug the local HDD & reboot from SAN, diskless.<br></div><br>This brings disk imaging to a whole new level of convenience, & to the reach of most Windows people. It is great, it works like a dream & it should work with iSCSI too. (I'm not payed by Macrium software, I don't work for'em & I'm not an advertiser)<br><br>Thank you millions Saho for All your Help & enlightening ;)<br>TheMadOne.<br><br>--- En date de : <b>Mer 2.6.10, Miller, Shao <i><Shao.Miller@yrdsb.edu.on.ca></i></b> a écrit :<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>De: Miller, Shao <Shao.Miller@yrdsb.edu.on.ca><br>Objet:
RE: [gPXE] Having trouble with windows XP diskless boot over AoE,boots fine with HDD plugged into the mainboard but Diskless bootfails<br>À: "The Mad One" <biker6202002@yahoo.fr><br>Cc: gpxe@etherboot.org<br>Date: Mercredi 2 juin 2010, 2h01<br><br><div class="plainMail">Good day TheMadOne,<br><br>You made three mistakes, I'm afraid:<br><br>- You missed in WinAoE's or WinVBlock's ReadMe.txt in the "TODO's, Notes<br>and known issues" section:<br><br>3. The driver will not work with the original drive attached. to fix<br>this, either remove the "group" parameter in the service entry in the<br>registry of the driver on which the disk is attached (for atapi this is<br>done on installing the AoE driver, for SATA, SCSI and others, search the<br>correct service), or zero out the MBR of the drive.<br><br>- You missed the second bullet on the HowTo guide[1]:<br><br>Unplug the disk containing the operating system image, and attach it to<br>the SAN target
machine.<br><br>- You started changing things (drive letters) while things weren't right<br><br>When you originally booted and saw F:, it's a toss-up as to which disk<br>(local versus SAN) you were actually booted from, regardless that you<br>definitely used the SAN to _begin_ the boot process. This is because<br>Windows looks at a signature in the MBR for each disk and compares<br>against what was saved earlier in the boot process from Windows'<br>boot-loader (NTLDR or whatever).<br><br>Try seeing if you can boot the local HDD without any gPXE or SAN action.<br>If you can, make a note of what drive letter you get for the system<br>volume. If you really wish to repair, please report your findings. It<br>might be easier to start again, keeping the above mistakes in mind.<br><br>- Shao Miller<br><br>A few emails later <b><i>Shao Miller </i></b>wrote:<br>
The most important part of all of this is making sure that no two disks<br>
attached to Windows at the same time have the same disk signature in the<br>
MBR.<br>
<br>
Also, even if a tool changes one of the disk signatures, Windows has a<br>
record in the Registry at the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\<br>
key which maps the drive letters to the disk signatures. It might even<br>
be a good idea to delete those entries _if_ you are going to dare to<br>
boot from SAN the very first time with more than one disk attached.<br>
Once you've booted the SAN with just the SAN attached, Windows should<br>
overwrite any existing record with the proper information. After that<br>
you can feel free to add as many disks as you like, as long as no two<br>
disks share a disk signature.<br></div></blockquote></div></td></tr></table><br>